Undelete file

[bruskie]

Hi guys,
Hoping someone can assist or there is a fix for this.
One of the guys at the office deleted a folder, then recovered this using a recovery program but recovered back into the original directory. The files within that folder were corrupt. Word and PDF documents.
Is there any way to try and recover from the original deleted files now?
Help!

 

[Totempole]

Unlikely that there's anything you can do if the files have been partially overwritten. Undelete apps are only useful if you use them immediately after the incident, and even then there will have been some damage done.

Where undelete has come in useful for me, was when I accidentally deleted a 30GB torrent file. It was "too large for the Recycle Bin", so it got completely deleted. I immediately launched Tuneup Undelete and searched for the files. I quickly restored them but it was already too late, and some corruption had occurred. Having said that, since the files were about 95% in tact, I was able to load the files back into Bittorrent and re-download the last 5%. So instead of having to re-download 30GB's I only had to re-download 1.5GB's.

 

[NomNom]

No you can not recover the files if you have restored the recovered files to the original location.

This is the main reason why programs say that you must not recover files to the same location.

There is a small chance that your OS may have put it on a different location on your hard drive, you can try and Recuva the files with: http://www.piriform.com/recuva

 

[Totempole]

For what it's worth, you could try using the Previous Versions tab in Vista Business/Windows 7 Home Premium and upwards. Right-Click on the folder where all of the accidentally deleted files were stored and click "Properties", then click the "Previous Versions" tab and see if anything is listed there. Perhaps you could backdate the directory to before the files got deleted.

 

[nand]

It depends on a lot of factors, such as HD type(SSD or magnetic), and file system types.
Files can always be recovered, but corruption may vary with the technique used.

If it's important business data, pull the disk and send it to a data recovery professional. If not, live with the minor inconvenience and put a backup procedure into action.