It happens to everyone eventually. You’re putting the finishing touches on a project, you’re exhausted, and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, everything you’ve been working on is gone.
Blame it on Shift + Delete. You can’t live with it, you can live without it. The important thing is to be ready when it finally happens, because the first step in data recovery is to stop using the drive from which you’ve just deleted the files you need to restore. You definitely don’t want to spend those precious minutes following the deletion and inevitable flurry of curses that follow surfing the internet for recovery software. So download one of these now as insurance against future emergencies!
For those of you who have come to this page by way of Google in the middle of such an emergency, here’s what you need to do:
1. STOP USING THE DRIVE YOU WANT TO RECOVER FILES FROM! Stop everything you’re doing the moment you delete anything you want back to prevent overwriting what you’ve lost. Shut down all other applications that write to that drive, and if you need to save something that you’re working on in order to shut down an application, save it to another drive. It’s best to have these utilities on hand, but if you have to look for them, use another computer. If it’s going to be a while before you get around to using a recovery utility, you might also consider shutting down the computer altogether, since Windows always has a couple systems running in the background.
2. Don’t put any of these utilities on a drive after deleting something you want to recover, otherwise you run the risk of overwriting whatever you’re trying to restore. The following software will all run from a USB thumb drive, and that’s where they should stay until you’re done.
3. Don’t save the files you recover to the same drive that you’re recovering them from. This is a recipe for disaster, as what you’ll probably recover on the first attempt will be whatever temporary file the system creates as it works with the files that you actually want back.
4. As with any software, make sure you download these utilities from their developer’s website, not from some no-name third party. Scan it with an anti-malware package before you use any of them if you have any doubt as to their authenticity. These sort of “panic downloads” are prime opportunities for hackers and script kiddies.
5. If you don’t have a floppy drive, thumb drive, or second hard drive, take this as a lesson. Go out and buy one tomorrow.
Here are top dozen free file recovery utilities on the Internet, in alphabetical order. I haven’t rated them, because I fully recognize that everyone is going to judge them by a different set of criteria, but I have learned that they don’t all work exactly the same. Some recover files that others don’t. Some recover a ton of junk system files along with what you need. So, if one doesn’t work, don’t despair! Just move on to the next one.
It bears mentioning that, for my money, Restoration is the best utility on this list. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistle of some of the other choices out there, but it’s quick and simple.
ADRC Data Recovery Software Tools (44.4 KB)
Contains a collection of DIY data recovery tools that supports a wide variety of drives and file systems. The software incorporates extremely simple GUI with novice users in mind.
Official ADRC Website
Avira UnErase Personal (402 KB)
Recovers data that have been deleted from the hard drive – either accidentally or as a result of a virus infection, an uninstaller or defective software. The danger of important data being lost forever is averted with Avira UnErase.
Official Avira UnErase Personal Website
Glary Undelete (1.17 MB)
A free and easy-to-use yet powerful file undelete solution for FAT and NTFS file systems. It will bring back files emptied from the Recycle Bin, in a DOS window, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down. It will even recover files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!
Official Glary Undelete Website
Pandora Recovery (2.12 MB)
A powerful free tool that provides its users an effective way to attempt recovery of permanently deleted files. It can recover files that have been deleted months before Pandora Recovery was installed.
Official Pandora Recovery Website
PC INSPECTOR File Recovery (5.83 MB)
A data recovery program that supports the FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS file systems, even when a header entry is no longer available.
Official PC INSPECTOR Website
Recuva (647 KB)
A freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!
Official Recuva Website
Restoration (163 KB)
Restore files which are deleted from the recycle bin or deleted while holding down the Shift key by mistake.
Conversely, this program has another function that makes it almost impossible to restore all deleted files.
You can use it after deletion of confidential documents, embarrassing files and so on.
Official Restoration Website | Restoration Mirror
SoftPerfect File Recovery (247 KB)
A free and useful tool to restore accidentally deleted files from hard and floppy disks, USB flash drives, CF and SD cards and other storage media. It supports the popular file systems such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 with compression and encryption.
Official SoftPerfect File Recovery Website
TOKIWA DataRecovery (198 KB)
Freeware from Japanese developer TOKIWA able to undelete accidentally deleted files. It supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS undeletion. Even in both NTFS compressed files and EFS encrypted files. The major draw-back to using this utility is that it is painfully obvious that English is not the first language of the author of the developer’s website, so if you have questions, you’re on your own.
Official TOKIWA DataRecovery Website
Undelete Plus (583 KB)
A quick and effective way to restore accidentally deleted files. It can also recover files that have been emptied from the Recycle Bin, permanently deleted files within Windows using the Shift + Delete, and files that have been deleted from within a Command
Prompt. Allows the recovery of deleted files from NTFS/NTFS5, and FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 volumes.
Official Undelete Plus website
Like I said, Restoration is my favorite of the list. If you prefer another, leave a comment explaining why. If you know of a fully functional, free utility I’ve omitted from the list, leave a link below.
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