OOPS! Deleted Wrong Folder

[Terry Smythe]

OOPS! I accidentally deleted the wrong folder containing files I wanted
to keep. It did not end up in the Recycle bin. Can an entire folder
somehow be recovered?

Regards,

Terry Smythe
Winnipeg, Canada

 

[Elmo]

OOPS! I accidentally deleted the wrong folder containing files I wanted
to keep. It did not end up in the Recycle bin. Can an entire folder
somehow be recovered?

Regards,

Terry Smythe
Winnipeg, Canada

You can immediately press Ctrl/Z to undo the last operation.. it may be
too late now though.

Download and run Restoration or another Undelete program. The more you
use the hd with the deleted files, the more data you overwrite, so you
should download the program to a flash drive, or floppy.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html
http://www.recuva.com/

 

[Alan Edwards]

Try this:
Restoration 2.5.14 Freeware undelete:
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

....Alan

 

[Bob Harris]

There are many undelete programs, but all work best if you do NOT continue
to write on the PC. So, do not turn it off/on multiple times, do not browse
the internet, etc., until the files have been recovered.

If possible, do not install a revocery program on the same parition that
contasins the lost files. If you have just one big C:\ drive, then look for
a solution that runs from a floppy or a CD.

As I recall, Norton Uitilites could be run from the installation CD.

Other options can be found at:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads38.html

There is a also general rescue/repair CD called the ultimate boot CD, which
contains some file recovery tools. Download and burn image to CD on a
different PC, then boot your PC from it:

http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/

 

[Terry Smythe]

Looks like a solution has emerged. Called NTFS UNDELETE. It failed to
turn up in my earlier Google searches.
See:

http://ntfsundelete.com/

I've never had trouble undeleting files, even off thumb drives or camera
discs, but this one had me stumped. NTFS UNDELETE seems to be working
just fine.

When it wakes up and I direct it to the target drive, it identified the
target deleted folder, and all the files within that folder. It's undelete
process does not undelete the folder. Rather, very slowly it is undeleting
all the files within into another target partition/folder, which is what I
wanted to do.

Similarly, within that folder were a number of sub-folders. Same thing. It
does not undelete the sub-folders, but is undeleting all the files within.
When all done, if successful, I will simply need to reconstruct that folder
on another partition, not too difficult.

It all came about during routine housekeeping. I had saved the contents of
number of large folders to DVD's, and followed up by deleting the saved
folders. Unfortunately, the folder I accidentally deleted had a name very
similar to the one I really wanted to delete. Gggrrrrrrrrrr...... Classic
finger trouble.

Surpisingly, this utility reconstructs the original folder structure in the
recovery partion/folder. Very nice, appreciated.

Regards,

Terry Smythe
Winnipeg, Canada

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

OOPS! I accidentally deleted the wrong folder containing files I wanted
to keep. It did not end up in the Recycle bin. Can an entire folder
somehow be recovered?

"Deleting" a file doesn't actually delete it; it just marks the space
as available to be used. There are third-party programs that can
sometimes recover deleted files. The problem is that the space used by
the file is likely to become overwritten very quickly, and this makes
the file unrecoverable.

So your chances of successfully recovering this file are decent if you
try recovering it immediately after deleting it, and rapidly go
downhill from there. If you've been using the computer since then (for
example to write this question and read this answer), your chances are
probably very poor by now.

But if the file is important enough, it's worth a try anyway. Stop
using the computer in question immediately, if you haven't done so
already. Download an undelete program (here's one:
http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html but there are several
others to choose from; do a Google search) on a friend's computer and
bring it to yours on a floppy to try.

If this fails, your only other recourse is to take the drive to a
professional file recovery company. This kind of service is very
expensive and may or may not work in your case.