How to recover a deleted file | What happens when a file is deleted in windows

In our computer we have a number of different files, some are system files and some are personal ones. Not all of them will be required for ever and thus we delete them when they are not needed. Ever wondered what actually happens to a deleted file in your system? Does it get completely erased from your system ? Is it possible to recover them back?

Deletion – What happens after Deleting a file in windows

When we give a Delete command in Windows the file or folder or whatever you want to delete goes to the Recycle bin. If you still think that the file not needed, then emptying recycle bin, will delete the file from you disk location and becomes invisible and inaccessible to you. The deletion can also be directly achieved by Shift + Del command. But, Is the file really deleted? -- is the real question and the answer to this will be NO.

What happens when the file has been sent to the Recycle bin after you press delete button or give a delete command ?

Actually the file is not sent to Recycle Bin, it is still located at the same place in hard disk where it was initially there. The deleted file is stored in Recycled folder. The Recycled folder is actually a Hidden folder. Now the file gets new name and new file path and stored in a file INFO2, a hidden index file, located in the recycled folder. When you opt for restoring the file from recycle bin, its gets original file name and path from the Recycled folder and then , the file is restored to the original location.

What happens when the files are deleted from the Recycle Bin also ?

Can the Hard Disk Recovery for such files be made ?

Yes! it can be done. On deletion, the Operating systemonly changes the Directory entry of the file to indicate that the space occupied by the deleted file is free and it can be used. This means that the operating system doesn't zero (i.e. doesn't clean) the space the file was using. This is done to save time and avoid complexities and overheads. As an example lets say, there is a large file which occupies multiple sectors on the hard disk. Zeroing the sectors which the file occupies when deletion is triggered would really take a lot of time and system resources. So, a simple alternative would be to remove the file name from the directory entry and mark the space as available.

Thus a file doesn't get permanently deleted from your memory by simply deleting it from the directory structure. Instead, it is kept safe in a free memory area and stored there, in case you want the file back. So what gets deleted is the link pointing towards the file. Lets compare a file to a book, deleting the file does not mean tearing the page out of the book, but rather deleting the page's index from the table of contents, represented by the file system here.

But hard disk space again is not something infinite, so eventually the space your deleted files occupies gets crammed faster , as more and more deletions are done and no more Closet space will be available. What the operating system does in such a case, is to overwrite the old deleted files with newer deleted files.

And thus there is a time limit on Recovering the files that has been deleted. Lets say a file has been deleted about an year ago, then chances of recovery are very little. If it’s a file deleted just yesterday then we can be sure of its recovery.

How to recover files ?

File recovery can be done only if it has not been overwritten by any other file. And if the case is otherwise, then recovery can’t be done by a software or say any data recovery company too. If we manage to start an undelete process before Windows overwrites that part of hard disk with new files, we can recover the deleted files. That is technically we have to set that flag back to "on" to get the file.

Some of the Recovery Softwares

Pandora Recovery can recovers files permanently removed from Recycle Bin, files that are deleted using Shift + Delete keys. Pandora Recovery can recover any type of file like pictures, songs, movies and so on. Its exe file is 2.12 MB .

TOKIWA DataRecovery is a freeware. It is used to recover Deleted files even from the recycle bin. It supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFSfile systems.

Undelete Plus is a very quick and efficient software to restore deleted files.
Be it any way through which deletion is done undelete plus can recover them. It is compatible to Windows Os versions like Win95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.Like all other Recovery softwares Undelete plus also supports all types file systems. It can also perform and image recovery from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards.



• Recuva

Recuva is a file undeletion tool that enables you to scan your hard drive for files that have been deleted. After Scanning , a list of files that were found are presented along with their recovery potential. Scanning can also be done for specific types of files like image files , sound files and so on. If you really want certain files completely out of your system whose future need is zero, then you can delete such files using the secure deletion option in Recuva.

To download these softwares give a google search of these and download them from their official websites.