I’m about to send my computer in to be refurbished/cleaned out.
I was just saving all of my important info/docs/pics/etc when I realized that some pics I thought I had on here aren’t here anymore. I think they might have been deleted or something, but my recycle bin is clean.
So I’m wondering how I can go about getting my deleted pics back. I know they have to be saved in my hard drive somewhere, unfortunately I have not a clue where to look.
Any advice?
If they are saved on your hard drive can’t you do something like do a search for .jpg files or whatever file extension your pics usually are?
If they are saved on your hard drive can’t you do something like do a search for .jpg files or whatever file extension your pics usually are?
[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
I’m about to send my computer in to be refurbished/cleaned out.
I was just saving all of my important info/docs/pics/etc when I realized that some pics I thought I had on here aren’t here anymore. I think they might have been deleted or something, but my recycle bin is clean.
So I’m wondering how I can go about getting my deleted pics back. I know they have to be saved in my hard drive somewhere, unfortunately I have not a clue where to look.
Any advice?[/quote]
The deleted files may still be on your hard drive. When you delete a file, the operating system doesn’t normally remove it. Instead, the first letter of the file name is changed to a character that the OS doesn’t recognize, but the file is still there. So, those files you accidentally deleted can often be recovered, unless other files have since been written over the disk space they occupied.
This free program, Restoration, may be helpful:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/Restoration.shtml
Quoting from the publisher:
"Recovering deleted files is a task that can be accomplished using a variety of tools, some of which target specific formats. Restoration is one of the apps that will help you get back erased data regardless of the file type you’re after.
One of the greatest things about Restoration is that it doesn’t need to be installed, so you can basically run it from a USB flash drive, a CD or even a floppy drive.
It has a nice, simple and very clean interface, with minimal settings, so you can easily take advantage of its powerful recovery features. Just pick the drives you want to scan for removed files, wait a little bit, choose the files and hit the Restore button to have them back.
Of course, scanning takes a while, especially if you have very large hard disks, but during out tests the overall search time was measured in seconds rather than in minutes. Also, the recovery was very efficient in our case, but it might sometimes fail if it has to deal with really old files that will be only partially restored.
Restoration is a pretty fast application and it works very smooth, so it won’t eat up system resources while searching for files to be recovered.
Overall, Restoration is one of the first tools to try if you accidentally removed some important files, but just as any software it cannot do the impossible and bring back files erased beyond recovery."
One caution: If you have an external drive or a USB drive, install the program to that, so that you don’t overwrite any deleted files on your hard drive. Then run Restoration. It will “find” a lot of the stuff that you thought was gone. Like magic. Good luck with getting your files back.
[quote]cakewalk wrote:
[quote]Phoenix44e wrote:
I’m about to send my computer in to be refurbished/cleaned out.
I was just saving all of my important info/docs/pics/etc when I realized that some pics I thought I had on here aren’t here anymore. I think they might have been deleted or something, but my recycle bin is clean.
So I’m wondering how I can go about getting my deleted pics back. I know they have to be saved in my hard drive somewhere, unfortunately I have not a clue where to look.
Any advice?[/quote]
The deleted files may still be on your hard drive. When you delete a file, the operating system doesn’t normally remove it. Instead, the first letter of the file name is changed to a character that the OS doesn’t recognize, but the file is still there. So, those files you accidentally deleted can often be recovered, unless other files have since been written over the disk space they occupied.
This free program, Restoration, may be helpful:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Back-Up-and-Recovery/Restoration.shtml
Quoting from the publisher:
"Recovering deleted files is a task that can be accomplished using a variety of tools, some of which target specific formats. Restoration is one of the apps that will help you get back erased data regardless of the file type you’re after.
One of the greatest things about Restoration is that it doesn’t need to be installed, so you can basically run it from a USB flash drive, a CD or even a floppy drive.
It has a nice, simple and very clean interface, with minimal settings, so you can easily take advantage of its powerful recovery features. Just pick the drives you want to scan for removed files, wait a little bit, choose the files and hit the Restore button to have them back.
Of course, scanning takes a while, especially if you have very large hard disks, but during out tests the overall search time was measured in seconds rather than in minutes. Also, the recovery was very efficient in our case, but it might sometimes fail if it has to deal with really old files that will be only partially restored.
Restoration is a pretty fast application and it works very smooth, so it won’t eat up system resources while searching for files to be recovered.
Overall, Restoration is one of the first tools to try if you accidentally removed some important files, but just as any software it cannot do the impossible and bring back files erased beyond recovery."
One caution: If you have an external drive or a USB drive, install the program to that, so that you don’t overwrite any deleted files on your hard drive. Then run Restoration. It will “find” a lot of the stuff that you thought was gone. Like magic. Good luck with getting your files back.[/quote]
This is good advice.
Actually if you knew what folder the pictures were in last, you could use window’s built in versioning software to restore it in 2 clicks. At this point you’ll need undelete software like cake mentioned.
Hope you aren’t using a Mac. Recovering data with Windows is WAY easier than it should be. With Macs, in most cases you are just SOL.
If you didn’t lose them and actually deleted them try testdisk and photorec.
I’ve used it with some success to pull data off a dead hard drive.
Mac is unix based. I think this will work on mac/linux/windows/and maybe even solaris.
Pics or it didn’t happen