Tutorial Thursday
One of my worst nightmares is deleting a file from my PC just to realize that I still needed it. It has happened to me several times, especially since one of my favorite key combinations is Shift+Delete, which “permanently” deletes a file– bypassing the Recycling Bin. Then a few moments later is when you say “uh oh!” Have no fear, because Windows just deletes the reference to the file without actually removing the file from your hard disk…therefore giving you the possibility to recover your lost file. This is also important because if you can recover files that have been “deleted,” so can many other people.
I tested four freeware applications that are all designed to restore your files after they are supposed to be gone. The applications were as follows:
- Restoration 3.2.13 (Homepage / Mirror) - No installation is needed for this application and it is so small that it could run on a floppy disk. This is great to store on your USB drive and carry around with you so that you have it easily accessible when it is needed. Not only that but this tiny little application also offers the ability to permanently delete a file from your hard drive.
- PCI File Recovery 4 (Homepage / Mirror) - This program is a little larger because it is available in various languages. It does require installation before being able to use the features.
- Smart Data Recovery 3.3 (Homepage / Mirror) - This is also a really small application but it does require installation. It can recover files from “hard disks, digital cameras, and any type of storage media - flash drives, USB drives, memory stick, PC card, multimedia card, secure digital card and diskette.” It also has an option to “wipe” a file off of your hard drive and therefore making it unrecoverable in the future.
- FreeUndelete 2.0 (Homepage / Mirror) - The size of this application is similar to the previous one and also requires installation.
All of the applications mentioned here support both FAT and NTFS file systems, and I was testing them on Windows XP machine that has the drive formatted as NTFS. I created one text file and renamed the three setup files (Restoration has no setup file) so that I could use them as my “test” files. Here’s what the files looked like before deleting them:
I pulled all of the applications up so that I could test them all immediately, one after another with the same files shown above. After they were all up and running I went ahead and performed a Shift+Delete on the files so that they would bypass the Recycling Bin and be permanently deleted. Then I ran a recovery on all four applications, and this is what the results were:
- Restoration - This application was definitely the fastest at providing the results, and the files I was looking for came up immediately. The application does provide a filter in case you are looking for a specific file, which would probably be the case. I, however, wanted to see what it returned and it looks like it also pulled in a lot of garbage from the temporary files as well.
- PCI File Recovery - This was my least favorite application because it took a little while for the results to be returned. If I had filtered the results it might not have been so bad, but if you are looking to browse through files I don’t think this is your alternative.
- Smart Data Recovery - I found this program to be my absolute favorite. The search went reasonably quick but what really won me over was the file directory navigation on the side. It is exactly what we are used to using in Windows Explorer, so navigating for your deleted files is a no-brainer. They also provide checkboxes so that you can easily recover more than one file without any hassles.
- FreeUndelete - If you are looking for something plain and simple, but gets the job done well then this is the program for you. Navigating for the lost files is similar to Smart Data Recovery where you go through a folder structure, except they don’t have a navigation tree on the left-side.
All four programs did find all four files that I deleted. Here is the end result of all the applications (I highlighted the files I was looking for so that you could easily notice them):
I was fortunate in this case because all of the different applications found all of the files I was looking for. It might not always work out that perfectly for you, especially if a lot of time has gone by since the files have been deleted.
One thing that you should note is that when you recover a file using any of the applications mentioned above, you should always set the destination of the recovered file to be on a different drive than the deleted file. You don’t want to take the risk of partially recovering the file to the area on the disk where the deleted file is stored…that would result in a corrupt restore.
I would make sure that you put all four of these applications in your bookmarks because when you need them you’ll be scurrying around searching the Internet which just wastes more and more precious time. I would also put the Restoration program on your USB drive so that you have it ready to go at a moments notice, and who knows you might even be able to help a friend out that has lost some files!
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Tags: CyberNotes, Freeware, Software
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Sweet, thanks for the tip, as always.
About a week ago, I used one of the program in this post, restoration, to restore 2 of wrongly deleted .avi movie files (about 700MB large each). I did the restoration just after the accident. Although the files are recovered, when I tried to play the file in WMP, it’s said that the file is corrupted or something like that. I tried using VLC player and also it doesn’t work. I even tried using Video fixer to fix it. After fixing, somehow, the file plays some other mp3 files stored in the same drive.
Although I have given up restoring that,I would like to find out if anyone has any idea for this kind of situation? (just in case for accidents)
P.S.: The restoration’s program files are installed into other drive in order to avoid overwriting as instructed in download page.
Nice and useful post!
I’ve had good success with PCI File recovery.
In fact, if you install that application, you can then copy the program-folder that is created to your USB stick and then run it from there. So, while it isn’t ‘automatically’ portable, it can be made so easily.
I also have found it can be slow in performing the scans and the interface is a little confusing to navigate until you have used it several times.
But it gets the job done.
Based on your recommendations, I’m going to download and try out the Smart Data Recovery program as I also like the idea of the “Explorer” file listing format.
Two other freeware file-recovery applications you might want to consider:
SoftPerfect File Recovery - http://www.softperfect.com/pro.....erecovery/
It has a very simple GUI.
ADRC Data Recovery Software Tools v1.0 -
http://www.adrc.net/data_recov.....index.html
It actually contains a number of useful tools: Undelete Files, Copy Files (recovery), Raw Copy,
Image Backup / Restore, and Boot Builder (import/export boot section of drive).
I haven’t had a chance to use either of these applications…since PCIFR has met my needs, but these might be worth looking into next time as well!
Thanks Ryan!
Do you guys know if this recovers files from formatted drives? Thanks!
onlineapps…
On several occasions, I have successfully used PCIFR to recover the data off a freshly/”accidentally” re-formatted NTFS Windows 2000 system. Formatting generally just wipes the file structure information–not the actual files–so it isn’t a secure way to clean a drive.
So long as the formatted drive hasn’t been reformatted and new file/system information written to the drive (or zero’ed out)–the original files should be in very good shape.
(Like Ryan says…save the recovered files to another drive/usb/media device so you don’t damage the very files you are trying to recover!)
If the drive contents have been “securely” deleted with a file-wipe program ( Darik’s Boot and Nuke (Hard Drive Disk Wipe) )…then none of these will help you very much!
When the files are that large it is very likely that the operating system would have started using that memory space already. This would work best for smaller files (probably under a few MB).
It depends on how the drive was formatted. For example, when installing Windows if you do a “quick format” then it won’t go through and overwrite data, but the “long format” will. If the data has been overwritten it will be unrecoverable. Basically if the drive was formatted in a minute or so then it had to be the quick format, because the “long format” takes quite awhile to complete.
Claus: You mentioned a few good programs that look pretty nice. I’ll have to look into them!
Thanks, good article. Very useful, especially cos they’re freeware. Cheers.
Thanks Claus and Ryan. I actually reformatted my HD about three times and installed Kubuntu and Windows about five times, so it won’t help much :-(. But, I still see uses for these. One question, how do these work? After all, if I delete a program that is 1.4 GB, I free up 1.4 GB.
This is the analogy that I like to give to people. Let’s say that your hard drive is a book with a table of contents. When you delete an item it doesn’t actually remove the content from the pages, but instead removes them from the table of contents. If the operating system needs space it quickly flips through the table of contents to see what “pages” have been used and which ones haven’t. If the operating system sees that a page is not in use, then it will jump to it and write its data there which will therefore erase anything else that was previously written on the page.
So when a file is deleted it is only removed from the table of contents, but the actual content of the page remains intact until the operating system decides that it needs to use the space for something else. These programs will flip through all of the pages looking for things that are not in the table of contents but still appear on a page.
Hopefully you get the analogy because it is the best one that I can come up with.
hi!
can anyone please help me? just two days ago, i accidentally removed my UsB disk in its port and when I reconnected and tried to open it, a window says, “disk not formatted. format now?”. So basically, I can’t open my USB and i feel like all my files will be gone forever…
can u please give me a step-by-step procedure on how can i possibly restore all the files in my USB disk? do i need to quick format it now and then try to restore it?
thank you!
It sounds like you removed the USB drive while it was in use, and now it requires that be formatted before you can use it again. Unfortunately I’m not sure if there is a way around formatting it.
It appears that Smart Data Recovery is no longer freeware. They are now charging $50 USD.
Huh, that’s disappointing. Thanks for letting me know.