How to recover excluded files?

[FredLC]

I have made something stupid...

I have erased some files I shouldn't.

And i was pressing shift when I did that, so they didn't go to the trash can like I wished.

Nonetheless, I heard that untill I start making new saves in the disk, It's possible to recover those files.

Anyone here happnes to know a procedure?

Thanks.

 

[kcwong]

The files are still there because when OS delete a file, it doesn't actually clean the clusters that the file is in... it just clears the file's entry from the allocation table... kinda like folding up a page inside a book, erase the line in the contents page and pretends the page is not there.

Yes, there're tools that can recover the files... but...

How many times have you rebooted? How many programs have you ran since you deleted those files?

Since the clusters the files are in is now marked as "not used", they can be overwritten. The more programs ran, the more writes they did, the more likely your deleted files will be overwritten.

Also you have to find such a tool, and learn how to use it... such tools are usually not free (no, I haven't done a search), and if you need to install such a tool, you're probably reducing the chance of recovering your files.

So if the files are not a life-and-death matter for you, just forget it. Probably not worth all the trouble to recover them.

And next time, don't hold Shift


Regards,

KC.

 

[CrackedCrystal]

kcwong is right. In fact even coming to Civfanatics to ask this question may have overwritten your files. When you open a webpage, your computer saves the webpages to your hard drive. It is possible these files have overwritten your deleted ones.

I would give up on trying to get them back unless this is something extremely critical. And if it is that critical, it may be worth it to take the computer to a professional rather than risk furthur chance of overwritting them.