If you have found this page you have probably deleted or lost a number of files on just one file. If you know you have had major file loss due to mass deletion, hardware or media physical damage or some physical disaster like fire or flood we recommend you start with our Hard Drive Recovery page or our Data Recovery Services page, as it is likely you will need professional help to recover the files.
If you know that you need to restore a deleted file or you have a “Logical Failure” (see below) and you do not have a backup and if you or a colleague has a reasonable level of IT skills we cautiously suggest that you look at our Recovery Software page to see if all you require is a simple undelete procedure. We will be adding recommendations of file recovery software soon – If you are determined to try a DIY restoration and you are only willing to try a free utility you can check out a this list at About.com
What is a Logical Failure?
The following are all Logical Errors:
- Deleted files
- Corrupted files
- Files attacked by a virus
- Unintentional hard drive format
- Unintentional drive partition
- Incorrect use of Fdisk or other disk utilities
- Software error
- Incorrectly closed files
- Power failure
When to consider using Software to Recover a file
We cautiously recommend using software to recover files because any action you take that writes more data to your media (Drive, or Card) could permanently delete your file. If your file has just been deleted in error there is a good chance that you can restore it with software, for other logical file errors then with the right IT competencies you may be able to recover up to 100% of lost files however we are wary of recommending DIY solutions and would strongly recommend that you are very careful running free software or utilities that write data to your media.
Many utilities like “bad sector repair” or “boot record repair”, ChkDsk or Scan Disk write files to the drive or other media. If the value of your file loss does not justify a professional File Recovery Specialist and you are determined to try a DIY solution, ensure that you only use a “Read Only” data recovery utility as recommended in our Recovery Software page. You can read more on how to recover files in the other pages in this section including Hard Disk Recovery and RAID Recovery.
To save you from future file loss you should set up an automatic file backup on your computer. If you willing to take some risks and try to recover files yourself, here is a useful video explaining how to use free PC Inspector Software.
