Accidentally deleting files and then emptying the Recycle Bin can be a stressful experience. However, it's important to understand that deleted files are not immediately gone forever. In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the process of recovering deleted files from the Recycle Bin. By following the steps outlined below, you can increase your chances of restoring those precious files and minimizing data loss.
Understanding The Recycle Bin and File Deletion
The Recycle Bin serves as a temporary storage location for deleted files. When you delete a file, it is moved to the Recycle Bin instead of being permanently erased from your system. This allows for easy recovery in case of accidental deletion.
What happens when files are deleted from Recycle Bin permanently?
However when a file is deleted from hard drive, it is not permanently removed from memory space. Only the file pointer that points to the storage location of the file is deleted and that space is marked as “available” to save new files. The deleted file remains intact in the memory until you overwrite with new data. Hence to avoid permanent loss of files do not copy or save new files once the files are deleted from system. This increases the chances of data recovery. There are two ways of recovering deleted files from recycle bin, first is the manual method, which is time consuming, and the second one is using Advanced File Recovery Software.
Manual Steps to Recover Deleted Files from the Recycle Bin
Method 1: Previous System Backups or File History
If you regularly back up your files or have enabled Windows File History, you may be able to restore deleted files from a previous backup. Access the backup utility or File History feature in Windows to locate and restore the desired files.
Method 2: Use Third Party Data Recovery Software
If you have emptied the Recycle Bin or cannot find the desired files, you can turn to specialized data recovery software. Deleted File Recovery is a robust software that can recover deleted files on Windows 7, 11, 10, 8,Vista, XP, 2003 and 2008. It even supports recovery of data from FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 partitions with utmost ease. It provides you the preview of retrieved data before saving and allows you to sort the files on the basis of file name, size, creation date, file type. Run the demo version of the application to evaluate the chances of file recovery. If you are well satisfied with the recovery result, then buy the complete version of the application and save retrieved files to secured location.
Step 1: Download Deleted File Recovery tool and install it on your computer and open its home screen as shown in figure 1. Now launch the software, and select Recover Files option from the main screen. Then, a list of available drives are listed on the screen. Now, choose the Linkstation drive from where deleted files has to be recovered, and hit Scan button to begin scanning process.
Figure 1: Home Window
Step 2: Now, the software scans the selected drive to find deleted files & folders. Wait untill the scanning process gets completed, and just monitor the screen as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Scanning in Progress
Step 3: Upon the completion of the scanning and recovery process, a list of recovered files are displayed in Data View, and File Type View, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Recovered Files
Step 4: Finally, before saving the recovered files, you can preview the recovered file just by right-clicking on the file, and hitting Preview button, or just by double-clicking on the respective recovered file, as shown in the below figure.
Figure 4: Preview Recovered Files
Step 5: At last, select the destination drive where files has to be saved, and hit Save, button to save the recovered files, as shown in the below figure.
Figure 5: Save Recovered Files
Always keep the updated back up copy of important files.
Use genuine and updated version of anti virus software installed on your system and scan the system regularly to prevent virus attack.
Check the contents of Recycle Bin twice or thrice before emptying it.
Regularly delete unwanted files from Recycle Bin to save disk space.