How to recover deleted or lost files

It is a sickening feeling, that moment when you realize that an important document, valuable files or irreplaceable photos are no longer where you thought they were.

Don't despair!

Fortunately, the chances are that your files have not been lost at all, even if you deleted them. Your computer operating system may simply no longer know where they are. One of the following things may have happened:

• Accidental deletion. You told the operating system that the file is no longer required. The data has been marked as deleted. The file may have been deleted to the Recycle Bin, but it is no longer there. However, the data will still exist until such time as the space it occupied on the disk gets used for something else.
• Accidental overwriting. You saved a new file using the same name as an old one, and the original data is lost. However, the operating system may have written the new data to a different part of the disk to that used for the old file. The old data may still be present, and recoverable, until such time as the space it occupies gets used for something else.
• File system corruption. This is usually the explanation when data suddenly disappears from a CD-ROM or a digital camera memory card. The files are probably still there, but there is something wrong with the data structures that the operating system uses to locate them, so the files appear to be missing or the disk appears empty.
• Physical damage or hardware failure. The disk surface, containing the data, may be physically damaged, or there may be a mechanical or electrical problem with the drive. You receive reports of read errors when you try to read the disk. The data is still present, but your computer may be unable to read it.

In all cases, there is a probability – often a very good one – that the data still exists. Your computer cannot see it, but specialist data recovery software may be able to. If the problem is a physical or mechanical one, so that software running on your computer cannot read the disk at all, then a data recovery service may still be able to get at the data using special equipment or by placing the disk into a non-faulty drive. So there is no reason to panic.

What to do

In cases where files have been deleted or overwritten, it is important for the best chance of recovering the files not to write any new data to the disk they were stored on, because the old data will only exist until such time as the space it occupied on the disk gets used for something else. If the files were on the main drive of the computer you're using now, this means that you you should turn off the computer right now, and use another computer to search for a solution to recover your data. You may even need to consider putting your computer's hard disk in another computer to do the data recovery, because installing the software on your own computer could overwrite the data you want to recover.

We understand that this may not be easy or convenient to do. So it's your decision. It depends on how important these lost files really are to you. Continuing to use your computer, and installing software on it, won't necessarily overwrite the data you want to recover. But it could. It's up to you.

Choosing the data recovery method

Choosing the right method to use to recover your data isn't easy. There are many different recovery tools on the market. Some are better at recovering deleted files, others are better at restoring overwritten files, or recovering files from damaged disks. Some are specialized for recovering photo images, or Microsoft Word or Excel document files, because they know what these files look like, and can retrieve their data even when all other clues to its existence have disappeared. One tool may succeed at recovering your files, even if another failed.

The data recovery software tools reviewed on this site is both easy to use and effective. Most products are available as free trial downloads, so that you can see, before you buy, whether it is likely to be successful at recovering your data. Although, due to the many things that could have happened to your data, perfect recovery can never be 100% guaranteed, these data recovery products have been successfully used by thousands of satisfied customers.

When to use a data recovery service

The data recovery tools that we recommend are easy to use, but they do assume a basic level of computer knowledge to use them successfully and safely. A simple mistake - such as saving data back to the disk you are trying to recover data from - could reduce the chances of a successful recovery. In a few cases, recovery may require tools or techniques not possible using PC-based recovery software. Professional data recovery costs more than a do-it-yourself software package, but the cost may be justified if the data you have lost is very important and has a high value.

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