Recover Deleted Files

Are there any good recovery tools out there that can recover recently deleted files? This isn't an emergency, but I have lost several files in the last six months on separate occasions, and my recovery tools failed to bring them back even though I did everything recommended to prevent loss of data. These files are generally on separate drives from Windows, so Macrium Reflect is not really a solution, nor would I want the paid version to back up the files since that would result in massive disk space usage.

When I have lost files, I have immediately shut down all handles to the drive(s) that the files were lost from. I have then used the following software to try to recover my files:

• Recuva - Fails for recently deleted files but finds files from months ago?
• EaseUS Data Recovery - Same as Recuva
• StompSoft Recover Lost Data - Very old program that often finds the files but restores corrupted versions of the files
• iCare Format Recovery - Fairly old software that has the same issue as Recover Lost Data

By the way, I have a bad habit of always using Shift + Delete to delete files, which is why I sometimes lose files when I'm tired or stressed and not paying close enough attention. I do have my most important work related files on a backup routine to prevent that from happening, but personal media files take up too much space for that to be feasible.

on separate drives from Windows, so Macrium Reflect is not really a solution

- if the drives are internal to your PC, you could certainly use MR to image them- I do.
- or do you mean they are on USB disks?

I believe Active@ File Recovery Active@ File Recovery searches for lost RAIDs is one of the better ones - I remember using a partition recovery boot disk of theirs some years ago.

You'll be familiar with the quick scan and deeper scan these programs offer.

I think what would worry me is that you don't seem to have a backup of some of your data.
I put my images on a 2Tb hard drive, allowing for a base image and a number of differentials, giving plenty of space. You can see my disks from my specs.

As you know, base images are smaller than the data imaged, so images taking up, say, 0.5Tb, are quite manageable.

And once imaged, a differential image is relatively quick.

Xilnik said:

That is true if the data is compressible. Video files, which make up 99% of the data I am interested in protecting, are often not compressible. In fact, doing a test yesterday on a set of 23 GB worth of video files (files that would fit on a Blu-ray - R disc) resulted in an image that was 23.1 GB. The compression scheme added data by trying to compress the videos that could not be compressed.

Well, you have more chance of recovering small files rather than large files - the moment you delete a large file it gives OS lots of room to write temporary files, new files etc. and impact could be seconds after deletion.

You risk losing all your data - it is not a case of IF a drive will fail but WHEN it will fail. All drives fail sooner or later.

So if you do not backup your data, you risk losing everything.