How do I recover deleted files from a computer?

Q My computer runs Windows XP and I keep a lot of files in my Documents folder, some of which are pictures that I hadn’t backed up. I mistakenly deleted some, which moved them to the Recycle Bin. I then emptied it without thinking, deleting them permanently. How can I recover these deleted files from the hard disk?
George Comb

A Some of the pictures may be recoverable, and we recommend some free software called Recuva Portable for the task. Recuva can see files and folders that have been deleted on a hard disk.

However, it may not be possible to recover them, as the pictures may have already been overwritten.
When a file is deleted, it remains on the hard disk and can be recovered, until is overwritten by another file.

Windows constantly writes temporary files to the hard disk, so don’t expect perfect results from Recuva, especially if you have used your computer a lot since they were deleted.

We recommend downloading Recuva Portable onto a USB memory key and running it from there, rather than installing the main program to your hard disk, which may overwrite your lost pictures.
It’s also better to download it using another computer, as even visiting a web page and downloading a file may cause Windows to write some temporary files.

It is best to not use your computer again until you have scanned it for the deleted files.
Download Recuva Portable from our website. Click the Download Now button, then when a file download box appears, click Save and choose the drive letter of your USB memory key. Click Save, then remove the USB key from the computer.

Turn on your own computer, wait for it to start, then insert the USB memory key into it. Open the USB memory key in Windows, double-click on the resetup137.zip file, then run Recuva.exe from inside it.

When Recuva loads it will show the Recuva Wizard. Click Next to move past the welcome screen, then choose Pictures when the following screen asks which type of files to search for. There are also options to search for Music, Video and Emails. Choose the Other option to show every file that can be recovered.

Click Next again, then on the following screen, which asks where to search for lost files, choose the ‘In the Recycle Bin’ option, then click Next. If you accidentally deleted files from a folder and forgot the name of it, leave the ‘ I’m not sure’ option enabled instead. The more locations Recuva has to scan, the longer the scan will take.

At the final screen, there is a setting to Enable Deep Scan. If you tick the box next to it, the search will be more thorough, and has a higher chance of finding deleted files, but it will take much longer. It can take hours on a large hard disk. Run the search first with the box left unticked, and if it finds nothing, try another search with the setting enabled.

While some of your pictures may have been overwritten and left unrecoverable, some may be intact, so Recuva may be able to recover them.

When the scan has finished, it will show previews of the pictures it has found. Tick the box next to each deleted picture you wish to retrieve, then click Recover. It will ask you to choose a place to save the pictures. If you plan to continue searching your hard disk for deleted files, you should choose a different location, such as the USB memory key you have run Recuva from, or external hard disk.

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