How many times it has happened that you accidentally deleted a file only to find out that it is no longer there even in the ‘Recycle Bin’? If this sounds familiar check out the free data recovery tools we are going to discuss today.
Restoration http://www.aumha.org/a/recover.php
Restoration http://www.aumha.org/a/recover.php
The main advantage of Restoration is its small size, which is less than 200 KB. It is a simple and easy-to-use tool with a drive selection dropdown at the top right corner of the window. By default, this is set to ‘C drive’ which is the most common partition where Windows is installed. The next field below it can be used to search a specific file name. This is a useful option when searching specific document type by simply typing its extension; for example, DOC for MS Word files, or TXT for simple text files, etc.
Now press ‘Search Deleted Files’ to start search process that takes a while, depending upon the size of the disk. Deleted files are listed in the main panel in the middle along with folders from where they were originally deleted. Select the ones to be restored and press ‘Restore’ by ‘Copying’ button as this brings up ‘Save As’ window to select where the restored file has to be saved.
Another supplementary functionality in Restoration is to permanently delete files using menu ‘Others > Delete Completely’ so that they cannot be restored. There are specialised tools also available for this purpose.
Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva
Recuva starts with a ‘Wizard’ interface. If you are new to data restoration, use this ‘Wizard’, or else press ‘Cancel’ and go directly and explore the advanced options. For now, press ‘Next’ in ‘Wizard’ and select the type of document to be restored, say pictures, documents, music, videos or others. Next, select a location if you remember where the file was deleted from. Selecting ‘I am not sure’ here results in a search all over the hard disk. This may take some time and the progress report is not always 100 per cent accurate in displaying estimated time left. Once the scanning is complete, a list of deleted files is displayed along with ‘State’ information, that is if the file is in ‘Excellent’ condition which means it can be recovered, or ‘Unrecoverable’.
Note the presence of an additional column named ‘Comment’. This is an informative bit about fate of deleted files and tells us exactly why a particular file cannot be recovered.
In a computer file system, deleted files (including those removed from ‘Recycle Bin’) are not actually deleted permanently. Here’s what happens: after the deletion takes place, the size occupied by ‘deleted’ file is reported as free so that other files can be overwritten in their place. Until that happens, a deleted file can be restored in most of the cases. And that’s precisely what Recuva tells us in the ‘Comments’ column.
Pressing ‘Switch to Advanced Mode’ button now brings up new options at the right panel including ‘Preview’, ‘Info’ and ‘Header’ tabs which display relevant information for the selected file. One of the strong points of Recuva is its ability to search ‘Non-Deleted Files’ in order to recover data lost from damaged or re-formatted disks. Along with this, Recuva is a portable application which means it can be run directly off a USB disk. And just like Restoration, it can also search data in common Windows file system called FAT, or from advanced Windows file system called NTFS.
Other free tools offering data recovery include Test Disk http://www.cgsecurity.org/ and Pandora Recovery http://www.pandorarecovery.com/. Apart from having recovery tools at disposal, the best defence against data loss is regular backups and thinking before using the delete key! So remain equipped, but, at the same time, keep your data secure.
Source: DAWN.COM Young World
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