Recover Lost Data
That Aren't in the Recycle Bin

The ability to recover lost data is something all computer users should know how to do. This is because computers crash frequently and it is likely that at some point, you will need to recover lost data. This article from PC World magazine gives steps that you can do to recover lost data on your hard drive.

Recover lost data that you have accidentally purged.

Q: Sometimes I empty the Windows Recycle Bin before I realize that I shouldn't have deleted a particular file. And if I delete a file through the command line or if the deleted file is too big, the files might never get to the Recycle Bin. How do I get this deleted data back?
Jon Martinez, Cottonwood, Arizona

A: It's easy to recover lost data that's still in the Recycle Bin--just right-click it and choose Restore. But recovering deleted data that's not in the bin is no sure thing. Luckily, Windows doesn't actually erase the data until it reuses the disk space formerly occupied by the recovered lost data, so recovering the data is possible.

You can do three things to increase the likelihood to recover lost data:

• Recover Lost Data Tip 1
  Backup your data:
  
  If you have a copy, you may not have to undelete the original.
  
  
• Recover Lost Data Tip 2
  Defrag your hard disk often:
  
  Restoring deleted data is more likely if it was on your drive in one piece. Regularly defragmenting your hard drive is a good idea.
  
  
• Recover Lost Data Tip 3
  Don't write to the drive:
  
  Avoid saving data or otherwise accessing your hard disk until you have restored the file. Windows treats deleted data as available space, so saving a new file could overwrite the deleted one, thereby rendering it irretrievable.

(Source: PC World Magazine, December 2003)

When data is deleted from a Windows Operating System, the contents of the file are rarely destroyed. If the Windows reference information remains intact, Recover My Files reconstructs the link to the deleted file to enable data recovery.

Even if the reference information itself has been destroyed, Recover My Files scans the storage media at a low level to locate "Lost Files" by their internal file structure. This allows Recover My Files to locate and recover lost data that other data recovery software programs could never know exist.