Recovering Deleted Files

In this day and age of digital information, we've become dependent on our computers to organized much of that information.  With everything from documents to multimedia put in the form of a data file, sometimes we forget just how easy it can be to lose them.  So lets say you accidentally delete some of that important data and it somehow missed the Windows recycle bin, is all hope lost?  Though the recycling bin is present as a safety net against accidental or mistaken file deletion, just because it's not in there doesn't mean your data is gone forever.

Data that is deleted from a hard drive is not actually removed from the disk. It is simply marked by the operating system as having been deleted, and will be treated as empty disk space from then on. Until it is actually written over by new data, the old data remains and is easy to recover.

Fortunately these days, there is software available to fix problems like this.  To get your data back, a good program that comes to mind is Restoration (http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html), a free file recovery utility. This program is small, effective and very easy to use, which is a good thing.

To recover accidentally deleted files with Restoration:

1. Start Restoration.
2. Choose the drive you wish to scan in the "drives" drop down box, and click 'search by deleted files.
3. A list of deleted files is created. To restore one or more files, highlight them and click "restore by copying" then choose a target directory.

Of course Restoration is only useful if you have a functional Windows.  If somehow your entire hard drive gets wiped out or has its table of contents and/or partition configuration corrupted, then you're going to need to bring your computer to your local computer repair shop for more extensive service.  Standard data recovery is one of the many services we offer here at Excel Computers.  So again, don't panic if you've accidentally deleted important data, as you at least have a couple options to get it back.