The question of how to recover files deleted from a USB flash drive or from the recycle bin on your computer usually arises in the following situations:
- You accidentally performed a recycle bin or deleted some files (folders) from it.
- When deleting files from a disk, the Del button also accidentally pressed the Shift key. This combination deletes the selected files "past" the basket, i.e. they are immediately deleted without the possibility of recovery (as novice users think).
- Formatted a USB flash drive or hard drive (yes, everything described below also applies to disks).
- Lost files as a result of the attack of brutal viruses or the actions of irresponsible programs.
- They did something unknown, which is usually expressed by the novice user’s phrase: “I didn’t do anything, they left themselves!” (Oh, how many times I heard her).
This problem is in the TOP 5 of unpleasant situations that happen to computer novices. This is indicated by letters with questions that are often sent to me. Take the last one:
I am reading your newsletter with interest. However, unfortunately, in fact I manage to apply a little of your “usefulness” :(
And today there was an accident: permanently deleted the folder with children's photos, including those that need to be sent to the competition today: (((((
Just in shock. I’ll get to a familiar programmer only in the evening, it will be too late ...
I beg you, Kostya, tell me a program for recovering files and, if possible, a brief instruction on how to install it and restore files.
you are welcome.
Regards, Catherine
Options for solving the problem
The most obvious and most expensive is to contact a file recovery specialist. In this field, not only numerous private traders strive, but also entire offices equipped with special equipment and specially trained people. They will offer you to restore files even from a disk, on which they walked like an ax with a soul, and put up a horse price tag for this. Least.
It is easy to guess that the services of these firms are intended mainly for businesses that sometimes need to recover missing files with gray bookkeeping, which is straightforward. These offices have nothing to do with the usual Marivanna, who lost her dream from the loss of 500 photos with a crop of zucchini.
But it is this Marivanna who can try to recover deleted or lost files on her own, i.e. free of charge and without unnecessary witnesses (zucchini squash, and what if there’s still something there, you never know).
How does she do that? Yes, simple, download and install special program for recovering deleted files. For the domestic needs of such programs, there are like pigeons in the attic of a typical five-story building.
Why is it possible to recover deleted files?
In everyday language, any object (file) on a disk or flash drive consists of two logical parts: the object itself and information about it in a special “file of objects”.
When you delete a file from the recycle bin, the file itself is not deleted immediately, its “body” remains intact on the disk, and only information about the file from the “file cabinet” is deleted. Those. it officially ceases to exist, the operating system no longer sees it, but in fact the file remains indefinitely on disk.
Why indefinitely? Because the place occupied by the file from the moment of deletion is considered free and new information can be recorded on it at any time. Then the file already ceases to exist de facto.
A similar situation occurs when formatting a disk or flash drive. In normal formatting, files are not erased, only records about them are deleted from the “file cabinet”. Those. the disk becomes kind of empty, but it still stores on itself everything that was on it before formatting.
This means that the faster after deleting / losing files or formatting a disk, you try to restore them, the greater the chance of success. Indeed, even if you yourself do not write any new data to a disk / flash drive, the operating system can do this, saving your service information on the media.
What program can recover files
As I said, there are many such programs. The most advanced of them are paid, but we are interested in the “everyday” situation, for which free is enough. Which one? I tried 5 different and file recovery programs and most of all I liked R.Saver.
Using her example, we will consider recovering deleted files from a flash drive. But this does not mean that you should use only it. On the contrary, if you cannot restore files with one program, you can try to use others. Having mastered the principle itself, it will be easy for you to do it.
Download and run the program
We go to the official page of the program on the developer's site and click on the "Download" link there.
We extract the program folder from the resulting zip archive. Having come into it we launch the file "r.saver.exe", which immediately launches the program on your computer, it does not need to be installed.
An important point: the program should NOT be launched from the drive from which you are going to recover files. Those. if we restore from a flash drive (in my example, this is drive P), then run the program from another drive (I have drive D).
Scan the USB flash drive and recover deleted files
At startup, the program determines the list of disks from which it is possible to restore files, and displays them in the left part of its window:
Window of the R.Saver program. Drive selection
Select the disk (flash drive) we need and click on the “Scan” button at the top of the window:
Flash drive scan start
After that, the program will ask you this question: "Perform a full (sector-by-sector) scan of the file system?". Answer this question “Yes” if you are recovering files from a USB flash drive that has been formatted. And "No" if you want to recover files that were simply deleted from it.
In the second case, the analysis will take less time.
Upon completion of the analysis, the program will display a list of files and folders on the USB flash drive that can be restored:
List of files to restore
Now select with the mouse those files and folders that you want to recover. Let in our example it be the file “pc-wizard_2014.2.13.exe” and the folder “Photos” (to select several lines, hold Ctrl while clicking the mouse).
After highlighting the necessary lines, click on the "Save Selected" button:
Select files to restore
A new window will open in which you need to select the drive and the folder on your computer where the recovered data will be saved:
Select a folder where we will save
Just do not choose the same storage medium from which you are recovering, suddenly you will need to restore some other files and folders from it! I hope you remember that the less we write new information to this flash drive, the higher the likelihood that it will be possible to recover deleted or damaged files from it.
To save, do not forget to click the "Select" button.
Depending on the size of the selected data, saving may take some time, after which you will find the recovered files and folders in the place you indicated earlier.
Hooray, congratulations!
Other similar programs work in a similar way. If you fail to recover files using several programs, then alas, most likely, “folk computer medicine” will not help here and resurrect your files at home will not work.
And so that you do not have to delve into how to recover files and folders deleted from the recycle bin or from a USB flash drive, configure and use automatic backup on your computer.
- Deleting files “past” the basket, spoiling them, incorrectly formatting a flash drive is a common problem that has occurred at least once for most users.
- You can recover files lost as a result of this. At least try.
- Even after deleting or formatting, the “body” of files continues to remain on disk, although the operating system considers them to no longer exist.
- You need to recover deleted files as quickly as possible until their “body” is deleted with new information.
- To restore, you need to use special free programs, for example, R.Saver.
If you prefer to learn the computer from video tutorials, I suggest you look at your lesson on how to recover deleted files using R.Saver. This lesson is part of my complete computer and internet tutorial called Antichaikin. If you liked the lesson and want to learn the computer under my guidance, follow the link to read the full contents of the course and order it.
Hello dear Konstantin! I am always pleased to read your blog articles are always interesting and useful! Thank!
But I have a huge request for you - I had a problem with my computer and for the second day I’ve been trying to find the answer, how to fix it. Maybe you can help me with advice ?!
Faced a problem: neither the My comp. Button, nor the explorer, nor the basket open. Moreover, when they are opened, they appear in the tray and the task manager writes that they are working fine. But on the Workstation, it’s clean. Then other programs and browsers work fine. When started in safe mode, everything works fine
Help - what is the reason? how to fix? By the way, Google thought it was buggy - demolished it, reinstalled it from the official site, also deleted several unused programs, cleaned CCleaner, Dr. Web Kureit, didn’t make any changes with its antivirus. You have to open the files with TotalCommander (it works)
Thank you in advance. Oleg
Oleg, thanks.
Those. Do you select “Start - All Programs - Accessories - Explorer” and nothing happens after a click?
I tried in every way and through Standard and through shortcuts, and through the Control Panel. By the way, the Control Panel has the same story with almost all panels and elements
Procedure:
1. Open Windows Registry Editor.
Let me remind you that for this purpose, you need to press Win + R on the keyboard, type regedit in the window that opens, and then press Enter.
Learn more about using the Win key combinations here.
2. In the Registry Editor, open the branch:
Inexperienced users will be reminded that for this, in the left part of the Editor, by double-clicking the left mouse button, you need to open the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER" section, in it - the "Software" section, in it - "Microsoft", and so on, until you get to the "Explorer" section.
The Explorer folders in the Policies section may not appear. In this case, it must be created. For this purpose, right-click on the "Policies" section and select "Create" ⇒ "Section" in the context menu that opens, then assign the name "Explorer" to the newly created section.
3. In the "Explorer" section, create a DWORD Parameter (32 bits) with the name RecycleBinDrives and the value ffffffff (in hexadecimal format).
Inexperienced users will explain how to do it:
• right-click on the "Explorer" section and select "Create" in the context menu that appears ⇒ "DWORD Parameter (32 bits)",
• Assign the newly created parameter, which appears on the right side of the Editor, to the name RecycleBinDrives. To rename a parameter you need to right-click and select "Rename",
• double-click with the left mouse button on this parameter. In the window that appears, select the hexadecimal number system, and then in the "Value" field, type ffffffff. Then click the "OK" button.
That's all. Registry Editor can be closed.
For the changes to take effect, the computer must be restarted. If after this you go into the properties of the Recycle Bin, the picture will be something like this.
As you can see, on my computer, the basket was added not only to the USB flash drive (Disk E :), but also to other removable devices, in particular, to drive A: (for 3.5 diskettes).
Please note that after the changes described above, the computer will delete files to the Trash from all USB flash drives connected to it. But if you delete a file from one of them on another computer on which these changes are not made, it will not go to the Trash.
