Interesting !

[godsownman]

Recently I recovered my data after shift deleting it .

After that I started thinking that how is it posible to recover the data from your hard disk even after you have deleted it and recovered your space.

For example,

I had deleted a folder containing many pictures in it and the memory space that the folder was using on my disk was about 65 MB .

After deleting it I noticed that I had recovered my space .

Now can anybody tell me that after the file is deleted the space has been recovered how do these "magical blessings" - softwares recover the data .

Please do enlighten me .

Thanks

[blacklight]

When u delete data ,even though it looks like as if it's deleted ,it is not.Its becoz theoretically ,the data is deleted,physically it is not. i.e all pointers referencing to that file/folder are deleted.so even though ,the files r gone ,and the os adjusts the free size accordingly,the files physically still remain on the drive.these "magical blessings " recovery softwares as u call them ,analyze the hard disk -sector by sector looking for such files and recover them.so as long as the files are present on the hdd,they can be retrieved..also in case of files of huge sizes,it may not be possible to retrieved whole file,so only fragments are retreived.But if u delete a 100mb file a week or a month back,and u do a lot of data write to that disk,it is possible ur files were overwritten and it may not be possibe to retrieve them again.Finally the amount of data retrieved,depends on the quality of software u r using .
do hope this "enlightens" u

[taklya]

dunno abt him. but i'm enlightened

[Tech&ME]

What blacklight has said is true and correct. The reference to the file is deleted when we actually permanently delete files by pressing Shift+DEL, and the actual file still remains on the hdd. So, we can recover them using good recovery softwares. But there is a catch in it. If u perform a big file write operation immediately after deleting a file chances are that it will get over-written, so no software will be able to actually recover the deleted file in this case.

[parthbarot]

ya ... the data is on the harddisk..it removes the pointer to its starting address...& add its size to free space...when more data is copied to HDD...old one is over-writed...

thats the truth ...

some soft recovers that pointers & addresses...this much only..

basics

[vysakh]

after shift+del deleting a file, and doing defragmentation, will it be possible to recover the files ???

[blacklight]

@vysakh
Although i havnt tried ,but i guess recovery is possible becoz defragmentation only rearranges whatever data is present in the hard disk,it doesnt alter data.

[enoonmai]

Well, defragmentation physically moves files so that the used ones are accessed faster, etc. so it DOES rearrange files, so it most probably will wipe out all your data, since Windows will report it as free space. The rule is that, if you have deleted something important, every extra second you have the computer even switched on reduces your chance of getting all your data back intact.

[hack expert]

yup all said above is true but take care dat when u delete the data dont write in dat sector again written once is cool but if the sector is written many times the magical blessing will be of no use

[blacklight]

@enoonmai
hi ! are u sure defragmentation wipes free space? or it could simply rearrange deleted data to another part of the disk .

@hackexpert

Originally Posted by hack expert

but take care dat when u delete the data dont write in dat sector again

easier said than done!actually the platters are spinning so fast that u cant even guess which sector is being written !

[cool_techie]

nothing after defrag....

[krisjr]

can anybody name the best recovery softwre,which u hav used urself

[enoonmai]

Originally Posted by blacklight

hi ! are u sure defragmentation wipes free space? or it could simply rearrange deleted data to another part of the disk .

Well, think about it. When you shift-Del a file/folder, while its still there PHYSICALLY, its address is whats wiped from the file table, like you said. This is reported to Windows as free space that it can use for any applications that demand it. When you run a defrag, Windows still thinks that space is free for it to use, and while its "rearranging" data on the disk, it uses others sectors marked as free to temporarily hold data while it moves/juggles the chunks around. So its using disk space marked as free even during the process of defragging (which is why you cant defrag a critically-low disk space partition. There's got to be some free space on it for it to move the data about) So, if you do a defrag, you totally lose all your data since its probably totally overwritten by the time it completes. The best way to make sure you recover your data completely intact is to switch the computer off immediately. Pull the plug if you have to. Even saving the settings at shutdown can overwrite it.

@krisjr: The best I've seen is PCIFR. Plus its free. Download it here:

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

[ramprasad]

Hi
I agree to what enoonmai posted. It finally depend supon the place where the data is stored.

Regards,
Ramprasad

[Siddhant]

when you delete a file you will seee that the file was
deleted by the computer but it is actually not erased
from the harddisk. it gets erased when some other
program requires that space. to delete the data
permanentaly you will have to use some softwares
like "system mechanic 5 professional"

[technoteen]

i will rate stellar phoenix as the best recovery software, it detects even your deleted partitions if you dont create new ones

[CyCo]

dats rite ...

stellar phoenix rocks @!@!@!

there is one version for FAT one for NTFS and one for BOTH ...

http://www.stellarinfo.com/download.htm


1 query tho .... y do the files which u deleted stop appearing after some time .. as i had a folder but i didnt recover it in time and it got lost ...

[enoonmai]

Read through the entire thread and you will understand why. Basically, its very simple. Windows marks the space as free space once you permanently delete a file, even though its not been wiped from the disk. So, when another application requests free space for its usage, it may just end up using the space your file is currently residing on and it would end up being overwritten. Which is why the first rule in data recovery is to switch the computer off immediately once you accidentally delete a file. Every passing second and every action you do on the computer lessens your chance of getting your data back intact.