How can I recover past deleted files..?

I've always read that windows does'nt really delete files, only reference to them and that the date still exists. I want to find out what these files are and delete them properly as I just downloaded "sure delete ".
Any ideas on how to go about doing this? Thanks!

 

When you use 'delete' the file it's saved in the folder called 'RECYCLED' and you can right-click it and chose restore.

 

Thanks for the reply!
I did a search on my computer including hidden files, and found no such folder "RECYCLED" is there another way perhaps?

I forgot to mention Im using XP on AMD 64

 

Wildone_106--When you delete a file/folder, what happens is that the space on your hard drive where that data exits now is seen by Windows as being available to be overwritten with other data. But, as you say, the original data is still on the hard drive.
With time, that space will be over written and then you can no longer recover the original data. In the short term that data can be recovered, but you will have to use third party programs. And it is best that you use the PC as little as possible if you really want to recover the "deleted" data, so you are not writing to the hard drive.
Here is a program that is small enough to download to a floppy that will help you recover whatever can be recovered.
http://www.webattack.com/get/restoration.html
You can run the program from the floppy.
Now why download to a floppy? Because you will not be writing to the hard drive. To download a restore/undelete program to the hard drive will only increase the chances that you will overwrite the very files you are trying to recover.
There are many other Undelete programs, but few can be written to a floppy.
As time goes by, fewer people have floppies and more people have separate hard drives so you can download Restoration or the other, larger, Undelete programs to such other harddrives. While Restoration works as well as most, if you want other suggestions for Undelete programs, post back. Just refrain from writing to your hard drive in the meantime.
Now the reverse of all this is if you really want to wipe your harddrive clean of every thing, not just what you have deleted. The answer to that depends on how much deletion you really need. There are lots of Wipe programs available. A free one is http://www.jetico.com/

 

Most of these secure delete programs have a "wipe cluster tips and free space" option. Which will overwrite previously deleted data.


http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php
Is a great free one that does that. It also adds erase to your right click context menu so you can erase files instead of deleting them and erase the contents of the recycle bin by right click on it.

It has DOD level secure erase with 35 passes of pseudorandom numbers over data you wish deleted, and you can also set it to zero out in a single pass afterwards (Zero fill)

 

Thanks very much for the tips guys, while I dont have a floppy drive on this computer I'll try the other suggestions mentioned

 

Thanks Welshjim
Looks like a good program to have on hand
Geri

 

Hello Wildone,

FYI, Recycled is a protected system file - to see files like that, in the folder tools > View tab > scroll down to "hide protected operating system files" and un check.

This should be checked though.

Regards - Charles

 

In WinXP, I think the Recycle Bin is in the RECYCLER folder found in C:\, rather than in RECYCLED, which I do not think exists in WinXP. RECYCLER, as has been said, is a hidden folder.

 

If you don't have a floppy I presume it can be run from a USB stick?

 

TMK, folders and files in the RECYCLED directory are preserved, NOT overwritten, until deleted again. That's why deleting them is part of a general cleaning. I've seen computers with many MB of stuff in there.

 

sparrow--where do you find this recycleD folder? I find no such folder on my PC (and I have unhid all files/folders).

 

Hi Jim,

Its not a "hidden file or folder ". Its a protected OS file. The name is as you point out is RECYCLER.

From my post:
FYI, Recycled is a protected system file - to see files like that, in the folder tools > View tab > scroll down to "hide protected operating system files" and un check.

Regards - Charles

 

charlesvar--

One of us is misunderstanding the other. You and sparrow keep talking about a folder called RECYCLED. I believe there is no such folder, hidden, protected or otherwise. The folder is called RECYCLER. See my post #9.

If you are saying that I did not include the word "unprotected" in addition to "unhid" in my last post, I regret sloppy composition. I was addressing the issue of the name of the folder.

 

I regret sloppy composition Ditto for me.

I used the word Recycled and not RECYCLER in my first post. I picked it up from Sparrow from his first post - it's his fault

Regards - Charles

 

I only ran XP for a short time before going back to 2000 (Gonna have to break down and go back to XP eventually but like 2000 better) Anyway, in the short time I ran XP I seem to remember that there was a setting to use the recycle bin or not to. ( could be wrong on this)

If I remember correctly if the option to not use was selected there would either be nothing saved in the bin or maybe not even a bin at all.

Reguardless of that, if there is a recycle bin on the desktop why not just right click on the icon and use open and restore files as needed?

 

Watch what you say, fellows. We're both right. It's recycled in Fat32 and recycler in NTFS. It's one of the great improvements in the proprietary NTFS!!!

 

It's recycled in Fat32 and recycler in NTFS
LOL, I have two XP installations - one FA32, the other NTFS - and lost track of which one I was looking at.

Regards - Charles

 

Hi Jay,

The original question was about items deleted from recycle bin.

FYI: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_qr.htm and scroll down to Recycle bin - instructions on recovering items that were not overwritten yet for both FAT32 and NTFS.

Regards - Charles

 

Sparrow --Thanks for clearing that up. I run NTFS and was not aware of the difference in FAT in naming the Recycle Bin folder.
My main reason for pointing out the spelling was Wildone_106's post #3 where he could not find a folder named Recycled.