How to get back deleted Files

We have all done it and it is a horrible feeling. You mistakenly delete a file, not realizing what it is and then when you go back to get it, your computer tells you that it does not exist anymore. You get that sick feeling and then the panic attack starts. Before you pass out, you have a couple of options, but before you do anything, DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANYTHING ELSE ON YOUR MACHINE UNTIL YOU GET THOSE FILES BACK!

Sorry, I didn't meat to scream but it was an important point. The first thing you are going to do is look in your recycle bin, if you haven't cleared it yet, the file will still be that little trash can. All you have to do is right click on the file, hit restore and you are good to go, no harm no foul.

That would be great you say, but you just cleared the trash can. Well I can still help you, go back into the recycle bin and hit your ctrl button and the z button. It will undo your last action and if they were the last files that you deleted, they will be back before your eyes in a second. Restore them as above and you are good to go again.

If you have done everything above and still no luck, we are running out of options, but we are not done fighting. If it was a program file, you can go into applications and do a system restore to a point that was earlier than when you made the delete. You will have all of your files back completely in tact.

Now if it gets to a point that you do that and still don't have the files, you need to get some software. This is where people run into trouble. You cannot download or you run the risk of writing over the files so you will need to download the software on another computer and then put it on a disk. Then you can run it and you may get lucky and the software will be on there. If that doesn't work, unfortunately, you are pretty much out of luck.

How to recover data from a formatted hard drive

Formatting a computer hard drive is a serious matter, but not quite as serious as some people would assume. Contrary to popular belief, formatting a hard drive does not erase everything on the drive. In fact, it doesn’t erase anything at all. What it does do is to remove the files from the computer’s File Allocation Tables (FAT), essentially telling the computer that it is safe to use this space. But until the computer uses that space, the files are still there and can be easily recovered. If you have lost important data cause a hard drive being formatted, or maybe just want to see what used to be on that used computer you bought, keep reading to learn how to recover data from a formatted hard drive.

1.Understand that formatting the hard drive does not remove the data from your computer. As long as nothing else is written over the top of the data, it is still available and can be recovered. It is simply invisible, so to speak. You should, however, make an attempt to recover the data as soon as possible, to help prevent the space from being used by another file or program.

2.Evaluate the options that are available to you from a data recovery software. There are a large number of software products available that will recover the data from a formatted hard drive. “Uneraser” is one of the most popular, but there are many available with prices ranging from free to expensive. Doing an online search for “hard drive recovery” or “data recovery software” will give you a large number of options to choose from.

3.Download and install the software that you selected in the previous step. If you selected a software package that costs money, you will need to pay before you can download the program. Otherwise, follow the product instructions for how to install the recovery software onto your computer. This is normally an automated process that requires little interaction from the user, if any at all.

4.Open the software and follow the on-screen instructions to recover the data from your hard drive. At this point it is basically up to the software to do all of the work. As long as no other files, including the data recovery software you just downloaded, have rewritten the hard drive space, you should be able to recover what was previously there.

How to Back Up Data

If you are like me, then you spend a lot of time on the computer. Whether the time you spend on the PC (or Mac) is for business or pleasure, then you are part of the IT revolution. Data is the way that we create all the details we have been working on and this data is very important to retain as all our work will be lost without it.

In a normal week, I may send 100 emails and receive just as many, I would be lost without my emails and I think I have over 1000 in my inbox! I know that Outlook will of course save all my emails for me, and also back them up when it requests to do so, but this is not the end of the story. If I was to backup my Outlook files and save them onto my hard disk, then all I have is one copy. If my hard disk was to fail, then all my emails and my backup of my emails have gone! So if Outlook wants to create a backup, I would suggest making 2 more copies of this backup. The first copy I would suggest storing on a DVD, CD or memory stick, and the second copy would be best kept in an online storage facility.

Online storage is great if, like me, you are on the road a lot. I have several ways of keeping my data backed up, but the main way I normally access the data is on the internet. At the moment, I am sat in a café away from home, and I know for a fact that all the important data I need is available in a few keystrokes!

I recommend using online storage - with password protected files - as an extremely useful alternative to a memory stick or DVD. At least an online storage method is not going to get scratched or lost as a DVD or memory stick can be.

Recovering Your PC With Vista Backup

A pre-requisite to using this feature of Vista is buying the license for either Vista Business or Ultimate editions. Unfortunately Microsoft have not made it available in other versions of Vista. There are two types of backup you can use, and they affect how you restore the system:

1. Using the 'Backup Computer' it's possible to write what's called an image backup of your entire PC to a backup device usually a USB stick or external drive. This snapshot of your entire system allows you to recover exactly to the same point in time. However, because it is an 'image' of your system drive it requires the restoring PC to have a system drive of at least the same capacity. Usually it would be the same PC so this is not a problem. It is also the lengthier of the two backup options as it backs up the whole machine.

2. Using 'Backup Files' you can backup selected data files such as images, photos, music, documents, spreadsheets, emails and application data. This type of backup is incremental i.e. it only backs up changed files and therefore is usually very fast taking only a few minutes. However it will not enable you to restore a full system, only those backed up files.

Typically we advise you use both types of backup and blend them to cover all your data and system. So for example you might take a complete backup weekly, but a file backup daily. In the event of a disaster you would need to restore the system backup first, and then each daily backup (since its incremental) that contains changes that will not be on the full system backup.

The service has a scheduling function within it so that regular file or full image backups can be taken on a regular basis be that daily, weekly or monthly, whatever suits your needs. With the speed of modern drives the backup of your entire PC can be done within an hour and in the event of a disaster be recovered in a similar amount of time.

There are many options for backup devices but with the steadily decreasing cost of external hard drives and USB memory sticks these are looking like the consumer and very small business users backup device of choice. You need a minimum of 80GB of space to backup up your entire system and that's what I'd recommend you do. An external hard drive would normally be connected to your PC via a free USB2 socket, however in some instances you may also have eSATA, Ethernet or Firewire (IEEE1394) connections available as alternatives. The fastest connections to use for backup in reverse order are USB2, Firewire and eSATA.

Should your machine stop working for either software or hardware related reasons the Image backup allows you to return it to its last working state to and be confident that everything should work perfectly as it did previously. What this means is that should anything go wrong with your current installation like a faulty hard drive, corrupt windows file or Virus problems, all that is needed to be done is to enter the Windows Vista Ultimate or Business disc, plug in the backup device and start the PC. Once you have done so, follow the steps below to fully restore your PC to the exact state as it was at the last backup.

Keeping your back-up image up to date means you don't have to worry about any problems caused by software errors, virus infections, hardware failures or corruption. Similarly, should your system hard disk fail entirely, all that would need to be done would be to get a replacement, install it and then follow the process of a system restore and you would have your operating system and software back as it was before.

Please note system restore points described in Windows are a different tool. They save operating system files as a snapshot at a given time in another directory (usually hidden) on your system disk so that without referring to a backup you can reverse a hot fix, service pack or driver update should it prove to cause instability or bugs. This is obviously no use to you is the system disk fails or becomes corrupted.