Sometimes You Can “Recuva” Deleted Files

If you have deleted something you wish you wouldn’t have, you can get it back if you press Ctrl+Z right away. But if you’re like us and sometimes the zzzzz’s aren’t the computer kind, and you fail to use Ctrl + Z right away, you may still be able to “Recuva” them, by using a freeware programs called “Recuva” – nice play on words, eh?

We’ve explained — many times — what happens when you delete a file in Windows, but it never hurts to refresh our memories. So here goes:

When you delete a file in Windows, nothing is removed from your computer. Windows marks the space occupied by the file you deleted as unused. The file you deleted is still there but you can’t see it, access it or use it. If you act quickly enough, before the space that the file you deleted once occupied is reused by Windows, your can recover it using a free program called Recuva (you can get it at http://www.piraform.com/recuva ) .

Act quickly though. Use Recuva as soon after you’ve accidentally deleted the file as possible. Why? Because the longer you wait the greater the chance is that the space will be overwritten with other data, and if it is, retrieving the file(s) that you deleted will be much harder to recover.  And while you can sometimes recover files from overwritten space, you probably won’t be happy with their fidelity, especially photos. They’ll have bits and pieces missing and may not be acceptable to your discerning eyeballs.

Any file that ever existed on Windows – in fact everything you’ve written or done on your computer — can be resurrected using high-tech (and high dollar) forensics software. However, Recuva is free and doees a good job of restoring files you’ve accidentally delted – assuming you do wait too long after you’ve accidentally trashed them.

There are professional recovery tools that cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars that can successfully retrieve data from space which has been overwritten. These are forensic tools used by people like the NSA, FBI, CIA, your local police and data retrieval services who attempt to reconstruct data for companies and individuals who want to pay big bucks to get lost data back. We didn’t figure any of you would want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars 🙂 You, as a taxpayer (if you live in the USA) are already spending hundreds of dollars supporting the NSA, FBI, CIA, and your local police.  Lucky for you, Recuva is free. And in case you missed the link to get Recuva because of my incessant yammering, here ’tis again.

Oh EB, you’re not working for the NSA! Take off the silly spy hat.