How to get back your deleted files?

It only takes a moment of carelessness or just plain bad luck to permanently delete important data from your PC. And anyone who regularly works on a computer has faced these moments, only to suffer much heartburn and grief depending on the importance of the lost files (I recently Shift-Deleted an entire folder of holiday photos from my hard drive, only to realize that I had not yet backed them up on DVDs).

Of course, there are hundreds of "data recovery experts" in the market who will charge you a princely sum to retrieve such files. And if you're looking to recover data that's extremely critical, it makes sense to call them in. But if it is just "crucial" , but not "critical " data we are talking about, you can try to recover the deleted files yourself using a few free - yes, free - software.

Now, before we talk about the free utilities, let us touch upon how recovering deleted files is possible. After all, deleted means permanently deleted, right? Wrong!

When a file is deleted, even from inside the Recycle Bin, it doesn't actually vanish from the hard drive. Instead, after receiving the delete command, the computer merely changes the file's properties to make it invisible to the user. The space occupied by the file is also marked as empty even though it remains in that space. The file truly gets deleted from the hard disk only when the operating system reuses the space occupied by it and overwrites fresh data to that space.

Even then, there are possibilities that bits and pieces of the deleted file survive on the hard disk for years. This is the reason why forensic experts and cops take a special interest in computers found at crime scenes.

Now that the theory of recovering a "permanently" deleted file is clear, let's talk of some programmes you can use for the job. Most data recovery programmes cost money, but we found three that are free. In our test, where we deleted 11 files - a few pictures, some movies, some songs in MP3 for mat and a few documents - all of them managed to recover 10 files

MiniTool Power Data Recovery

Of the three programmes, this is the most versatile. It can not only recover the deleted files, but also help you save data from damaged partitions, pen drives, SD cards and CDs. MiniTool puts the retrieved files in folders, but you will have to go through several folders - Lost Files and Desktop, for example - before you find the actual files you were looking for. Once you have found the files, just click "save files" to get your data back. www.powerdatarecovery.com

Recuva

This software lacks the advanced features of MiniTool, but it is equally good at recovering deleted files. One advantage of using Recuva is that you can see a preview before saving the retrieved files. This is handy because the computer often changes the names of deleted files to something like $ABC.MP3. www.piriform.com/recuva

Glary Undelete

Of the three software listed here, this is the most basic of file recovery programmes. In our tests, it was also the slowest. But one good feature with Glary Undelete is its ability to home in on the full name of the deleted files. This makes finding the right files a lot easier. www.glarysoft.com/products/ utilities/glary-undelete /

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Chances of success

To recover data, file recovery programmes rely on the operating system's tendency to not delete a file, but overwrite it. However, because deleting and overwriting happen simultaneously, there is no pattern to the process. This means that recovering deleted files is possible, but your success rate depends on what you did on the PC after you accidentally deleted the file. To improve your chances of recovery.

Immediately stop using the computer as soon as you realize that you have deleted a file/folder. Immediately close programs like your web browser that write data to the hard disk. But do not switch off or restart the computer.

If a file recovery program is not already installed, use another PC to download it and preferably install it on a partition other than the one on which the deleted file was stored.

The more you used the computer after the file was deleted, the lesser your chances of recovering lost data.

Bonus tip

If you don't want anyone to recover your deleted files, use a programme like CCleaner to wipe the empty space on hard disk before switching off the computer