Resurrect wanted files that have disappeared from the Recycle Bin

To begin, launch a web browser and go to the Power Data Recover website. Then click the Download tab at the top of the screen. Scroll down to find and click the orange Download button below the ‘MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition’ heading. If the File Download Security Warning dialogue box appears, click Save and choose a location for the file. Firefox users should select Save File to save the download to Firefox's default download folder. Now double-click the downloaded file to launch the installation wizard. If possible, we advise installing the program onto a drive that’s different from the one that contains the deleted file (because the very process of installing a new program may result in the deleted file’s disk location being overwritten with new data).

When the installation is complete, leave the ‘Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery’ box ticked and click Finish to launch the application. On the opening page, click the Undelete Recovery button. Now click to select the drive that contains the deleted data and click Recover. Power Data Recovery will analyse the selected drive (or drive partition) – this may take a little while.

When the analysis is finished, the program displays the drive’s current contents, along with a Lost Files folder. In fact, any folder that is marked with a red cross or a question mark may contain deleted files. Browse through the different folders in the same way as navigating Windows Explorer (so double-click to expand a folder in order to view its contents, for example). There is also a Find file button in the left-hand pane: if you know part or all of the lost file’s name, click this button, type the details into the File Name box and click Find Next. However, bear in mind that deleted files may not include the original file name or the correct extensions. Use the preview facility to help identify a file by looking at its contents.

Use the tick boxes next to each file to select one or more files. Choosing a folder selects its entire contents. To control what’s recovered, first double-click a folder to see its contents and click to deselect files that aren’t required. Remember to check the Lost Files folder: this may contain files whose original folders are not known.

Click the column headings to sort the contents of the current folder (by file name, size or date), clicking once to sort the relevant column in ascending order and again to sort it in descending order. If there are many files, click the Advanced Filter button to apply sorting on several criteria to narrow down the search. Once the file or files that have been lost are identified and selected, click the button marked Save Files. This begins the recovery process.

Provide the file location to save the recovered data. As per our earlier advice, if it’s possible, choose a different drive to the one containing the lost data – a USB memory key, for example. This is important to prevent accidentally overwriting the lost data during recovery. Click Browse and navigate to the relevant drive and folder to use for this purpose, then click OK to save the recovered data. Once recovered, browse to the files and try to open them using an appropriate application. Save the recovered files again to restore them fully to their original location.