Can I restore deleted data?

[Guest]

My mom has a VERY imporant .xls file that she's been working on for a long
time, and when she opened it today, it was blank. The file size is still
14kb, but there's no viewable data. To me it looks like everything was
deleted, then saved, but she's not dumb lol. That said, she saved it before
she closed it and it was all there. Can I restore the file to the way it was
before the last modification? I tried using "Recover My Files" but it didn't
work. I'm currently playing with XLS Regenerator as well, but I may be
causing more harm than good. I have no idea where to go with this. I
apologize for my ineptness lol. I know it can't be restored if it was
manually deleted, as that's completely destructive, but it looks like the
file is there, but can't extract the data for viewing (if I made any sense
there...).

Thanks for anything you have to offer!
Josh

 

[Bill Ridgeway]

My mom has a VERY imporant .xls file that she's been working on for a long
time, and when she opened it today, it was blank. The file size is still
14kb, but there's no viewable data. To me it looks like everything was
deleted, then saved, but she's not dumb lol. That said, she saved it
before
she closed it and it was all there. Can I restore the file to the way it
was
before the last modification? I tried using "Recover My Files" but it
didn't
work. I'm currently playing with XLS Regenerator as well, but I may be
causing more harm than good. I have no idea where to go with this. I
apologize for my ineptness lol. I know it can't be restored if it was
manually deleted, as that's completely destructive, but it looks like the
file is there, but can't extract the data for viewing (if I made any sense
there...).

Thanks for anything you have to offer!
Josh

When a file is deleted it isn't physically deleted and when file is saved it
isn't necessarily over the original. Let me explain. The computer keeps a
record of all the
files on the hard disk. Think of it as an index. If you were to cross out
a line in the index of a book the word or phrase will still be extant in the
body of the book. (The difference with a computer is that the area of the
'lost' file is available for re-use). It is, therefore, possible to recover
'lost' files. As you will appreciate success depends on whether or not the
area on the hard drive has been re-used.

There are a number of software that will do the job. I have used and,
therefore, can recommend 'Get data back' www.runtime.org. It is highly
recommended that the software is installed on and run from another hard disk
(to decrease the possibility of overwriting the 'lost' file).

All this assumes that, at least, the hard disk will spin. It is possible to
recover data from a hard disk that doesn't spin. This is, however, a
specialist (forensic) operation and will be charged accordingly. It
wouldn't do any harm to find someone local who could do this for you and
assess and possibly justify the charge against the cost (time, patience and
money) of re-entering the 'lost' data. Some work on the amount of data
recovered so if you're looking only for one file the charge may not amount
to much (comparatively speaking),

You should, perhaps, also think of getting a backing up system. You may
like to have a look at my web site www.1001solutions.co.uk for more
information.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

 

[Dave Peterson]

I'd use windows search to look for .xls files that were updated recently. If
you have network drives available, I'd check those, too.

Maybe the file was saved using a different name or in a different folder or on a
different drive.