Tag Archives: recuva

Windows: How to Recover Deleted Files

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I hope you are reading this post as a preventive measure in the event the worst occurs, otherwise I’ll ask you to be realistic and patient file recovery takes time. When a file is removed from the Recycle Bin isn’t actually deleted right away, instead the space it occupies is marked as available only to be overwritten in the event more files are created.

I Don’t Have a Backup, What Do I Do Now

Don’t do any activities that might cause Windows to overwrite the deleted data, better yet don’t do anything as this will reduce your chances of a successful recovery. Also, you will need a drive that isn’t the same drive we will be trying to recover the data from to store the recovered files

For this tutorial I will delete a total of 6.6 GBs worth of files from a drive in my computer.

Recuva

This tutorial will make use a single tool to perform the file recovery. The tool is called Recuva and can be downloaded from http://www.piriform.com/recuva. I choose Recuva for this tutorial because of the user friendly interface, good results(my experience), and no cost.

The Recovery

Start Recuva

Recuva

You will be presented with a welcome window, just click Next to continue.

Recuva

The beauty of Recuva is the amount of options the user is presented, this is useful if you know exactly the type of files you need to recover. There are specific options for media files, documents, etc… But if you don’t know what kind of files were deleted then I recommend you choose Other this option will recover all files contained within the drive. Click on Next to continue.

Recuva

Since the files were deleted from a second drive in my computer and I know the specific drive (which is I:\) I’ll pick In a specific location, otherwise if you are not sure from which drive the files were deleted pick I’m not sure this option will scan the entire drive and thus take longer to complete.

Recuva

Recuva

This is perhaps the most important part of the recovery, be sure to Enable Deep Scan by checking the check box. While it is true the recovery will take longer Deep Scan will yield better results meaning you have a better chance of the application finding the deleted files. Click on Start to begin the scan and recovery.

Recuva

Actually the file recovery in my 40GB drive took 15 minutes.

Recuva

The green dots represent good files, either check mark the files you wish to recover or check the the top mark to select all files. Click on Recover… button to move the recovered files.

Recuva

Stored the recovered files on a drive the isn’t the same drive from which the files are being recovered from.

Recuva

Recovery is in progress.

Recuva

Click on OK

Recuva

Now we can appreciate the recovered files and probably reflect on the lesson about not keeping backups of our data.

Recuva

The operation resulted in the successful recovery of all 17 video files because the recovery was performed as soon as the files were deleted, there was enough free space in the drive and no tasks that might result in the files being overwritten were performed. Perhaps if the same files were erased from the C:\ drive where I am sure more activity occurs the results might not be so favorable.

Links

Recuva Home Page http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Recuva: File Recovery Made Easy

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Loosing data whether by accident or hardware failure can be painful, however in most cases if the data in question has not been overwritten a high probability of being recovered exist. While I am a user of Photorec a command line based data carving utility, the average user in need of a recovery tool may find the command line too complicated to learn. In the end all the user wants is to get his or her pictures back from the SD card

This is where Recuva comes in, created by the company behind CCleaner. Recuva works by looking for unreferenced data, if the operating system hasn’t overwritten the marked free space a recovery can be performed. Equally important is the user friendly Windows GUI, Recuva turns the recovery operation into a simple click and wait procedure. Another nice extra feature is the ability for Recuva to securely wipe a drive using List options, rendering any recovery attempts difficult or impossible to perform on the drive.

Before Starting?

I will go over a simple data recovery procedure with Recuva, the target will be a formatted 2GB SD card containing a total of six files three JPEGs, One PDF, One Zip file, and one Executable.

The Recovery

When Recuva starts you will be given the option to use the Wizard, I rather not use the Wizard by checking on Do not who this Wizard on startup. And then clicking on Cancel.

On the top left side of the window select the drive you wish to scan from the drop down menu, and click on Scan.

Bacause the E drive was formatted it contains no visible file, Recuva will recommend you enable Deep Scan. Click on Yes, this is when Recuva starts looking for any data to be recovered.

Allow for some time, the more data you have on the drive the longer its going to take.

Out the six files Recuva found five of them: three JPGs, one PDF, and one ZIP. To recover the files, you can either check the boxes of the ones you want to recover or you can check the top box to select all discovered files and click on Recover.

Recovery Results

Most of the files were recovered. Files were numbered according to the order of recovery.

While the executable was never found I would not trust the integrity of the executable even if recovered the result might have been a corrupt file. Whenever you recover data keep in mind the file name will change, you might have to spend some time organizing the recovered data(beats having none at all).

It can’t get any easier than this, Recuva makes file recovery an easy operation. Remember to keep backups of all your data, do not rely on recovery software alone.