Restore Accidentally Deleted Files with Recuva

It can be the worst feeling in the world when you accidentally delete a very important file you have been working on for days.  Today we look at Recuva, a free tool that helps you restore accidentally deleted files.

 What is Recuva ?

Recuva is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

After using Recuva for a couple of days, I have ended up being very impressed with it. It is very fast with finding recoverable files and when you click on what you want brought back, it restores the file and sends it back to your hard drive within seconds.

Let's Begin :

1) Download Recuva from here... and install it.

2) When you first start up Recuva it brings up an easy to follow wizard which guides you through the recovery process.  There is an option to disable this from starting up if you don’t care to use it.

 3) Now choose the type of file your trying to recover.  If you’re not sure click on Other to show all files

 4) Select the location of where the file was located.  You can choose removable media, certain directories, or search everywhere on the computer.

5) Wait while Recuva scans your system for deleted files.

6) When you get the results it will show the file(s) and the green or red dot next to them lets you know how likely they will be restored without any damage.

 7) Now say I want to want to recover those 3 files? I just need to tick them and click the “recover” button. Recuva will ask me to specify where on the computer they should go.

8) Just remember to untick those files in Recuva before you close the program because Recuva remembers those files next time and will keep on downloading them over and over again! So untick them once you have recovered them.

Note : But as with any deleted file that you want to bring back, the older it is, the harder it will be to bring back. Plus if you are able to bring it back, the older it is, the more corrupted the file will be. So if you want to bring a deleted file back, you need to do it as fast as possible. The more you delay, the less chance there is of recovering it.

Do you use Recuva? If so, what have been your experiences with it?  What do you think about recuva? Is there any better software than recuva? please share your views in comments.