How to Recover Deleted Files?

Sometimes we would make some unthinkable mistakes. We would accidentally delete important files, empty them from the recycling bin,and then want to get them back. I’ve been asked like a hundred times if there’s anything can be done to recover these files, or are they gone for good. Many people would assume that the first step to do for file recovery is turning off the computer right away. Actually in most situation, a mistakenly deleted file can be recovered, no matter you emptied it from the recycling bin or use 'Shift' plus 'Delete'. I will talk about how to recover deleted file here. And before this, I will first explain why a deleted file can still be recovered.

Let's consider what happens when you move a file to the Recycling Bin and then empty the latter. Although the file is no longer listed in your Windows database, it is still in your drive, exactly where it resided before being deleted. Windows neither moves nor erases the file; instead, it simply marks the space in which it is located as available for immediate use.

Because the file in fact has not been deleted, you can then easily perform file recovery. The trick is to do so before Windows or another program starts writing new data in that newly available space. Time is of the essence, so the first thing to do once you realize a file has mistakenly been deleted is to stop using your computer. Doing so minimizes the chances of the space in question being overwritten by Windows and other programs, thus increasing the likelihood of a successful file recovery.

About the worst thing you can do is turn off and/or reboot your PC, as both processes require your operating system to write data on your hard drive. Also, if there are any disk maintenance utilities (such as a disk defragmenter) running in the background, it is imperative that you abort them at once.

Then you can perform a deleted file recovery by yourself (regardless of whether it was accidentally deleted or not). File loss caused by mistaken deletion is a kind of logical damage and most can be recovered by file recovery software.

File recovery software understands the internals of the system used to store files on a disk (the file system) and uses this knowledge to locate the disk space that was occupied by a deleted file. Because another file may have used some or all of this disk space, there is no guarantee that a deleted file can be recovered. But because the space isn't re-used straight away, there is a very good chance that you will succeed. Actually file recovery programs such as Wondershare Data Recovery gives you an indication of the chances of recovering a file intact. The free trial version of Wondershare Data Recovery even provides file viewer so you can check the contents to see if the file you want has been found, then decide whether to purchase the software or not.

And as mentioned before, once you realize you need file recovery, you’d better not use your computer any more. Therefore, if you have already taken proactive approach and have a file recovery software installed, you will feel so much better then. And of course, to avoid needing file recovery at all, you will need to back up your disks, defrag hard drives often.