Have you ever deleted a file and realized you shouldn’t have? Or how about made a few changes to that huge spreadsheet, and accidentally clicked “Save”?
The longer you wait and more you do, after that fateful action, the harder it is to recover your file. So it’s important that every single action, every click you make on the mouse be directed towards recovery of the file.
First note: DO NOT REBOOT unless absolutely necessary (like when installing some recovery software programs).
This makes it harder to recover.Option 1: Previous Versions
This is actually correctly termed as “Volume Shadow Copies”, and comes standard with Windows Vista and later. It also comes standard on Windows Server versions 2008 and later. It can be added to Windows XP and Server 2003 via add-ons, available for free download.
If you simply need to revert an existing file to an older version, this is a very good tool to use. However, with some creative use, it can restore deleted files, as well.
NOTE: This feature is NOT advisable to use as a primary backup system. Backups are a topic for a later post.
- Start by right-clicking on the file in question, and then click on “Properties”. A new window will pop up.
- In the tabs along the top, click on “Previous Versions”
- One or more versions of the file will show up – how many will depend on various factors – Each will have a date/time stamp to show you when that version was created.
- Click on the one you want, and click the “Restore” button at the bottom. This will undo all changes made to the file since that date and time.
- Alternately, you can choose “Open” or “Copy”, with those features functioning like they do anywhere else. If you open a Previous Version, it does NOT overwrite any changes since that version was created. It simply opens as a separate file. You can then save with a new name, save in a new location, whatever you’d like to do.
Volume Shadow Copies is a very flexible, and very powerful tool in undoing unwanted, but saved, changes. But how does it restore deleted files? Simply by restoring a previous version of the containing folder.
Follow all the same steps as above, but instead of navigating to (and right-clicking on) the file, you will click on the folder in which the file used to be located. One thing to note, however: If you restore a folder to a previous version, ALL the files in it will be reverted, not just the one that was missing. It may be safer to use the “Open” or “Copy” commands for folders.
How long Previous Versions are saved, and how frequently they are created, depends on several factors: How frequently the file(s) is edited, how much space is earmarked for Volume Shadow Copies by Windows (this can be changed by users), and if you turn your PC off very often.
Option 2: Recuva, Disk Digger and other software
So I’ve written before about CCleaner, the maintenance tool from Piriform. And those who know me know I prefer to stick with streamlined solutions; if a company offers solutions for more than one of my issues, I’ll tend to stick with them. In this fashion, a company has to perform well all-around, though not necessarily the best in a single area. It’s why I use Google for many of my home solutions.
So Recuva is Piriform’s file recovery software, and comes with some pretty rave reviews on various sites. And it appears to have a higher-than-average success rate when other software applications had failed. But it’s not perfect, and other applications have been shown to recover files when Recuva failed (and vice versa).
However, if you used CCleaner’s free space wiper function as part of its maintenance routine, even Recuva (or any other program) may be unable to find your deleted file(s).
I’ve no direct experience with Disk Digger and other programs, but they do have some very positive experiences, when even Recuva failed. I urge you to try them out.
Option 3: Restoring From a True Backup
This is the most likely to succeed, but requires forethought. If a backup isn’t generated, then there is nothing to restore.
Companies set up a backup scheme on server and network shares, but few do on users’ individual PCs.
Most home users rarely set this up, but they should.
To set up a backup properly, one needs another hard drive, USB stick, compact disc, or something NOT on the same physical device on which the file exists. Yes, this means that if you save a “backup” on the same disk that the original is on…it’s…well…NOT a backup.
The good news is that you don’t need a server to perform a backup. All you need is an external hard drive. You can pick up a small portable one for less than $75 from Newegg or Amazon. Hook it up to your PC, set up Windows Backup to run once a week or once a month (or however much you want to protect), and let it run. Now, if you need, you can restore files from your backup.
If you only want to backup a small amount of files (say, Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, for example), then copy them to a USB thumb drive periodically.
The best news: if your PC’s hard drive fails, you can still get your important files back, and have very little work to catch back up. This is why a true backup must be on a separate physical device.
Option 4: Online/Cloud Backups
This option is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s networked computing. We’ll cover these options in a later posting.
Comments? Questions? Feedback? Leave a comment below, or email me at jackrockblc+blog@gmail.com.
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