Im after some urgent advise/ help and this forum seemed like the only place to get some so please help me learn how to and with which product/ program to recover my deleted moovie files and a few other acidently deleted items


I guess i need to ask the question is this possible?.. Or once deleted are they gone for good?, I have been told it is possible and from what ive read so far it may be?

Secondly If it is possible what is the best possible program to use for the most sucesfull chance of getting them back.. I know it wont be a free one and i dont care as i really want to get them back

Any help/ information would be greatly apreciated and i want to try to recover them myself so whatever is the best method please

Computer specs -

Dell 6400
15.4" Widescreen XGA+
2.0ghz Core 2 Duo
1gb 667mhz DDR2
Radeon X1400 256mb


Thankyou in advance

Ray

What OS are you using? I am assuming you are running Windows, and NTFS filesystem. You are right that when data is deleted it is still recoverable, because until the specific location the deleted data occupies is written to with new information, the old information is still recoverable.

You must ensure that no new information is written to the disk. This includes surfing the web, as even files as small as temporary internet files written to the location the required data was at would render your data unrecoverable, or corrupt at the very least.

The best way is to hook your disk up to a second machine, and use commercial software available on the web to search for your lost data. You must make sure that the software you choose is non-destructive, and read only. Secondly, never recover data to the disk you are recovering from - that is just silly! Alternatively you can use a recovery CD such as MiniPE, or BART and recover your data to an external location such as a USB disk.

But I must stress, it is so easy to make a small mistake that will render your data unrecoverable. If data really is valuable to you, let someone who has done this a thousand times do it for you.

Your Data, Your choice

Step 1. Check the recycle bin.
Step 2. Make a sector-level backup of the disk by removing the disk and placing it in another system. You will need at least as much space on another drive on which you'll write the image as the original drive. You can use an external drive. Buy one, if you don't yet have a backup drive. Avoid MyBook (I see too many of them). If the disk is healthy, driveimagexml from www.runtime.org will do the trick. Make sure the external drive is formatted with NTFS as they are usually pre-formatted with FAT32, which won't work for large images if they are stored as a single file.
Step 3. www.ntfsundelete.com www.recuva.com www.cgsecurity.org or commercial recovery software (r-studio, active@ undelete, easyrecovery, ufs explorer, and a bunch of others)

Do not attempt to run CHKDSK, defrag, or any other similar utilities that claim to fix drives as you will definitely have a problem finding your data after that.

If you hear any loud noises from the disk, discontinue immediately and call someone who can help.

While it may be tempting to take shortcuts, don't. Do not recover data to the same drive on which it was lost. An external backup drive works fine for that purpose.

Aint that the truth. I have had windows reboot and say "checking drive D". It wasnt checking it, it was trashing it. I turned that automatic feature off. I now only let windows check the drive only after I know I have nothing to loose. I aways run GetDataBack to get my data back, before I attempt any repairing. And I have 100% sucessrate with that method.

Sorry i forgot to mention that i am using vista, also after reading the posts i can tell you that the computer has been surfing the web quite alot in the past week or two since data was lost

Will this make it impossible or should i still try anyway?

Many thanks!!

Ray

So use any good external hard drive to recover to?


Thankyou!

Ray

My preference is Acomdata - easiest to take apart to extract the internal drive. I usually buy them because they are cheaper than bare internal drives. Got a stack of them and certainly love them.

Anyway it's not necessary to buy a new external drive for the purpose, you may ask a friend if he has one to lend you, maybe you have to empty it...