undelete posts

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Troubleshooting, Windows x64

Portable DiskDigger provides free file recovery for Windows

by Lee Mathews Feb 18th 2009

It never hurts to have one more data recovery utility in your portable toolkit, especially when it's free.

Like Recuva, Disk Digger is dead simple to use, and does a good job at recovering the deleted files most users really care about - photos, music, videos, and documents. The preview pane supports most image types and some documents, and you can choose to recover a portion of files DiskDigger finds. Scanning speed and restoration success was on par with Recuva in my testing.

On Vista and Windows 7 make sure you run DiskDigger as an Administrator, otherwise you might run into problems. Though I received an error message after launching it on Vista Ultimate x64, it ran without further problems after clicking continue and did a good job locating and restoring lost files.

In case you have issues getting the file from the author's page, it's mirrored at Snapfiles as well.

Tags: data-recovery, deleted-files, file-recovery, format, portable, recuva, undelete

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Undelete Plus Offers Free, Fast File Recovery

by Lee Mathews Jul 4th 2008

We've gone through a ton of "simple" file recovery apps at Download Squad, and not all of them perform as advertised. Some take a painfully long time to scan only to report few - if any - recoverable files, dashing our hopes of retrieving that funny lolcat we deleted by accident.

Undelete Plus, however, is a champion at what it does. It quickly completes its scan for potential targets, displays them in a detailed list that includes likelihood to be recovered, size, date created, and path, and even gives you a second pane with totals grouped by file type.

We tried the recovery on formats that typically gives these programs fits - images and video - and Undelete Plus recovered each one without issue. Granted, there are going to be times when it can't - no recovery app is perfect - but we were certainly impressed in our testing.

If you've accidentally wiped something important from your PC, do yourself a favor and download it. We guarantee that it will increase the likelihood that your spouse won't make you sleep on the couch because you trashed their favorite pic or song by 70%.

[ via WinAddons ]

Tags: data recovery, DataRecovery, file recovery, FileRecovery, undelete

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Freeware

UndeleteMyFiles: Do we really have to tell you what it does?

by Brad Linder Jun 22nd 2008

If you guessed that UndeleteMyFiles is a program that hacks into government databases and gives you the secret launch codes for nuclear missiles, you really need to stop watching Cold War era movies. But what you can use this free Windows utility to do is recover some recently deleted files on your computer.

There are several other free programs that do pretty much the same thing. But there are a few features that set UndeleteMyFiles apart. First of all, the program features a nifty preview function. Just hit the check box next to the file you want to see and hit the preview button and the program will restore the file to a temp directory so you can check it out before deciding whether you really want to restore it to your hard disk.

UndeleteMyFiles also has several different modes for scanning your hard disks or removable storage media. For example, you can use the Media Recovery mode to scan a disk just for media files. Or you can use the Deleted File Search to scan for files meeting certain size or file type. The File Rescue wizard, on the other hand will show you all deleted files on a disk.

The program also includes a file wiper, which lets you securely delete files so that they will be nearly impossible to recover. This feature could come in handy if you happen to be in possession of oh, say a nuclear missile launch code that you probably shouldn't have.

[via gHacks]

Tags: recovery, undelete, undeletemyfiles

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Commercial, Freeware

Restore deleted files with Pandora Recovery

by Brad Linder Apr 9th 2008

We all make mistakes. Sometimes we put too much sugar in our coffee. And sometimes we accidentally delete the manuscript for the book your spouse has been working on for the last two years only to realize that it was the only copy. Well, there's nothing we can do about the coffee, but Pandora Recovery might help you get that manuscript back. And when we say "might," we mean it. There are no guarantees here.

Pandora Recovery isn't the only free file recovery utility around. But it does have an extraordinarily easy to use interface. When you launch Pandora Recovery, you'll be greeted with a helpful wizard that asks if you want to browse your hard drives, search for files or file types, or perform a deep scan of your drive for files.

There's also a portable version of the application which can be run from a removable flash drive. But Pandora Mobile Recovery isn't free. It's part of the Pandora PowerPack, which costs $20.

[via The Portable Freeware Collection]

Tags: file-recovery, pandora-recovery, undelete

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Ask DLS

Ask DLS: Recovering photos from a corrupted flash card

by Christina Warren Jan 29th 2008

Digital cameras are great, you can store the equivalent of a dozen rolls of film at a time, delete bad shots immediately and download the photos to multiple devices. But like everything else, there can be a dark side (no pun intended) to digital photography: flash card corruption. Many of us have experienced that first hand, where a card that was working normally suddenly appears "empty" or refuses to mount on your system or starts reporting really strange error codes in the camera. If you haven't recently downloaded the photos to your computer, this can make a person positively apoplectic.

And let's not discount user error; say, while taking photos, you accidentally format the card instead of deleting that one shot, wiping out Little Granty's trip to the Apple Store (don't worry, that was just an example, we got the pictures for a future Squadcast) in seconds. Whoops.

Of course, with the right software, more often than not, some or all of those photographs can be recovered from both corrupted and reformatted flash cards. A reader wrote in asking for the best options (he wanted free, we try to balance price with "actually working") and here is a list compiled for various operating systems.

Tags: digital images, DigitalImages, file recovery, FileRecovery, photos, undelete

Filed under: Security, Freeware

Securely delete files with DeleteOnClick

by Brad Linder Oct 7th 2007

Deleting files from a Windows machine can be a lot of work. First you click delete and the file doesn't really go away, it just winds up in your recycle bin. Then once you empty the trash, the file is still on your hard drive until some application comes along and writes over it. That's how computer forensics experts are able to find the naughty bits when the FBI raids your office and steals your computer.

DeleteOnClick is a freeware file that adds a "securely delete" option to your right-click context menu. What happens when you securely delete a file? First off, your file doesn't go to the recycle bin, it disappears. Second, the application will write some junk code over the space where your file used to be so that there's nothing left. In other words, once you securely delete a file there's no way to recover it.

There's also a commercial version that comes as part of a $30 suite of disk utilities. The paid version has a few extra features like renaming files before they're deleted so you can't even see what files were securely removed, quickly wiping free disk space, and securely wiping free disk space. The paid version also comes with free technical support.

DeleteOnclick runs on Windows 98SE through Windows Vista.

[via TechnoBuzz]

Tags: deleteonclick, securely-delete, undelete

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Freeware

Recuva files you accidentally deleted

by Brad Linder Jan 20th 2007

I've never really had much use for programs that let you recover deleted files. I remember back in my DOS days, struggling with undelete programs and always being disappointed when a Word document I recovered was filled with errors. Well, times have changed, and when I heard that the makers of CCleaner, a system optimization program I use all the time, had released Recuva, I decided to take it for a spin.

I have to say, I like Recuva a lot. It's super-fast to install and to run. You just select a drive, and Recuva will scan for deleted files that have been deleted, including files that you've emptied from your recycle bin. If the file's recoverable, Recuva will tell you. If it's not, it will tell you that as well.

Recuva's not the only free undelete program around, but if you have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to the recycle bin, it's worth checking out.

Tags: ccleaner, recuva, undelete

Filed under: Security, Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

Restoration - file undelete for Windows XP

by Jason Clarke Jul 12th 2006

For some reason Microsoft has not seen fit to provide a decent file undeletion (is that even a word?) utility in Windows like they did back in the DOS days. Luckily, Restoration exists. Restoration is a free utility that does not require an installer, and can scour your drive for deleted files and attempt to restore them. The user interface is fairly plain, but gives you all the information you need about the files you are attempting restore, including a search feature to assist you in finding the accidentally deleted file you need back. Restoration is compatible with all Windows versions from Windows 95 onward, and should even work on FAT formatted removable media.

Restoration also provides a file deletion tool that will make it very difficult to restore a file, by replacing sectors. Obviously use this functionality at your own risk.

[via Jameser's Tech Tips]

Tags: file undeletion, FileUndeletion, restoration, restore, restore files, RestoreFiles, undelete

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