File recovery

[Callipygous]

my mother just spent an hour and half writing up some stuff for her work, and made 10 pages of stuff.

 

she saved that, and then deleted 8 of the pages, because she only wanted to send 2 of them to someone. she went to click save as to save the 2 page version as a seperate file, but her finger slipped and she hit save.

 

before coming to ask me, she for some reason closed the program so she cant just undo the deletes.

 

is there any way to recover her lost information?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

If she used Microsoft Word, you can try looking for any leftover backup files it makes (they're in a folder that you installed Word in... or something. Google it).

[5614]

Normally when you quit Word it will automatically delete all temporary backup files, leaving your single saved file.

 

If she had have deleted the file then there's all sorts of programs that are supposed to recover deleted files, not that any of them have ever worked for me, however she actually overwrote the file (with all 10 pages) with a new one (with only 2 pages), so I don't think it is possible to recover.

[Dak]

if you find one of the 'recover deleted files' programs, then you could recover the temp file (something like ~name.tmp, or ~name.doc, can't remember which, usually in the folder the document is in iirc), and then try opening it with word.

[5614]

Yes, from programs like Restoration:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

which is reviewed as "free, simple but with limited recovery capabilities" to more advanced programs which you need to pay for, such as DiskInternal's Uneraser:

http://www.diskinternals.com/

there are many programs which are designed to recover deleted files.

 

The reason these programs work is because when you delete a file from your computer it is not really deleted. What actually happens is that the space on the hard drive is marked as empty, so something new could be written onto it, however until something new is written there the old data remains. And this is the crucial point; if you've used the computer a lot (or even at all) since the temporary backup files created by Word were deleted, the chances are they have been overwritten by the computer.

 

The standard advice when you accidentally delete a file is stop using the computer, at all costs. Do not use it, for anything.

 

I've never had any luck with these programs, it was earlier today that someone asked me about them, he had tried using one of these programs and had no luck. I do know someone who recovered some music he had accidentally deleted, but generally they don't seem too efficient.

 

Obviously you could pay a professional to do recover a file. Again this is not guaranteed, but they seem to have some special method of recovering deleted, lost, corrupted or encrypted files. I'm sure you've heard of the police or FBI recovering deleted and encrypted files from computers and using that as evidence in court, if they can do it (and remember the criminal probably went to extra measures to hide, delete or encrypt the data), it is theoretically possible.

 

More generally you can always advise people to backup. I think that's one of those pieces of advice that many people give out, and not many people listen to. Sure some people backup data at the end of a working day, but even that would not have helped your mum. I'm afraid to say I think she was just unlucky, and I'm sorry for you, but you just have to live with it, life is harsh sometimes!

[Ndi]

Word saves tracking data with files if you keep hitting Save. So you can later Track Changes and you get deleted text as strike-through. That's why docs grow in size like crazy. Open the document and try to track changes.

 

It's also flushed at some point, depending on SOMETHING, maybe settings, may temp files being emptied, etc. It's also flushed when you Save As. Worth a shot. Otherwise, disk surface and odd recovery techniques will most likely get you garbled data and you'll be better off retyping. 8 pages is not that much damage.

 

Check the size. A 2-pager is somewhere in the range of 25K. A ten-pager is along the lines of 100K (depends, really). You might still get the data out.

[herme3]

Are you using Windows Vista? If so, you can right-click on the file and go to the properties. Click on "Previous Versions" and you should be able to find a version of the file that was saved before she deleted the pages.

 

I think this is one of the best features of Vista. There have been many times when I've accidentally clicked "Save" instead of "Save As". I sometimes forgot about the Undo button, and would just close the program. When I had Windows XP, I could never find a way to recover the previous versions of files.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I doubt his mother would be using a pre-release version of Vista.

[weknowthewor]

Yes man which Windows version are you using...?

[herme3]

I doubt his mother would be using a pre-release version of Vista.

 

My mother is. I put BETA2 on her computer, and she complained a lot at first. However, she didn't want to go back to XP once she realized the Mahjong Titans game was part of Vista. She hasn't complained at all since I upgraded her computer to Vista RC1, which is much more stable.

[Klaynos]

A prerelease OS on a production machine, something I'd never do.

 

And I'd think the ms word changes thing mentioned above is your best option...

[Callipygous]

shes using win xp home.

 

im guessing shes just redone it by now, but ill look into the file changes when i get home.

[oldo]

Are you using Windows Vista? If so, you can right-click on the file and go to the properties. Click on "Previous Versions" and you should be able to find a version of the file that was saved before she deleted the pages.

 

I think this is one of the best features of Vista. There have been many times when I've accidentally clicked "Save" instead of "Save As". I sometimes forgot about the Undo button, and would just close the program. When I had Windows XP, I could never find a way to recover the previous versions of files.

 

Interesting.. sounds like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_Shadow_Copy_Service or a similar concept. Think you have to enable it per-volume, and not sure it's enabled by default in XP, however it's certainly in services (sp2 atleast).

[chem-art]

Obviously you could pay a professional to do recover a file. Again this is not guaranteed, but they seem to have some special method of recovering deleted, lost, corrupted or encrypted files. I'm sure you've heard of the police or FBI recovering deleted and encrypted files from computers and using that as evidence in court, if they can do it (and remember the criminal probably went to extra measures to hide, delete or encrypt the data), it is theoretically possible.

Like i understand hard discs work with magnetic fields. How can you recover data if something was writen over it. Magnetic field changes... how are you supossed to see how it was magnetised before that? My logic is telling me that it is impossible. Anyone knows if it's true or not?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Chances are, though, that nothing was written over it. When a file is deleted, it's not "removed," it's just marked as "dead." It may be a while before it's overwritten.