Situations when users accidentally permanently deleted some necessary file or formatted a flash drive with important information occur quite often. But you should not despair in these cases. After all, something was erased from the disk, physically this data is still saved. The main thing is that they are not overwritten. There are several ways to efficiently recover data, both on HDD and Flash-drive. We will consider the most effective ones.

Recovering information from a hard disk using standard Windows tools

First of all, make sure that the items you are looking for are not in the Trash. If they are there, then all you need to do is right-click on the file and select "Restore".

If you have not found the file you are interested in in the Trash, you should try the next method. Click Start => Control Panel => System and Maintenance => Backup and Restore. Then select the command "Restore system settings or computer" and follow the prompts of the wizard.

The second option is to click on the Computer component and select the drive or folder where the deleted files were stored. right-click on this object and click "Restore old version". After that, you will see a list of previous versions of the disk or folder. It will contain the files backed up. Here you will have access to points for their backup.

Recovering data from a hard drive using special utilities

To recover data from hard disk go to the "Start" menu and select "Computer". Next, find the drive or folder where the deleted data you are interested in was stored. Right-click the drive or folder and select Restore Previous Version. After that, a list of files will appear, including those you are looking for (saved in the backup copy). Double-click on the object you are looking for and select the version (for example, if you deleted the folder today, specify yesterday), and then drag the recovered file (folder) to another location.

Recuva, for example, after launching, offers to specify the type of files that need to be found and restored, as well as the location where they were located. After that, scanning will begin - files found that can be fully returned are highlighted in green. Further - directly restoration. When scanning, we recommend setting "Deep analysis".

1. Recovering data from a flash drive

It is also possible to recover files deleted on a USB drive. But before using the applications, scan the drive with antivirus. This can be done with or. The fact is that some malicious programs can provoke data hiding - they will not be displayed.

If it turned out that the information on the USB drive was still deleted, you can reanimate it with tools, Easy Drive Data Recovery or.
When specifying the place where you want to find the data sent into the unknown, select "Removable disk" ("Memory card", "Specified location"). Note that some data can only be partially recovered. During analysis, Recuva marks what is in doubt in yellow or red (as opposed to those that will be 100% recovered - they are marked in green).

There is a high probability of "returning everything to normal" if you did not save anything to the Flash drive after you deleted something there. Flaws free software that provide the recovery of deleted files - this is either a limitation in the period of use, or a limitation of functionality (here the support of different file systems and different formats of the files sought is of decisive importance). You can compare utilities from different manufacturers in the selection.

Often we are faced with the fact that important documents or files are accidentally deleted. In some cases, they are indeed lost irretrievably, but sometimes they can be restored. How to do this and how it is more convenient to restore, I will tell you in this material.

What is the specifics of storing files on a hard disk

Speaking about the technology of storing files on a hard disk, you should know that physically a file is a section on a hard disk that is magnetized in a certain way. And if a file has been deleted, all the information on it is not cleared - only data about the file from the allocation table is erased, which allows you to exclude it from the directory list. Therefore, as long as nothing is written over the deleted information, it can be restored. To do this, you need to run the appropriate program that scans the file lists not by the allocation table, but directly by the sectors of the hard disk.

Is Windows able to recover accidentally deleted files

The Windows operating system provides for the already familiar two-step file deletion system - the so-called recycle bin. All unnecessary files are placed in it, and as the recycle bin is full (that is, approaching the limit of its capacity), the oldest files are deleted. And in order to provide the ability to recover deleted files in Windows, you need to increase the size of the recycle bin, which is especially important if the computer is equipped with a sufficiently capacious hard drive. With a shortage free space you can simply empty the trash can by removing all files from it or, for example, only the largest ones.

If helpful information has already been deleted from the recycle bin, then you need to use an additional utility to restore it. However, remember that any program must first be written to disk. Therefore, it is better to either make sure in advance and stock up on special software for data recovery, or, if we are talking about really valuable information, remove the hard drive and recreate the files on it by connecting it to another computer. This will avoid the risk of files being overwritten when trying to restore them.

What third-party programs allow you to recover files

The universal program Magic Uneraser allows you to work with deleted files in the same way as with existing ones on the disk. Using it, you can recover data on your hard drive or flash card by simply connecting it to your computer. A utility built into the Windows shell will prompt you to analyze the disk for deleted files. After scanning, both existing and deleted files will be visible in Windows Explorer, and you can explore the list of blocks available for recovery and even preview the data to be recovered. If they turn out to be what you were looking for, you can immediately return them to any directory on the disk.

Magic Uneraser also performs "deep analysis" of deleted files, which allows you to find even files that are partially damaged by rewriting. When this option is selected, a special folder with the name "Deep Analysis" will appear on the disk, where the remaining parts of the file names, sorted by extension, will be placed. Content can be viewed and by standard means Windows. The functionality of the program also helps to find files lost due to the recent formatting of the disk - this process takes a long time, but it is able to extract all potentially useful data from the hard drive. In the same way, files are recovered from deleted disk partitions. The price of Magic Uneraser depends on the type of license and ranges from 1000 to 6000 rubles.

Powerful file recovery tools are available in comprehensive computer optimization software suites such as Symantec Norton Utilites. Other software includes Norton Unerase. The entire family of Norton Utilites is firmly embedded in the operating system, so that the user can easily run any diagnostic utility, disk defragmentation or registry cleaning system. The same happens with Norton Unerase - in any folder in the context menu, you can invoke a scan of files for deleted files by selecting the items to be restored from the list. Norton Unerase recovers both partially preserved and lost data during formatting.

A feature of this solution is the creation of a special secure Norton Recycle Bin, into which files are placed instead of the standard Windows Recycle Bin. Norton Recycle Bin keeps your deleted files as long as possible by optimizing disk burning so that the most important types of documents are retained for as long as possible. In addition, Norton Utilites allows you to recover accidentally deleted email messages for some email clients. The cost of the Norton Utilities kit is 1500 rubles. on one PC, which is very democratic, given the number of software products included in the kit.

Discrete products for recovering various types of data are offered by MunSoft. In particular, the MunSoft Easy File Undelete utility is offered directly for files. It can work with NTFS, FAT and FAT32 file systems, simply restoring data in user-selected directories. An additional advantage of this program is its compactness - the distribution kit has a volume of 8.1 MB.

For photographers and designers, a special program is offered that restores exclusively digital images, eliminating the need to search for them among other deleted data. MunSoft Easy Digital Photo Recovery is a compact utility (4.6 MB) that can analyze a disk or selected folders for deleted photos. Before restoring, you can view the contents of the images in a format convenient for you (slideshows or thumbnails), which makes the program quite convenient for solving its tasks.

You can recover MS Outlook and Outlook Express mail messages using the separate MunSoft EasyMail Recovery software product. Complex system Recovery MunSoft EasyOffice Recovery allows you to recover not only email messages, but also other Microsoft Office documents, even if they are partially damaged. However, you can purchase a full package of data recovery software MunSoft Data Recovery Suite for the price of 3000 rubles. for the organization. The convenience of this approach lies in the fact that you get the opportunity to recover any data, including those lost after formatting, but at the same time run a certain utility, depending on the type of information being recovered.

However, you can always give preference to a free program such as PC Inspector File Recovery. It interacts with NTFS and FAT file systems by simply displaying a list of deleted files in the appropriate directories. By and large, such a utility allows you to find any files that can be recovered, it only requires an exact understanding of what was deleted and where the file was located. When working with PC Inspector File Recovery, it is recommended to save the recoverable files to another drive, as they may take the place of the information you need if the recovery is not over yet and you continue to search for lost files.

Conclusion

It often happens that important data is deleted - due to user error, operating system failure, or false positives of an antivirus program. Sometimes the hardware itself fails, and you have to recover files from a partially broken hard drive. The programs above are able to force events and recreate important information if possible. However, if you work with business-critical data (customer information, financial documents), it is advisable to take preventive measures, for example, using backup systems. In this case, the lost data can always be restored from storage. backups.

Source http://www.it-world.ru/

Can I recover deleted files?

Unfortunately, there are dozens of different ways through which information can disappear from your computer. Accidentally deleted files, an emptied Windows Recycle Bin, a formatted flash drive, or a damaged hard drive are just some of the possible causes. Fortunately, information is usually not lost forever. New generation programs analyze any storage media and can recover all deleted files. Don't know how to recover deleted files - Magic Uneraser will help you.

On the left is a list of disks on your computer, as well as devices connected to it. To recover deleted files from a USB flash drive, connect it to the computer, after which it will appear in this list. Select the drive that contains the deleted files. On the program bar, click the Analyze button. Magic Uneraser will start analyzing the selected disk, displaying its contents. This procedure will take some time.
You can stop the file recovery process by clicking the "Stop" button, but we recommend that you wait until the program finishes the operation by analyzing the entire disk.

After analysis, the program will display a list of folders on the selected disk. Having selected the necessary folder on the left, you can view its contents on the right. Thus, the program provides the ability to view the contents of the disk in the same way as in a standard Windows Explorer. In addition to the existing ones, deleted files and folders will be displayed. They will be marked with a special red cross, making it much easier for you to recover deleted files.
Use the "Search" option to find the required file. For convenience, use the "Filter" option to see only deleted files. Use the right pane to restore the required files. If the "View" option is active, then when you select a file, its contents will immediately be shown.

On the right side, select the files or folders that you want to recover, on the panel, click the "Recover" button. The file recovery window will appear. You can select the folder where you want to recover deleted files. The program allows not only saving recovered files to hard or removable disks, but also burning them to CD / DVD, as well as uploading them via FTP.

Use the "Deep Analysis" option if you could not find the files you need while analyzing the disk. The program will add the "Deep Analysis" folder, where it will add the found files, sorting them by extension.
You can stop data recovery from disk by clicking the Stop button.
Also use the "Deep Analysis" feature if you are interested in recovering files after formatting hard drives or removable drives.

Preview files before recovery

The View option allows you to preview the content before how to recover deleted files... The preview pane is on the right, it has two tabs: "Hex" and "Preview". The first tab ("Hex") displays the contents of the file in hexadecimal form (like a Hex editor), and has three columns: address, hexadecimal, ASCII encoding. The second tab ("View") allows you to view the contents of the document in the form you are accustomed to (either a photograph, or an MS Office document, or a text document, etc.).

How to recover files from deleted drives?

The program allows you to recover files from deleted drives. To do this, click the "Find Drives" button.

Specify the hard drive on which you want to find the deleted partition. Specify the scope and type of filesystems to search for. All found partitions will be added to the disc list. Now you will be able to work with remote disks as with existing ones.

All file recovery options

Sometimes (only when working with the FAT file system) the program may mistakenly determine the beginning of the file (the first sector of its content), several options arise. Other programs simply take the first option, as a result of which, for example, instead of the desired photo, the program restores a completely different one. Magic Uneraser offers all options, giving you the ability to manually select the beginning of the file. You can see the window for selecting the beginning of the file in two ways. If the "Preview" option is active, then when such a file is selected, a button for selecting the beginning of the file appears on the preview pane. The selection window also appears when restoring such a file.
On the left side of the window for selecting the beginning of the file, you are offered options for the first sector of the file. By selecting values ​​on the left, you can view the contents of the file on the right side of the window.
The "Save All" button allows you to restore the deleted file in all the proposed options, while if the file is called, for example, "My file.txt", it will be saved as "My file1.txt", "My file2.txt", " My file3.txt "etc.
When you select the "Do not display in this session" option by clicking "Save All", the program will no longer display the window for selecting the beginning of files, applying this option to all such files.

It is not easy for a modern person to imagine his life without a computer and the Internet. Considering the speed with which universal computerization covers all spheres of our activity, it remains only to wonder how instantly a person adapts to changes. Working without computers has become almost impossible. Therefore, the issues of data storage and information processing are becoming more relevant than ever. Many of us have had to deal with the unpleasant situation of deleting the necessary files.

Are there ways to get back the deleted, but necessary, information? Is it possible and if yes, how exactly can you recover deleted files on your computer? Let's consider in order all the methods of recovering information on your computer - from simple to complex. So, the first situation.

How to recover a file from the recycle bin

So, you unintentionally deleted a file from the folder by pressing the key "Delete" or swiped it with the mouse to the trash on your desktop. This is a fairly common situation that even a beginner can easily deal with. The fact is that the backup storage of all deleted files on your computer is the same notorious recycle bin, which does not give you the opportunity to permanently delete information from your hard drive.

At home, you have thrown your garbage in the trash can in your kitchen, but you haven't taken it out yet. This is how the Windows Recycle Bin works. It is worth digging in it and you can easily find the loss.

By clicking on the trash can icon on the desktop, you will see a list of all recently deleted files. Sort by date, and find the file you need. Revert it to its original location by simply right-clicking and selecting the dropdown menu item - "Recover file".

How to recover files deleted from the recycle bin

Situation number two: you cannot find the deleted file in your computer's recycle bin. Most likely, you emptied the trash, or it took this action automatically.

Another way to recover deleted files is to use a Windows feature such as restore a backup. To see if there are previous versions of a folder, select Folder Options - Previous Versions.

Select the folders of the previous shadow copies in order and look for the necessary information.

This method will only work if you have not disabled the protection and recovery system. Unfortunately, due to resource savings, many users disable this option. And make themselves more big problems... Therefore, we ask you to consciously choose between the security of your computer and questionable performance acceleration.

How to recover files using third-party programs

The third situation is stalemate. You did not find the deleted files in the recycle bin or in previous versions.

Time to panic? No, not all is lost. If the native means of recovering and protecting information from Windows did not help you, the time has come for heavy artillery. In this case, we recommend the third party utility Recuva.

Easy to use, and most importantly - a free program allows you to recover files deleted from the recycle bin. Download the distribution kit of the program (in other words, the installer) from the official website and run.

The program is quite simple to operate, and you can easily return the information you need with Recuva. In this case, you need to understand that time is against you. The safety of deleted files is also negatively affected by your activity after deletion. The more time has passed, the more actions are taken, the less chances of recovery. This is due to the fact that the sectors of the hard disk are being overwritten all the time.

I must say that happy owners of SSD drives will not be able to use the Recuva program: the support of the solid state drive with the automatic TRIM function makes the recovery process impossible.

When recording information on the disc, TRIM searches for the cell with the least number of write cycles, and immediately writes a new one there. This even use of memory cells eliminates the need for defragmentation and speeds up disk performance. You have to pay for such an advantage - if files have already been deleted from the recycle bin, they will not be returned.

If the information has not been deleted, and the disk is simply out of order, then you can turn to the professionals here. Choose good specialists from a reliable firm and contact them. It is often easier to pay a certain amount of money and hope for a positive outcome.

Let's try to summarize. So, despite constant criticism, Windows has many useful tools, one of which is creating and storing backups of documents and folders. If you do not use standard system security elements, in case of deleting files, you can hope that third-party utilities will help you.

Storing information in digital form has many advantages, among which the most significant is the amount of data that can be recorded in the minimum unit of memory of a digital device. But this storage method has its drawbacks. If the storage device fails, the operating system crashes, or the user makes erroneous actions, the data may be lost. Fortunately, in most cases, unintentional deletion of files is not permanent, and with the right and timely approach, they can be restored.

Recovering deleted files is possible thanks to the very algorithm of writing information to the hard disk. New files are written not into empty sectors or cells, but over previously deleted ones, physically saved on the disk until they are completely overwritten. That is, when deleted, files are not immediately deleted. Instead, the system erases the first character of the file name and marks the space it occupies as free, leaving the file itself on disk. The exception is SSD drives with the TRIM function enabled, the cells of such media are completely cleared, so recovering accidentally deleted files becomes an almost impossible task.

So, is it possible to recover files deleted from a computer? Yes, quite, unless they have been overwritten with other data. For these purposes, it is best to use special programs, since Windows itself does not have any intelligible means. You can restore files using standard tools only if they have been moved to the Trash, and also if the system has the shadow copy function and / or file history enabled. First, let's look at an example of recovering files deleted from a hard drive without using third-party programs.

Recovering deleted files using Windows

In Windows 7 and 10, if you open the properties of any folder or file, you can see the "Previous Versions" tab, and in it - a list of backed up objects. Even if the files have been deleted past the Recycle Bin, just select the required backup version and click the "Restore" or "Open" button.

But it's not that simple. The fact is that the "Previous Versions" tab will most likely be empty, at least in the properties of directories on the user drive. In order for copies to be created, protection must be enabled in the system properties for the corresponding section, that is.

Note: You can return deleted files using the Previous Versions function only if they were located in folders, and not in the root of the disk.

It is highly desirable that the system also use the "File History" function, which provides periodic backup content of custom libraries and desktop.

This primarily applies to Windows 8 and 8.1 systems, which do not have the Previous Versions tab in the object properties. It's hard to say for sure what prompted Microsoft developers to remove it from the eighth version, and then return it in the tenth, however, the shadow copying technology itself was intact.

How to recover files deleted from a computer by gaining direct access to shadow copies will be discussed below, but for now let's say a few words about the "File History". This option appeared in Windows 8 as an alternative to the Previous Versions feature, which was tied to the creation of system restore points. The File History function is independent, but in order to use it, an additional physical disk or flash drive or, alternatively, a network drive must be connected to the computer.

It is very easy to recover deleted data with its help. To do this, click on the "Restore personal files" link, select a folder or a file located in it in the window that opens, and click the button with a rounded arrow.

Now for recovering files from shadow copies in Windows 8 and 8.1. As already mentioned, the "Previous Versions" tab is missing in these versions of the system. So what if you need to restore a specific file, do you really need to roll back to a previous restore point for this? Not at all necessary.

Open a command prompt as administrator and run the command in it vssadmin list shadows.

As a result, you will get a list of all restore points. Pay attention to the "Original volume" parameter, it will indicate the letter of the drive from which you are going to recover data. Then, having determined the number of the backup (it is indicated at the end of the value of the "Volume of the shadow copy" parameter), run the following command:

mklink / d% SystemDrive% / shadow //? / GLOBALROOT / Device / HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy7 /

In this example, the restore point is number 7, your value will be different. As a result of executing the command, a symbolic link will appear in the root of the C drive. shadow.

By clicking on it, you will find yourself exactly in the shadow copy!

This method works equally well in Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, but again you need to remember that it makes sense to resort to it, if only the function of creating system restore points is enabled on the system.

File recovery using special programs

Above, we examined in detail how to recover files deleted from the Recycle Bin when it was emptied or lost for other reasons using the system itself. As shown above, all of these methods have significant limitations. To be able to recover data directly from disk, and not from backups, you should use special programs, among which there are both paid and free.

R-Studio

R-Studio Is a powerful professional program for recovering deleted files from a wide variety of digital devices, from hard drives to CD / DVD-disks and memory cards. The application supports all popular file systems, RAID arrays, can create images of physical disks and individual volumes. Despite the fact that R-Studio is aimed at advanced users, the data recovery procedure in it is not complicated.

After launching the program, select the target disk or partition in the left column and click the "Show disk contents" icon on the toolbar.

In this case, a list of deleted directories will be displayed on the left, and their contents marked with red crosses on the right.

Check the boxes of the objects that you would like to restore and select the "Restore marked" option in the main menu. Next, in the window that opens, you will need to specify the folder to save the files, set additional recovery options, if necessary, and click "OK".

If files were lost due to damage to the file system or formatting, it is advisable to scan the disk by selecting the corresponding option in the main menu.

Media pre-scanning allows for more holistic and in-depth analysis, which means an increased chance of recovering lost data.

Upon completion of the procedure, a new item "Found by signatures" will appear in the list of disks.

Select it with the mouse, click in the right column on the link "Files found by information about the typical features of their data structure", mark the necessary elements in the next window and restore them.

Ontrack EasyRecovery

Another professional commercial product that allows you to quickly and efficiently recover deleted files. Ontrack EasyRecovery has a convenient interface in the form step by step wizard, which greatly facilitates the work with the program. The application supports data recovery from hard, ZIP and CD / DVD disks, flash drives, memory cards, RAID arrays, and various devices with flash memory.

The recovery procedure in Ontrack EasyRecovery consists of several stages. At the first stage, you will be asked to select the type of media, at the second you need to specify a specific disk or partition, at the third you will need to select an operation (in this example, this is recovery).

To do this, in the tree-like list, select the directory with the deleted files (it will be marked green), right-click on it and select the "Save As" option from the menu.

You can also restore individual files by doing the same in the right column of the program window. If you switch to the "Previews" tab, you will be able to view thumbnails of the files being recovered, however, this view is available only for images.

Recuva

From free programs for recovering deleted files, we can recommend Recuva... This simple and at the same time effective tool allows you to recover any type of data from different digital media, supports viewing previews of images and hexadecimal code of files of different formats.

Recuva is very easy to use. After starting the program, select the volume in the drop-down list and click the "Analysis" button. The program will scan the media and list the deleted files.

Check the boxes you need, click the "Restore" button and specify the directory to save them.

You can also use the context menu by selecting the "Restore Selected" option in it.

The program has a simple search by file name and its format, you can view basic information - state, date of creation and modification, size and full path.

You need to know about it

So, we examined in detail what to do if you deleted the required file. Usage third-party programs in this case it has its advantages, since it allows you to recover files even if the partition is deleted and the file system is damaged, but there is something to remember about. If you accidentally deleted or lost files, in any case do not write any data to the partition in which they were located, as there is a risk of overwriting the sectors containing them.

For this reason, the recovery program should be installed on a "free" partition, different from the one from which you are going to recover. Ideally, you need to remove the hard drive, connect it to another computer and start scanning from it. It is also impossible to save recovered files to the same partition, in which case you risk losing them permanently. That is, if you are recovering files from drive D, you should save them to drive C or a USB flash drive.

It is difficult to find a user who has never had to bite his elbows, for example, after accidentally deleting an important document from a disk or an interesting picture from a memory card - this can happen in the hustle and bustle, and simply out of banal absent-mindedness. Of course, it is not a problem to restore a file deleted from the hard disk in the usual way using Windows tools - you just need to restore it from the recycle bin. However, the recycle bin is cleared more and less regularly by special cleaning utilities, and data is often deleted bypassing the recycle bin using the Shift + Del key combination (in order to save time and space) - in this case, it will no longer be possible to restore an accidentally deleted file from the recycle bin using Windows tools. As for deleting files from USB drives and memory cards, they do not end up in the trash at all, which means that they cannot be restored using the built-in Windows tools. Finally, accidentally deleting files isn't the only way to lose valuable information. You can also lose important data in another way: as a result of a system failure, incorrect operations of a program, the effects of viruses, disk formatting, deleting a partition, etc. In all these cases, Windows toolkit will not be able to "revive" the files.

So, should you rush to a data recovery specialist if you lose your files? Not at all necessary if you have a reliable utility for recovering accidentally deleted and lost files. As a rule, with its help, you can recover at least some of the information without any problems. The main thing is not to waste time and observe certain rules games.

File loss and recovery in a nutshell

You should not immediately put an end to accidentally deleted files, although they, for example, are not displayed in the corresponding folder of the explorer and are absent in the recycle bin. In reality, the deleted files are still on the media, since deleting them using the operating system does not physically destroy the files. Not the body of the file is deleted, but only its header; while the clusters in which it was written are simply marked empty and can be read until they are overwritten with new data. That is why deleted documents, presentations, pictures, etc. can be recovered using specialized utilities.

Recovering lost files is possible in a number of other situations as well. For example, after a quick formatting of the hard disk - after all, with such a procedure, the information about the initial recording of the allocated files is reset (for example, in NTFS - in the MFT area), and all other areas of the disk remain unchanged. Some utilities can also recover data from disks that have a damaged file allocation table, deleted data partition, etc.

However, it would be rash to say unequivocally that any file (even just deleted from the recycle bin) can always be recovered. Alas, this is not the case, and failure is in no small part due to the wrong actions of users. The fact is that any computer activity on a disk from which data was accidentally deleted can lead to the fact that the clusters in which the fragments of the corresponding files are located will be overwritten, because the operating system now perceives them as empty. After that, the restoration of the corresponding files will already be more than problematic. Of course, with partial rewriting, a number of utilities restore such files, but it is not at all a fact that such files can then be used (the exception is text documents, with individual saved fragments of which it will be possible to work in the future). As for pictures, music, videos and other things restored after partial rewriting, this, as a rule, is futile. That is why, first of all, it is necessary to prevent the possibility of overwriting clusters - that is, do not write anything to a hard disk partition, flash drive or memory card with lost data, otherwise the chances of returning the lost information to life will be minimal.

In addition, the possibility of recovering lost data may be associated with a number of circumstances that do not depend on the user at the time of recovery. So, the chances of success are higher when recovering files from media formatted in the NTFS file system, rather than in FAT. The success of recovering a specific file also largely depends on the degree of its fragmentation: if the file is highly fragmented, then it is possible to hope (and even then with reservations) to recover it only in the NTFS system, but on FAT media it is most likely pointless. Naturally, for this reason, it is especially difficult to recover very large frequently overwritten files on a very full disk, which due to circumstances, as a rule, always turn out to be highly fragmented.

It is also worth adding that none of the programs will be able to recover data after guaranteed destruction of information by means of specialized solutions, as well as low-level formatting.

How to recover files

The most important thing is to start recovering accidentally deleted and lost files as quickly as possible (ideally, immediately after deleting the file), although in practice there are often cases of recovering even long-lost data. However, there is no guarantee that the document you need will be among such invisible "centenarians", so there is no need to hesitate.

To begin with, you need to stop any computer activity on the media of interest, since the operating system can write other data in place of deleted or lost files (even if you yourself did not write anything at all), run the utility installed on the computer to restore lost files and conduct a scan in it carrier. The situation becomes more complicated when it comes to restoring data on the system disk, to which the system writes something all the time. In this case, it is optimal to remove the hard drive with the deleted files and connect it to another computer as a secondary one, and only then start the recovery process.

As a rule, in the corresponding tools a quick scan is performed by default by analyzing file records. If during such analysis the file you are looking for cannot be found (this is possible if the disk has been formatted, the partition has been deleted, etc.), then it makes sense to resort to advanced analysis. With this analysis, a deep scan of the disk is performed with a full scan of all sectors - it takes more time, but it may turn out to be more efficient. In order to speed up the process, you can resort to limiting the search area by data type (images, documents, etc.), file name, etc.

In no case should you restore data to a scanned disk, although in a number of solutions this is possible (again, due to the danger of overwriting the sectors of interest). Therefore, usually the recovered data is saved to another hard disk, another hard disk partition or a flash drive.

Before starting any data recovery actions, consider the possibility that the loss of files could also be caused by a physical malfunction of the device. Most of the solutions considered in this article will not be able to help in this case, and the process of recovering information in such situations requires certain professional knowledge and experience. Besides, further work with a faulty device may result in the complete inability to recover important folders and files from it. Therefore, in case of loss, critically important information it is wiser to abandon independent experiments and immediately contact specialists.

Utilities for recovering lost files

Until recently, utilities for recovering lost files figured among the few categories where the main part is made up of very expensive commercial products, the capabilities of which are completely incomparable with what affordable, and even more so, free utilities can offer. Now the picture has changed markedly, and today home users, if they wish, may well find on the market effective programs, with the help of which you can not only easily recover accidentally deleted folders and files, but also restore data lost as a result of quick disk formatting, partition deletion, etc. - and will be discussed in this article.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery 6.6

The developer: MiniTool Solution Ltd

Distribution size: 5.64 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 2008/7

Distribution method: shareware (http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/download.html)

Price: Commercial license - $ 119; Personal license - $ 59; Free Edition - free (allows you to recover up to 1 GB of data; only for personal or home use)

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a comprehensive solution for recovering data from hard drives (IDE, SATA, SCSI, USB), memory cards, flash drives, CD / DVD and Blue-ray disks, iPods and other storage media. The program supports FAT12 / 16/32, VFAT and NTFS file systems and is able to recover files deleted from the Windows recycle bin, find and recover lost data (due to a virus attack, power failure, accidental formatting, partition deletion, etc.). In addition, this tool can recover data from damaged hard drives as well as damaged, scratched or defective CD / DVDs.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery includes five built-in data recovery modules: Undelete Recovery, Damaged Partition Recovery, Lost Partition Recovery, Digital Media Recovery, and CD & DVD Recovery (Fig. 1). Each of them focuses on different data loss scenarios. The Undelete Recovery module is designed to recover files and folders deleted from the recycle bin or by using the Shift + Del combination. Works with hard drives, flash drives, and memory cards. Damaged Partition Recovery tool allows you to recover lost data from existing but damaged or formatted partitions. Supported partitions with MBR and dynamic disks: Simple Volume, Spanned Volume, Stripped Volume and RAID-5 Volume. Lost Partition Recovery module is used to recover data from a deleted or lost (for example, as a result of disk repartitioning) partition. The Digital Media Recovery module recovers data from digital multimedia devices (flash drives, flash cards, memory cards, iPods, etc.) and is focused on recovering lost or deleted photos (including in RAW format), music (mp3 files, MP4 files) and video files. CD & DVD Recovery module is used to recover lost and deleted files from damaged, scratched or defective CD / DVD discs. This module works with different types CD / DVD (CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD-RW), supports multisession discs, some UDF discs (burned using DirectCD, InCD, packetCD) and can recover data from RW disks formatted by quick format.

Rice. 1. MiniTool Power Data Recovery window
with five built-in modules

Despite the lack of Russian-language localization, it is not difficult to deal with the nuances of recovering deleted and lost files in this utility, since all operations are performed under the control of a step-by-step wizard. For example, in the simplest case - when recovering accidentally deleted files - you just need to activate the Undelete Recovery module, specify the device to be scanned (Fig. 2) and press the button Recover, after which the program will immediately display a list of found folders and files. In most modules, scanning can be fast or complete, the latter taking more time, but also more effective. The folders and files found during the analysis are marked with icons in the form of a cross, question, or exclamation mark - a cross is used to indicate accidentally deleted files, and other icons indicate lost data and RAW files, respectively (Fig. 3). Images and text files can be viewed directly from the utility before restoring.

Rice. 2. Run disk analysis for deleted files

Rice. 3. Presentation of scan results
in MiniTool Power Data Recovery

Auslogics File Recovery 3.3

The developer: Auslogics Software Pty Ltd

Distribution size: 3.69 MB

Work under control: Windows XP (SP2 or higher) / 2003 / Vista / 7/2008

Distribution method: shareware (15-day demo version that allows you to recover no more than ten files of no more than 100 KB in size - http://www.auslogics.com/ru/software/file-recovery/download/)

Price: USD 49.95 (in the Allsoft.ru store - RUB 990)

Auslogics File Recovery (formerly Auslogics Emergency Recovery) is a program for recovering accidentally deleted files, as well as files lost due to viruses or system failures. With this utility, you can recover documents, music, photos and any other files from hard drives, floppy disks, USB drives and flash memory cards. At the same time, you can recover not only files accidentally deleted in the usual way, but also files lost during the deletion of a disk partition or quick formatting. As an additional functionality, the utility includes tools for guaranteed data deletion and disk imaging.

Recovery in Auslogics File Recovery is performed under the guidance of a wizard (Fig. 4) and does not require any effort from the user (it is enough to decide on the media, file types, analysis option and, if necessary, set restrictions on the search zone). The program implements two scanning options: normal and deep (it is very long) - with deep scanning, it is possible to recover files lost after a quick disk formatting. To speed up the scanning process, you can resort to limiting files by type, configure an exclusion list that includes files and folders that will be ignored during scanning, etc. Files found during the search are displayed in the main program window with an indication of the program's "opinion" regarding their state ( fig. 5). Folder structure and names, as well as file names are displayed unchanged even when deep scanned for lost data. You can preview files - pictures, photos, videos, text and PDF documents.

Rice. 4. Configuring the search parameters for lost files
in Auslogics File Recovery

Rice. 5. Result of the disk scan by the program
Auslogics File Recovery

Handy Recovery 5.5

Developer: SoftLogica

Distribution size: 2 MB

Work under control: Windows 95/98 / NT / 2000 / Me / XP / 2003 / Vista / 7

Distribution method: shareware (30-day demo version allowing one file recovery per day - http://www.handyrecovery.com/download.shtml)

Price:$ 49, in the softkey store - 950 rubles. (we are talking about the latest Russian version of Handy Recovery 4.0)

Handy Recovery is a handy utility for recovering lost files. The program supports file systems FAT12 / 16/32/64 (ExFAT) and NTFS / NTFS 5 and can recover data from a hard drive or other storage media, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and SecureDigital memory cards. The range of recoverable files covers a variety of formats: MS Office documents, archive files, mail databases (Outlook and Eudora), photos, music and video files, etc. At the same time, you can recover not only accidentally deleted files (deleted from the recycle bin, deleted without going through the recycle bin) but also files damaged by virus attacks and crashes, and files from deleted or formatted volumes. In addition to this, the utility provides the ability to create accurate disk images for delayed recovery.

In Handy Recovery, developers have implemented two scanning modes: standard (performed by analyzing file records and helps to recover deleted files if these records were not damaged) and extended, which allows you to find even data when information in file records has been partially overwritten or damaged. Scanning in standard mode starts automatically immediately after launching the utility (Fig. 6), at the end of the process a list of detected folders and files will be displayed in the program window; For convenience, lost files and folders are marked with a red cross (Fig. 7). The probability of successful recovery is indicated for each file. The contents of a number of files (Word- and Excel-documents, graphic and text files, archives) can be viewed before recovery in the preview window. As for the extended scan, it is used in cases when the files of interest were not found after analyzing the disk. With such a scan, you can search for strictly defined types of files (for example, images), lost file records, as well as conduct a more thorough analysis of data deleted from the data basket (with a standard search, some of such data may not be found). The structure of the found folders and file names are displayed unchanged based on the scan results.

Rice. 6. Running disk analysis in Handy Recovery

Rice. 7. Display of data found during analysis
in Handy Recovery

Recuva 1.43

Developer: Piriform Ltd

Distribution size: 2.44 MB

Work under control: Windows 98/2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 7

Distribution method: commercialware (http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download)

Price: Business - $ 34.95 Home - $ 24.95 Free - free

Recuva is a very easy-to-use file recovery utility from the developers of popular solutions such as CCleaner and Defraggler. This tool allows you to recover photos, documents, music files, videos and more in FAT file systems (including ExFAT) and NTFS from hard drives, as well as from any rewritable media (flash drives, external hard drives, memory cards, etc.). With this utility, you can recover accidentally deleted files, get back files that were deleted as a result of system errors, crashes or virus attacks, and also try to recover files from formatted or damaged disks. Additionally, the program can be used for guaranteed data deletion. In addition to the standard edition, the utility has a portable edition that can be installed on a flash drive or external hard drive.

By default, the file recovery process is carried out under the guidance of the wizard (if desired, the automatic launch of the wizard can be easily disabled) - fig. eight; using the wizard allows you to narrow your search, limiting yourself to only searching for images, music, documents, etc. Scanning can be fast or deep. Deep scan reveals large quantity Files buried on the analyzed disk, but it also takes much more time. If necessary, advanced users can switch to the advanced mode of operation and perform more fine tuning search parameters - use the filter by file type to narrow the search area, enable restoring the folder structure, etc. When scanning is complete, the list of deleted files is displayed in the main program window (Fig. 9); each file found is marked with green, yellow or red (the color indicates the chances of recovery). In advanced mode, the program additionally shows details about the file, a thumbnail image, and an estimate of the recovery quality.

Rice. 8. Run disk analysis in Recuva

Rice. 9. Result of file search through Recuva

Pandora Recovery 2.1.1

The developer: Pandora Corp.

Distribution size: 3.11 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista

Distribution method: freeware (http://www.pandorarecovery.com/download/)

Price: is free

Pandora Recovery is a simple utility for recovering files in a wide variety of formats: photos, music, videos, documents, etc. The program supports FAT16 / 32, NTFS, NTFS5 and NTFS / EFS file systems and allows you to recover data from local drives, network drives and flash drives. It is possible to recover accidentally deleted files, as well as lost ones (if the MFT record was rewritten by the OS, the disk is formatted, the file allocation table is damaged or the file allocation table is missing). In addition to the free standard edition of the utility, there is a commercial portable edition of Pandora Mobile Recovery available on 1GB flash drives ($ 19.95 per disk). It does not require installation and can be run directly from a USB stick.

File recovery, as a rule, is carried out under the guidance of a step-by-step wizard, and this process does not cause any difficulties, especially since the wizard starts automatically when the program is loaded. To start the search, you need to specify the disk and select the file search method (Fig. 10) - there are three options: search for all deleted files, search for deleted files taking into account the file name, its size and creation / modification date, or a full disk scan (Deep scan ). The last option used to find data on disks with corrupted file allocation tables, recently formatted disks, etc. Unfortunately, this search does not restore file names and paths to them, only certain types of files are found (images of the most common formats, MS Office documents, MP3 files, PDF documents and ZIP archives), and the scan itself takes much longer ... Also, this method only works with unfragmented files. Found deleted and lost files are marked with red crosses, while the names of files with partially or completely overwritten clusters are displayed in red, the names of encrypted (EFS) files - in green, and compressed ones - in blue (Fig. 11). In addition, the program gives an estimate of the success of the recovery of the detected data as a percentage of overwriting: the higher the percentage, the less chances of successful recovery. Before restoring, you can view images of popular formats and text files.

Rice. 10. Run disk analysis in Pandora Recovery

Rice. 11. The result of searching for files through Pandora Recovery

Testing utilities

It was very interesting to try in practice to evaluate various programs recovery of lost data in terms of scanning speed and efficiency of detecting deleted and lost files by them, which we tried to do. To do this, all the utilities under consideration were installed on one of the hard disk partitions, and a 3.7 GB flash drive was allocated for the experiment. This flash drive figured among the workers, and therefore, contained certain information - in particular, a lot of distributions software, drivers, etc. One of the driver folders contained a Chipset folder with six subfolders with multiple subfolders and 914 files for a total of 176 MB. It was this folder that was selected as one of the test ones (of course, the contents of the folder were copied to the hard disk in advance for further analysis and comparison).

After that, the flash drive was formatted in the FAT32 file system with built-in Windows tools so that nothing was left on it. Then the Delete_files folder, which was previously prepared on the hard disk, was copied to the flash drive, which included 50 files with a total volume of 66.8 MB. The files came in a wide variety of formats including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, archives in ZIP, RAR and 7z formats, images (JPEG, TIFF, RAW, etc.), applications, music (MP3, WAV, MID), ISO images, SWF files, AVI videos, etc. Then all files from the Delete_files folder were deleted, bypassing the trash (Shift + Del). After that, we conducted the first experiment to restore information with each of the software solutions. The results are presented in the table.

At the next stage, in order to complicate the task, five new files with a total volume of 78.4 MB were written to the root directory of the flash drive. Obviously, the last operation should have drastically worsened the recovery results (compare the volumes of deleted and newly written files - 66.8 and 78.4 MB), since it is highly likely that a large part of the clusters, in which the deleted files were originally located, ended up partially overwritten when copied by other data. Then we subjected the test media to the analysis of each of the utilities considered in the article in order to find accidentally deleted files (the Delete_files folder), after which, as far as possible, we tried to recover the deleted files. Finally, we conducted an experiment to identify lost files and folders (Chipset folder).

According to the test results, it can be seen that any of the utilities considered can be successfully applied to recover newly deleted data. And it is just as obvious that the result of restoring such files after writing new information with an impressive volume to the disk (that is, when some of the sectors were overwritten) is disappointing. All this only confirms the most important rule of recovery: do not write anything to the media and generally stop any work with it immediately after the emergency.

As for recovering files and folders lost after formatting, the results are ambiguous. The MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition and Handy Recovery programs coped best with the task, but using the Recuva utilities for these purposes, and even more so Pandora Recovery, turned out to be problematic due to the lack of scanning of the folder structure and file names in their reports. In addition, in Pandora Recovery, the situation is further aggravated by the fact that the list of formats supported by Deep-scanning is rather limited. Although these programs should not be disregarded anyway, they are one of the best free software products in their class, which are very easy to use and do an excellent job of recovering "freshly deleted" files.

Conclusion

Gone are the days when you always had to turn to professionals to recover lost files and this event cost a very round sum. Today, there are many fairly easy-to-use utilities on the market that allow you to recover files that were accidentally deleted or lost as a result of a computer failure, virus attack or other computer cataclysm. Some solutions are offered at a reasonable price for home users or are free for non-commercial use. Therefore, in simple situations When it comes to accidental deletion or loss of files, for example, as a result of quick formatting, it makes sense to recover the data yourself. But if the reason for the loss of files is damage to the hard disk at a mechanical or electronic level, then you should not experiment - it is better to entrust the data recovery operation to professionals.

When restoring on your own, you should act competently and take care in advance that such a cataclysm does not catch you by surprise. In other words, it should be kept close at hand (that is, on a disk in established form) a couple of suitable utilities and, if possible, resort to information recovery as soon as possible in compliance with all mandatory rules (exclude the possibility of writing other data to the medium, save the recovered files to another medium, etc.). In addition, if you have failed with one utility, be sure to give another a chance - they have different media scanning algorithms, so it is possible that the second utility will be more successful. And finally, do not forget that no one, even the most expensive and powerful solution guarantees absolute success, and therefore nobody canceled the backup of valuable data.