Written by tc | Posted in Recover Lost Files |

Data recovery tools have made it possible for even novice users to recover deleted files from hard drive partitions. In this article, we’ll take a look at using free software applications to retrieve your lost files to show how easy the process can be.

Your first thing to do, prior to downloading the software, is to do one final check of the recycle bin and make sure your deleted documents are not there. It is important to check the correct recycle bin as you will find that each hard drive partition contains its own (containing documents deleted within that partition). Right click any files you find their and choose the restore menu item to return this document back to its last known folder.

If the recycle bin is empty then you will need a data recovery application to complete the computer maintenance repair work. Download a suitable application and install it on your PC. Freeware applications like Recuva and Undelete Plus are very user-friendly and just as effective as commercial tools. More technical users could use the command line utility PhotoRec which is very effective at finding lost documents.

Start-up your data recovery tool and select a drive to analyze. Most modern programs will now allow you to configure the type of scan you do, even limiting the search to certain file types, file sizes and directory locations. It is worth doing this in order to speed up the scanning process. Once the scan is done, select whichever documents it finds you need and copy them over to your computer or an external storage device.

It is important to recover deleted files from hard drive sectors as quickly as possible after they go missing due to the fact that using the computer will result in temporary files/new documents being stored to the hard drive which can potentially overwrite any deleted files. Depending on the level of use of the PC, you may actually find that the majority of deleted documents will be removed or overwritten by any newly saved files.

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