It's Easy to Undelete Data
If only managing your hard drive were as easy as using a word processor. In a word processor, all you need to do when you make a mistake is hit the Undo button and you are back where you started. If you accidentally delete a word, sentence, paragraph, or entire section, a simple combination keystroke of Control plus Z is all it takes to undelete your mistake and get your text back.
When you delete data from your hard drive, it's not so simple. It's possible but not simple. Or is it? Many computer users are unaware that you can undelete data from your hard drive. Here's how to unerase data.
If you delete a file that you meant to keep, simply cruise over to the Recycle Bin and restore it. The Recycle Bin is located on your desktop. Double-click it and you will see all items that have recently been deleted. Find the file that you just deleted and right click on it. Several options come up in a menu, one of which will let you undelete data. Click the "Restore" option and your file will be restored to its original location.
The problem with using the Recycle Bin to unerase data is that more often than not, the Recycle Bin is empty. In an effort to gain more disk space, you may have emptied it. When you need to undelete files and the files are no longer safely waiting for restoration in the Recycle Bin, you need outside help getting them back.
Data recovery services can get data back even if you have emptied the Recycle Bin or even if you have completely reformatted the drive. These services use special tools to go in and recover the data. If your hard drive is physically damaged, you'll definitely need the help of experts. For simple data recovery where you just need to undelete data or a file or two, data recovery services may be too expensive for your needs. For example, if you just transcribed data from an audio recording to a word processor and accidentally deleted your new document, paying hundreds of dollars to get it back might not make sense. It may be smarter to retype the document and move on.
A better idea is to use software to unerase data on your own. Data recovery software is powerful and available to the general public. These utilities work because deleted data isn't actually erased until Windows overwrites it with something else. With data recovery software, you can undelete data easily. These programs are reasonably priced and easy enough for the average computer user to use.
If you need to unerase data, make sure to stop all hard drive operations so that your data doesn't become replaced with new documents, downloads, or software installations. If you're unsure that it will work, you can run free scans of many demo versions to see if your deleted data is a good candidate to be recovered. If so, activate the data recovery software and undelete data!
