digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About
See the original image at lifehacker.com

How to Recover Deleted Files with Free Software

lifehacker.com — You delete an important file, somehow it skips your Recycle Bin altogether, and for all practical purposes, it's disappeared into the ether. But before you hit the big red panic button, there's a very good chance that your file is still alive and kicking somewhere on your hard drive—you just need to know how to find it.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 11, 2008

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

47 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • FUR10N, on 06/11/2008, -11/+35stop digging all of the comments down! It is just stupid and doesn't help anyone.
  • triont, on 06/11/2008, -8/+26Ok it was funny the first few times, but this ***** is just getting old.
  • LemonDefragger, on 06/11/2008, -5/+14dont mind me... im hiding from the bury brigade.... shhhh
  • WCL23, on 06/11/2008, -11/+16Lame burying is lame
  • Lunarbunny, on 06/11/2008, -1/+3Last time I had to recover anything I used Free Undelete
  • Darkx1337, on 06/12/2008, -0/+1I fail at spelling. XD
  • adamk0310, on 06/12/2008, -0/+1"Somehow it skips your Recycle Bin altogether,"

    Say what?
  • Aleksej, on 06/18/2008, -0/+1Indeed, PhotoRec being an exception.
  • JQP123, on 06/11/2008, -1/+2And in a quick test using 1 file on an NTFS volume ... it didn't work.
  • Dailydose4me, on 06/11/2008, -3/+4Good tool, but this is not something thall excite me.
  • koji, on 06/11/2008, -1/+2Mmmm... you only need one cd with a lot of options to this task, Ultimate Boot CD for Windows ( http://ubcd4win.com/ )

  • tl01, on 02/12/2009, -0/+0very useful information

    E-Guide to Dating: http://yaydating.blogspot.com/
    Become a Real-Life Guitar Hero: http://beaguitarhero.blogspot.com/
    Weight Loss Guide: http://losedempounds.blogspot.com/
  • hysterix, on 06/12/2008, -0/+0How much physical labor did you have to do in order to break a sweat getting your old "pr0n" back?
  • SunAlex, on 08/28/2008, -0/+0oh great. I need this information. thanks.
    http://www.sunayana2007.org
    http://vva272nc.org/specialneeds.htm
    http://www.devserve.co.za/PPNRM%20course.htm
    http://trulyequal.com/page/8/
    http://sooslic.com/?id=674
    http://search.ashtech.info/
  • rocknight, on 06/27/2008, -0/+0How do I get the spyware doctor license, free?
  • Culyt, on 06/11/2008, -2/+2Linux users should look at shred (for both files and harddrives since they are the same thing under Linux)
    TrueCrypt works on Linux too, there are a whole load of other encryption solutions though. TrueCrypt is probaly better as a file vault or for memory sticks. For a whole hdd encryption you might want to look at dm-crypt or something.
  • hysterix, on 06/12/2008, -1/+01998 called, it wants its article back
  • biggrz, on 06/11/2008, -3/+2Recuva is free, and handles all the major file systems.
  • ataylor32, on 06/11/2008, -16/+15I've used Restoration a few times and it works quite nicely. I've been able to restore deleted files from a hard drive and also an SD card
  • inactive, on 06/11/2008, -24/+23If you want to prevent data from being recovered use these free tools:

    Eraser: www.heidi.ie/eraser/ (file shredder)
    DBan: dban.sourceforge.net (hard drive eraser)
    TrueCrypt:www.truecrypt.org (hard drive encryption)
  • webkami, on 06/11/2008, -2/+1Happens to me as well. I accidentally delete files with shift delete.

    However I was talking about people who *accidentally* delete files. IT support guys will know what I mean.
  • Darkx1337, on 06/12/2008, -3/+1Sweat! I got my old pr0n back! Epic win.
  • turpialito, on 06/11/2008, -3/+1Not so. Sometimes I delete a file because I'm working on another version. Sometimes I find the need to go back to the deleted version. I'm a habitual Shift-Delete user. Force of habit. Avira Unerase has saved my arse a couple times.
  • jts8, on 06/11/2008, -3/+1How about just keeping a backup? I mean how hard is it to copy the MyPictures folder to an external drive every so often?
  • ligyron, on 06/11/2008, -4/+1Yeah, Eraser and DBan have a tendency to completely purge your entire harddrive when ran. I don't know if I would trust them
  • Giga, on 06/11/2008, -4/+1Same goes for Linux and OS X.
  • sevenalive, on 06/11/2008, -16/+12Wow who keeps digging everyone down, some of these comments are useful, like the one about finding lost porn lol. Or the one with other tools like truecrypt.
  • peestandingup, on 06/11/2008, -12/+6Reading this made me do a fresh backup of my system.
  • Rowan187, on 06/11/2008, -17/+11I've used Recuva (http://www.recuva.com/) on several occasions, its very nice, and kind of fun for snooping around on people's computers... weird.
  • webkami, on 06/11/2008, -8/+1^^^^ hey people he is hiding here
  • inactive, on 06/11/2008, -7/+0i ran eraser on my unused hd space and it ***** up my system. i had to reinstall windows.
  • svensksvamp, on 06/11/2008, -8/+1I love the Time Machine.
  • Cubedude04, on 06/11/2008, -13/+6This has the makings of a graveyard thread.
  • chikuten, on 06/11/2008, -13/+5buried in my common knowledge pile
  • tama00, on 06/11/2008, -12/+4whoa your files arent safe on windows when you delete them either..
  • slkingmjg, on 06/11/2008, -12/+4http://digg.com/comedy/Novelty_staircase
  • mickstephenson, on 06/11/2008, -19/+11Buried as inaccurate, title is misleading this is not Free Software
  • h4mx0r, on 06/11/2008, -17/+9I will admit there are times when I delete something, then think about it not too long after and go "Hmm, that wasn't a very good idea."

    Of course, usually it's some really trivial thing I deleted, but sometimes things are a bit rarer...
  • craighamnett, on 06/11/2008, -13/+4These comments suck.
  • ideacreativenet, on 06/11/2008, -18/+8thanks for your great article, i will wait your next resource
  • inactive, on 06/11/2008, -16/+6.ʇxǝʇ uʍop ǝpısdn ʎɹʇ ǝɯ ʇǝ1 ¿uʍop bbnp buıʇʇǝb ǝuoʎɹǝʌǝ sı ʎɥʍ
  • jwalske, on 06/11/2008, -15/+5These comments REALLY suck!
  • Kratos76, on 06/10/2008, -20/+9Awesome article and links... Digging for reference so weeks later when I'm trying to find it I'll be able to!
  • Subriot, on 06/11/2008, -20/+9Great for finding my lost porn, A+++ would use again
  • webkami, on 06/11/2008, -20/+9People who delete files *accidentally* are not clever enough to even run recovery software.
    ...talking from experience
  • jmp478, on 06/11/2008, -21/+7For us lucky Leopard folks, this is done automatically with Time Machine ;)

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.