Yesterday I wrote about a new defrag utility from the makers of CCleaner. Well, today I am going to write about another utility from the CCleaner folks (Piriform) that recovers deleted files, even files that have been emptied from the recycle bin.
This is handy, because we have all known someone, or perhaps been that someone, that accidentally deleted a file and now we need to get it back. This utility from Piriform does the trick.
It is called Recuva (Pronounced "recover"). I tested it out on an image my coworker, and Bauer-Power contributor Sundance sent me of some Koi fish. I sent it to my recycle bin, then emptied my recycle bin, then used Recuva to see if I could get it back. You know what? It worked! Here is a screen shot of what it found:
Of course, the file name was changed so finding the picture was sort of difficult until I started playing with it and figured out that you can filter by pictures only, and then change the view to thumbnail. Continuing to play with the program led me to some other cool features and tricks. I even found some really cool tips, hints and tricks on the Recuva forum here: (Recuva Forum)
The last cool thing I will say about this product, is that it is free for both commercial and non-commercial use, so it might be a good idea to add this utility to your standard desktop images at work incase your users accidentally delete stuff (May reduce the call volume for your help desk).
[NOTE]: If you use an erasing program like Eraser, then you won't be able to recover your files with Recuva. Like most recovery programs, this will only recover files that have not been overwritten. Secure wipe utilities like Eraser overwrite files numerous times to ensure they cannot be recovered.
What tools do you use to recover deleted files? I would love to hear about them in the comments.
Jul 17, 2008
Recover Deleted Files Free and Easy!
10:51 AM
Paul B
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