Recover Deleted Files on You Own
I frequently get approached with the following scenario in Gainesville. I lost some files on my computer, but can’t afford to have professional data recovery done. What can I do?
Well, there are two quick free things that you can do.
1. There is a free piece of software called Recuva by Piriform. They are the same folks that provide ccleaner for free. They of course ask for donations to support them if the software works for you. I have used the software, testing it, with success. It is not by any means a top of the line piece of forensic software, but, for a free easy to use product, it seems to be pretty nice.
2. Many times the problem with recovering files lies with your Windows installation more than with the file. Files can often be viewed and recovered in Linux when they are unreachable under Windows. There are many distributions of Linux that run on a bootable CD-ROM. They are mostly free. I really like Puppy and DSL Linux myself. There are many others though. The Linux approach will involve a learning curve if you don’t know Linux. But, it is free!