Today’s tip is on recovering deleted files from your hard drive… Accidentally deleting files is something we all try to avoid, but it can happen on occasion… Emptying the recycle bin before checking its contents, performing a Shift+Delete on a file or folder, or deleting a file from the command line can all render your data invisible to XP, and seemingly lost forever… This can be quite upsetting if the data in question was something you’ve spent a lot of time working on… Fortunately, your chances for recovery of deleted data are actually quite good, especially if you take immediate action…

Windows XP does not ship with any application for assisting you in recovering your data, so I would recommend using a free application called Restoration (mirror)… This program is very effective at recovering deleted files from your hard drive… The application does not require installation either, so it is a handy application to carry on a USB flash drive as well…

Below is an example of recovering files using Restoration:

Simply select the drive you’d like to restore from in the pulldown menu at the upper right, then click on the “Search Deleted Files” button… After the search is complete, select the files you’d like to restore and click on the “Restore By Copying” button…

It is important that you try to restore your files either to another drive or partition, so as to avoid overwriting information on your source drive… So if you only have one drive/partition, try to restore the data to diskette, USB flash drive, or a network drive…

Hopefully you’ll never need to put today’s tip to use, but if you ever need to undelete files, now you’ll be prepared…

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