Recovering Deleted Files

The Recycle Bin is a marvel to many. Delete something, and it's still there for recovery. Drag the file back out of the recycle bin, and it's back. Restore it, and viola, it's back to its original location. With a flick of the fingers, the file can also be gone, viola! But is it truly gone? When a file is deleted, the file's contents can still be retrieved by someone who is knows what they're doing. Overwritten files can also be potentially recovered.

Formatting your hard drive does not delete files either. File structure information is erased from existence, rather. The file contents still exists to be recovered. Files do not disappear until overwritten multiple times. This problem does not really matter unless you're dealing with very important and sensitive data.

To safely delete files, a third party application will be needed. SuperShredder is a freeware file shredder from AnalogX that will help you delete your files.

What about recovering? There are two possible approaches, getting file recovery software, or having scientists get rid of it for you. Doing a search on Google for file recovery services will return a list of different companies willing to help you.

Of course, you can also go the cheaper way, getting software to do it for you. PC INSPECTOR™'s File Recovery. PC INSPECTOR™ File Recovery is a data recovery program that supports the FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS file systems. It sports the following convenient features.

• Finds partitions automatically, even if the boot sector or FAT has been erased or damaged (does not work with the NTFS file system)
• Recovers files with the original time and date stamp
• Supports the saving of recovered files on network drives
• Recovers files, even when a header entry is no longer available. Competition products cannot recover such files.

The software is also free, just to make life easier.

We are not affiliated with any of the organizations mentioned in this article.

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