Undelte Utility Needed

A friend accidentally deleted all his music files this morning. They are
not in the recycle bin. I'd like to help him recover them.

Can anyone recommend a free undelete utility that works well in
Windows 8? I'm starting to look around, but I'd like to know what
personal experience you all have had and if there are any that you
particularly like.

So far I found this one. Haven't tried it yet. Easeus makes a
well-liked backup solution, or so I hear, so maybe their undelete
utility might be good.

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywi...y-software.htm

"Nil" wrote in message ...

A friend accidentally deleted all his music files this morning. They are
not in the recycle bin. I'd like to help him recover them.

Can anyone recommend a free undelete utility that works well in
Windows 8? I'm starting to look around, but I'd like to know what
personal experience you all have had and if there are any that you
particularly like.

So far I found this one. Haven't tried it yet. Easeus makes a
well-liked backup solution, or so I hear, so maybe their undelete
utility might be good.

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywi...y-software.htm

***
Try Recova from Piriform. I've successfully used it to recover music files.
http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download?upgrade

On 23 Aug 2014, "Larry" wrote in
alt.comp.os.windows-8:

Try Recova from Piriform. I've successfully used it to recover
music files. http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download?upgrade

Thank you. I just checked it out and I like it. Unless I find a better
solution, I may suggest this to him.

The Easeus utility takes up about 40 MB of disk space, is slow, and the
interface is confusing. So far, Recova seems like the better choice.

On Sat, 23 Aug 2014 15:40:37 -0400, Nil wrote:

A friend accidentally deleted all his music files this morning. They are
not in the recycle bin. I'd like to help him recover them.

Can anyone recommend a free undelete utility that works well in
Windows 8? I'm starting to look around, but I'd like to know what
personal experience you all have had and if there are any that you
particularly like.

So far I found this one. Haven't tried it yet. Easeus makes a
well-liked backup solution, or so I hear, so maybe their undelete
utility might be good.

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywi...y-software.htm

Whatever you choose, do *not* install it on your friend's computer. In
fact, his computer should be turned off immediately and stay off until
you start the recovery.

Plan A: The recovery software should be installed *from another
computer* onto a boot CD or a boot USB stick, the computer should be
booted from that, and the program should be run from that.

Plan B: Remove the hard drive from your friend's computer and attach it
by a USB adapter to another computer (such as yours). Install and run
Recuva or whatever on that computer.

Somehow I think that you know all this, but there it is for anyone else
to see :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 8/23/2014 3:45 PM, Nil wrote:
On 23 Aug 2014, "Larry" wrote in
alt.comp.os.windows-8:

Try Recova from Piriform. I've successfully used it to recover
music files. http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download?upgrade

Thank you. I just checked it out and I like it. Unless I find a better
solution, I may suggest this to him.

The Easeus utility takes up about 40 MB of disk space, is slow, and the
interface is confusing. So far, Recova seems like the better choice.

If you can please have your friend not install any program on the
computer as it might overwrite the places the missing files were stored
on the hard drive.

Check out this link and see if that method will work before trying one
of the stronger recovery programs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGN29qlxj6w

If it does fine, if not then try to use a program that does not have to
be installed on the PC but is either on a bootable CD/DVD or is like an
executable file on a flash drive.

Recuva as already mentioned is a good choice for this if you download
the version that runs directly from a USB drive.

https://www.piriform.com/recuva/builds

When attempting to recover really critical files I would make an image
copy of the entire drive and do the recovery on the "cloned" drive, just
in case the recovery process goes totally wrong. That way you could
then make a second copy of the original drive and try again with another
program.

On Sat, 23 Aug 2014 16:08:17 -0500, GlowingBlueMist wrote:

When attempting to recover really critical files I would make an image
copy of the entire drive and do the recovery on the "cloned" drive, just
in case the recovery process goes totally wrong. That way you could
then make a second copy of the original drive and try again with another
program.

That will almost certainly not work[1].

An image copy contains only active allocation units, and the deleted
items are in the free allocation units, i.e., the disk's free save..

What is needed is a full clone. A "smart clone"[2] will not copy the
free space, so it won't work either.

[1] I said "almost certainly". I really meant "definitely".

[2] That's what Macrium Reflect calls it; other programs might have
other names.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

Nil wrote:
A friend accidentally deleted all his music files this morning. They are
not in the recycle bin. I'd like to help him recover them.

Can anyone recommend a free undelete utility that works well in
Windows 8? I'm starting to look around, but I'd like to know what
personal experience you all have had and if there are any that you
particularly like.

So far I found this one. Haven't tried it yet. Easeus makes a
well-liked backup solution, or so I hear, so maybe their undelete
utility might be good.

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywi...y-software.htm

I like Recuva on XP and W7. Never tried it on W8 though.
Firewall it as soon as you install it since it tries to call home.
As Gene said, plug the hdd in question into the recuva machine if at
all possible.

On 23 Aug 2014, "Gene E. Bloch" wrote in
alt.comp.os.windows-8:

Whatever you choose, do *not* install it on your friend's
computer. In fact, his computer should be turned off immediately
and stay off until you start the recovery.

Plan A: The recovery software should be installed *from another
computer* onto a boot CD or a boot USB stick, the computer should
be booted from that, and the program should be run from that.

Plan B: Remove the hard drive from your friend's computer and
attach it by a USB adapter to another computer (such as yours).
Install and run Recuva or whatever on that computer.

Somehow I think that you know all this, but there it is for anyone
else to see :-)

I won't be there to do the work myself and if it's too complicated
he'll get confused or lose interest, so I have to find a balance
between effort and benefit.

He's been at work all day and the computer's been off, which is good.
The plan is for him to call me when he gets home and I'll coach him to
install the utility to his plug-in USB backup drive. He'll have to turn
on the computer for a few minutes, but I think the possibility that the
files will be overwritten is fairly low.

It's not a complete disaster if a few of the files are lost, but he'd
like to get most of them back.

On Sat, 23 Aug 2014 18:41:19 -0400, Nil
wrote:

On 23 Aug 2014, "Gene E. Bloch" wrote in
alt.comp.os.windows-8:

Whatever you choose, do *not* install it on your friend's
computer. In fact, his computer should be turned off immediately
and stay off until you start the recovery.

Plan A: The recovery software should be installed *from another
computer* onto a boot CD or a boot USB stick, the computer should
be booted from that, and the program should be run from that.

Plan B: Remove the hard drive from your friend's computer and
attach it by a USB adapter to another computer (such as yours).
Install and run Recuva or whatever on that computer.

Somehow I think that you know all this, but there it is for anyone
else to see :-)

I won't be there to do the work myself and if it's too complicated
he'll get confused or lose interest, so I have to find a balance
between effort and benefit.

He's been at work all day and the computer's been off, which is good.
The plan is for him to call me when he gets home and I'll coach him to
install the utility to his plug-in USB backup drive. He'll have to turn
on the computer for a few minutes, but I think the possibility that the
files will be overwritten is fairly low.

It's not a complete disaster if a few of the files are lost, but he'd
like to get most of them back.

When I was in the business, we would sometimes take customer's disks
and recover the data in our lab. Contact the manufacture and see what
they charge and what they will do.

On Sat, 23 Aug 2014 18:41:19 -0400, Nil wrote:

On 23 Aug 2014, "Gene E. Bloch" wrote in
alt.comp.os.windows-8:

Whatever you choose, do *not* install it on your friend's
computer. In fact, his computer should be turned off immediately
and stay off until you start the recovery.

Plan A: The recovery software should be installed *from another
computer* onto a boot CD or a boot USB stick, the computer should
be booted from that, and the program should be run from that.

Plan B: Remove the hard drive from your friend's computer and
attach it by a USB adapter to another computer (such as yours).
Install and run Recuva or whatever on that computer.

Somehow I think that you know all this, but there it is for anyone
else to see :-)

I won't be there to do the work myself and if it's too complicated
he'll get confused or lose interest, so I have to find a balance
between effort and benefit.

He's been at work all day and the computer's been off, which is good.
The plan is for him to call me when he gets home and I'll coach him to
install the utility to his plug-in USB backup drive. He'll have to turn
on the computer for a few minutes, but I think the possibility that the
files will be overwritten is fairly low.

It's not a complete disaster if a few of the files are lost, but he'd
like to get most of them back.

OK, I'll wish him luck.

Is there a chance he will now see the utility of backing up? And that
balance of which you spoke will no doubt enter into the equation :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

Glenn wrote:

When I was in the business, we would sometimes take customer's disks
and recover the data in our lab. Contact the manufacture and see what
they charge and what they will do.

That'll run him hundreds if not thousands of dollars to do the lab
recovery. Just the diagnostics (to determine if and how they will
recover) can cost hundreds. Most won't give prices because they don't
know yet what they'd be working with (how bad is the drive) and don't
want to scare off potential customers with price shock. They don't
publish prices. They dole out quotes. They want customers to contact
them who are truly motivated to recover their files and know they are
going to pay handsomely to get back those files. I doubt his music
files which were probably downloaded or ripped are so important as to
spend any money to recover them. Free is about all he will likely spend
to recover the music files.

My aunt had a drive (probably bad) from which she wanted to recover
vacation pics, e-mails, so photo work of her own. When she found out it
would cost over $1200, she lost all interest in having a lab recover
data from the drive. In her case, the drive was unusable and she lost
her files (yep, no backups). She now occasionally does a backup but
mostly keeps her important data on removable media.

In Nil's case, his friend's hard drive is still working so free is about
the only expense his friend will probably accept. Software is all Nil's
friend needs, not a lab.

Hi, Nil.

I haven't needed it in several years, thankfully, but R-Studio recovered my
files more than once. It's not really easy to use, and it might cost $50 or
more, but I think they still offer a free demo - which will probably be
enough to get your friend's files back.

http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP (2002-2010)
Windows Live Mail 2012 (Build 16.4.3528.0331) in Win8.1 Pro with Media
Center


"Nil" wrote in message ...

A friend accidentally deleted all his music files this morning. They are
not in the recycle bin. I'd like to help him recover them.

Can anyone recommend a free undelete utility that works well in
Windows 8? I'm starting to look around, but I'd like to know what
personal experience you all have had and if there are any that you
particularly like.

So far I found this one. Haven't tried it yet. Easeus makes a
well-liked backup solution, or so I hear, so maybe their undelete
utility might be good.

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywi...y-software.htm

If the folder is still there you could try restoring a previous version of
it.

- Bill

"Nil" wrote in message ...

A friend accidentally deleted all his music files this morning. They are
not in the recycle bin. I'd like to help him recover them.

Can anyone recommend a free undelete utility that works well in
Windows 8? I'm starting to look around, but I'd like to know what
personal experience you all have had and if there are any that you
particularly like.

So far I found this one. Haven't tried it yet. Easeus makes a
well-liked backup solution, or so I hear, so maybe their undelete
utility might be good.

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywi...y-software.htm

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Sat, 23 Aug 2014 16:08:17 -0500, GlowingBlueMist wrote:

When attempting to recover really critical files I would make an image
copy of the entire drive and do the recovery on the "cloned" drive, just
in case the recovery process goes totally wrong. That way you could
then make a second copy of the original drive and try again with another
program.

That will almost certainly not work[1].

An image copy contains only active allocation units, and the deleted
items are in the free allocation units, i.e., the disk's free save..

What is needed is a full clone. A "smart clone"[2] will not copy the
free space, so it won't work either.

[1] I said "almost certainly". I really meant "definitely".

[2] That's what Macrium Reflect calls it; other programs might have
other names.


I would use dd.exe, which is a sector by sector utility,
to copy the disk, before leaving it connected for any
period of time. On some C: partitions, the OS will make
a System Restore point (eventually), which could
overwrite a gig of deleted stuff. Some attention must
be paid to all the maintenance uses the partition gets,
so there won't be too much damage.

In my stack of DVDs, the best one for the job is Knoppix 5.3.1,
because it mounts NTFS partitions read-only by default. Which
reduces the dangers to close to zero. That's the closest thing
I've got here, to a forensic quality boot CD. I could do my
dd'ing from there.

That's just to keep a safety copy, in case any recovery efforts
seem to be failing later.

One reason for using dd.exe, is I know it doesn't
have any other capabilities, and all it can do is
copy sectors (both busy and idle sectors). Whereas
with other tools, I'd be "trusting" them to do the
right thing.

Paul

Nil wrote:
On 23 Aug 2014, "Gene E. Bloch" wrote in
alt.comp.os.windows-8:

Whatever you choose, do *not* install it on your friend's
computer. In fact, his computer should be turned off immediately
and stay off until you start the recovery.

Plan A: The recovery software should be installed *from another
computer* onto a boot CD or a boot USB stick, the computer should
be booted from that, and the program should be run from that.

Plan B: Remove the hard drive from your friend's computer and
attach it by a USB adapter to another computer (such as yours).
Install and run Recuva or whatever on that computer.

Somehow I think that you know all this, but there it is for anyone
else to see :-)

I won't be there to do the work myself and if it's too complicated
he'll get confused or lose interest, so I have to find a balance
between effort and benefit.

He's been at work all day and the computer's been off, which is good.
The plan is for him to call me when he gets home and I'll coach him to
install the utility to his plug-in USB backup drive. He'll have to turn
on the computer for a few minutes, but I think the possibility that the
files will be overwritten is fairly low.

It's not a complete disaster if a few of the files are lost, but he'd
like to get most of them back.

Make sure to point the "output" of Recuva or Photorec, at
a non-affected partition. For example, if you lose a JPG
of your girlfriend on the C: drive, point the output of
any recovery program to the D: drive. Otherwise, if you
store the recovered fragments of files back onto C:, it
will remove material you're attempting to recover. The
C: drive (the one with the deleted image) must be
kept quiescent.

Paul