Who of us haven’t accidently deleted a file at some point? Usually a deleted file ends up in the recycle bin on our desktop, but not always, for example if you delete files off a camera card, they get permanently deleted. Here’s what to do to get that file back.
When recovering deleted files, speed is of the essence. As you will soon find out, when files are deleted, they aren’t actually immediately removed from your hard drive or memory card. The memory space used by your deleted file is marked as available, but until something else is saved on top of your deleted file, the file still remains.
The only way to preserve your deleted file is by not saving any further files onto the same hard drive. If this happens to be your computer’s hard drive, receiving emails, visiting websites or installing programs all use storage space on the hard drive, so it’s important not to use your computer unless you absolutely must.
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Because of this, the best option is to install the recovery software now, before the need arises. Go to www.piriform.com/recuva, click the Free Download button and install the software once it is finished downloading. When recovering files from a pen drive or a memory card from a camera for example, you will need to connect the storage device to the computer first.
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Now run the Recuva software using the icon on your desktop, or by pressing the Windows key and typing “Recuva”. A step by step wizard will open up. Click the Next button and answer the questions for each stage, being as specific as possible to increase the speed and effectiveness of the process. When you click the start button, Recuva will begin looking for deleted files.
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Once the search has completed, Recuva will display the files that it has found with a preview for each one. Search through the recovered files to locate the ones you are looking for and click the tick box below each file you want to recover. Some files may be damaged beyond repair; hover your mouse over the file to see its status.
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Finally, click the Recover button to save your recovered files. If the initial scan does not find your deleted files, run the process again, but this time, on the final step of the wizard, click the enable deep scan tick box before clicking the start button. A deep scan takes a lot more time but it may be able to recover extra files.
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Recuva is a free program and for most cases it is all you need. If it doesn’t do the job for you, you could try with a more advanced tool, such as www.recovermyfiles.com which lets you run their software free of charge to see if it can find your files. If it does, you will need to pay for it before you can save the recovered files.
