Recovering Deleted Files

My Dad deleted a few powerpoint presentations the other day and I managed to recover them with GetBackData

Because it didn't show the files with their original names, I recovered all of the contents and went through them all and eventually found it. All of the other files were fully working and not corrupt.

I noticed that the size of the recovered files was about 3GB which I can't understand seeing as it came from a 2GB flash drive.

Can someone explain this phenomenon?


Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! (I know it's a bit late, but I was away for christmas)

Thanks,

Tom

Hi Tom,

For me, it's a few hours into the new day - a bit early, but not late at all. And Happy Holidays to you as well.

Chances are you recovered much more than was lost on this occasion - including data from months and maybe even years ago that was still on the drive. It isn't really deleted until it is overwritten (though how it recovered 1.5 the max size of the drive is another issue - could it be larger than it says?). Another possibility is that some of the data may have been compressed and you may have recovered the uncompressed versions. Also, the recovery software may have duplicated recoveries (tried, got most but didn't complete, tried again and succeeded - and saved both as separate recovered files) - or perhaps merely duplicated recoveries because it isn't working entirely properly (I'll bet if you check closely you find duplicates). Finally, it is possible that the conversion process somehow increased the file sizes - perhaps with recovery-related data (which may or may not be resolved by restoring the actual files) - though I don't know why that would happen and none of the products I recommend do this. This product is not one I use or recommend (not because I know it is bad, but because I've never tried it before and I always do my best to try eveything I recommend - and often keep it in case questions come up).

Also, I strongly suggest using Recuva instead as it is a much better program (and gives names) and works a lot easier (and is the most recommended one I know - for good reason - and I use it first myself): http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.html. (Use Recuva ONLY - nothing else suggested there on that link).

Here's what I generally tell people with lost data that needs to be recovered:

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First check the Recycle Bin to see if they are there. If so, just restore them and you’re good to go.

If you have Vista Business, Vista Ultimate, or Vista Enterprise you may be in luck. They have what is known as Shadow Copies which are saves of deleted or modified files which can be retrieved in case the changes/deletions were done in error. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/shadow-copy.aspx with further information on how to use this feature at: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/howdoi/?p=145.

If you have Vista Basic or Vista Premium, Shadow Copies is not available; however, there's an alternative that's free and mirrors the functionality of Shadow Copies called Shadow Explorer. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/recover-files-with-shadow-copies-on-any-version-of-windows-vista/. Though it won't help you this time, it could very well save you in case this happens again.

In case this doesn't work (not all files are available through Shadow Copies - it occurs periodically), here are some additional free recovery programs which might help. Files aren't actually deleted until they are overwritten (though they're no longer available through conventional methods). If you decide to try these recovery programs, you should stop using your hard drive immediately so you don't overwrite the data you are trying to recover. Slave it to another PC and run the recovery from that PC. Even now you may have permanently lost some of them if you're using that same PC. If you can't do that (slave to another PC), you run the risk of overwriting the data with every action you do on the PC (but you still may be able to recover some or most or even all of the files - it's a matter of luck).

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.html(try Recuva ONLY - do not purchase any products that aren’t free – here or in any of the other links – I’m just suggesting the FREE options and have had problems with some of the commercial ones)


http://www.snapfiles.com/get/diskdigger.html(try this second - if it doesn’t work either chances of recovery are very slim but you can try the other options if you wish)

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/easusdfr.html

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

http://www.snapfiles.com/downloads/recuva/dlrecuva.html

http://www.softperfect.com/products/filerecovery/

http://techpaul.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/how-to-recover-your-lost-files/

Only you can decide if the data is important enough to take the PC to a data recovery expert to recover the files (they will have better programs and equipment to do so than any of us do and than I provided above). Do NOT go to Geek Squad or any of those big store centers - they mostly don't know what they're doing - take it to a data recovery expert. It will cost quite a bit (I mean, a LOT) and they usually offer no guarantees – you typically pay the same price if they recover everything or if they recover nothing. The decision is yours.

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I hope this helps.

Good luck!

Annoyingly this will be the second time that I write this answer because I accidently closed the tab when I tried to look something up Oh well, I'll try and recite it again:

I'll change to Speccy then because not only does it sound and look better, but I also trust Piriform more than the developers of GetBackData.

Unfortunately I couldn't use shadow copies because the files were written from his XP laptop onto his flash drive and then I recovered them from my Windows 7 Ultimate laptop which wouldn't have had those files in the shadow copy.

What I still don't understand is how you can fit 3GB of data on a 2GB flash drive? Even if it was compressed, you couldn't shrink it by a compression ratio of 1.5.

Its funny that you mentioned the data recovery experts because last year the home computer had a hard drive failure causing us to lose a lot of data (or so we thought) until we sent the hard drive off to a company who managed to recover every file except for two photos which isn't a bad outcome considering

Once again, thanks for such a detailed answer Lorien

Tom

Tom,

Speccy doesn't really do this. Try Recuva - trust me, it's very good at what it does and is the best one out there. In fact, try it on the same flash drive and see the difference for yourself.

Thanks for the comments and the feedback and the rep - it is appreciated.

Good luck!

Sorry, I meant to say Recuva when I said Speccy. I was looking at Speccy when I was writing that