How To Recover Lost Files

There are few moments as bad as the one when you realise that the report you were working on, your college work, family or holiday photos or other computer files seem to have vanished from your computer. But there is no need to get despondent. The chances are that your files are still there. Your computer simply doesn't know how to find them any more.

Causes of data loss

The most common reason for losing files is deletion. You deleted the files by mistake, or ran a disk cleanup utility that did it for you. The good news is that the data still exists. Only the pointers to where the data is have been deleted. If it has not been long since the files were deleted, the data will not have been re-used by another file, and there is a good chance of a successful recovery.

The next most common cause of data loss is overwriting. This is where you save a file using the same name as another one, destroying the original. This is not always as disastrous as it seems, because the computer may not have used the same bit of disk space to store the new file. The old data may still exist, even though it is no longer accessible by its filename.

File system corruption can result in missing files, corrupted files or even a computer that won't start up. Many people in this situation have thrown away their data, thinking that all is lost. In fact, this kind of problem is very often recoverable. Even if the system can't be restored to a state in which it will run Windows, Mac OS or whatever operating system you are using, it is generally possible to recover your data files before reformatting the disk and reinstalling the software.

Disk damage can result in read errors when you try to access certain files. This is often recoverable. Even complete hardware failure does not mean the data is lost. The magnetic encoding of the data on the surface of the disk is probably 100% intact, though you will probably need a data recovery service to repair the fault and make the disk readable again.

Recovering the data

If the data is still there, how to go about recovering it? Data recovery is a time-consuming process, and using a data recovery service is consequently expensive. There may be no other option in cases where the data is very important and the drive that held it is not accessible at all. But in most cases data can easily be recovered using do it yourself data recovery software.

Data recovery tools used to be rather technical in nature - and some of them still are - but you can now get data recovery utilities that can be used by the most non-technical of computer users. Such programs typically use a "wizard" - a familiar interface used by many different programs - to walk you through the recovery process. All you need to do, in essence, is tell the software where the data was held, wait while it scans the drive recovering files, and then examine the results, saving the files you want to keep to another drive.

If the data recovery software you choose doesn't find your data, it doesn't necessarily mean the data is not there. The best products use advanced technical algorithms to detect lost files where lesser tools miss them. As with most things in life, you get what you pay for.

With state of the art do it yourself data recovery software, losing important files from your computer is no longer the disaster it used to be. But of course, it's still no substitute for backing up your computer data regularly!

Listed below are more articles related to the above article from the "Data Backup Recovery" article category.

People interested in the above article "How To Recover Lost Files" are also interested in the related articles listed below:

Data Loss Prevention Tips - 10 Little Efforts That Can Truly Prevent Massive Data Loss! (Part 2)

There is nothing more frustrating than losing the important files and office documents that you have spent so much time and energy to create, edit, and publish them. Are you prepared for disastrous day? Is there any thing you can do to prevent it? Learn more how these "little" efforts can prevent you from "MASSIVE" data loss! In part 1 you already got the first 5 little efforts to prevent data loss, here are another 5 little efforts to make your protection complete...

Data Loss Prevention Tips - 10 Little Efforts That Can Truly Prevent Massive Data Loss! (Part 1)

There is nothing more frustrating than losing the important files and office documents that you have spent so much time and energy to create, edit, and publish them. Are you prepared for disastrous day? Is there any thing you can do to prevent it? Learn more how these "little" efforts can prevent you from "MASSIVE" data loss!

How To Recover Photos When Deleted

While we capture photos, we think of saving them on computer or any of the removable media like CD or DVD. We look at them a number of times, as they remind us of the precious moments of our lives. Though from our side we put all efforts to store these in the best possible way, still there are chances that these get deleted.

Have You Been a Victim of Personal Data Loss?

Have You Been a Victim of Personal Data Loss? Well it seems that you are not alone, according to one headline news there are more than 280 million people around the world are reported to have found themselves in the same position during the last three years. Read more...

Avoid Disaster Strikes With Online Data Storage

One of the most valuable assets most businesses have in today's modern economy is their electronic data. This includes financial information, contacts, e-mail messages, documents, spreadsheets, databases, and so much more. If your building burned down tonight, do you have a disaster recovery plan in place so that you would be able to recover all of your vital electronic data?

How Can You Proceed With Recevering The Data If A Hard Drive Crash Happens?

These days, computers have become a must have for nearly everyone. Even though they are great to have around and make our lives easier, they are also known to crash as well. With computers being electronic, there really is no way to make them fool proof. The hard drives that hold all of the information have mechanical parts, which means that they can crash at any given time - resulting in a loss of information, and maybe even a ruined hard drive.

Using External Backup Drive To Protect Your Data

Don't amazing if one day, you lost your data due to a virus or computer crash can be devastating. The process of recovering all that information is very time consuming and expensive. In many such instances the data is simply lost forever. If you have important information that you don’t want to be without you need to protect yourself now. Too many people wait to invest in an external backup drive until after they have experienced such a loss. You will find them readily available for desktop and laptop computers.