How to recover lost data on Windows [part 2]

If you haven’t read the first part of this series, I highly you do so first so as not to get lost. In the first part, I explained about what happens when you delete your files and how they are not really gone. Using a few clever tricks, you can be able to get your data back. In this article, we will be looking at the simplest trick of them all. Recovering lost data using Data recovery software. No geek knowledge required! No need to wake up your IT friend.

The actual summoning

For the purposes of this article, we will be using Minitool power data recovery software. Once you download the software, double click on the executable and follow the installation wizard. NB: DO NOT INSTALL IT IN THE SAME DRIVE WHERE YOUR LOST FILES ARE!

Once you open it, you’ll find something like this:

There are five options:

• Undelete Recovery is used for undeleting files that you may have accidentally deleted.
• Damaged partition is used to recover data from a partition that is damaged.
• Lost partition recovery is used to recover files from lost/deleted partitions.
• Digital media recovery is used to recover photos, music and videos from memory cards, flash drives etc.
• CD/DVD Recovery is used to recover deleted files from formatted CDs.

Let’s take undelete recovery for example. If you want to recover deleted files, you will click on that option. Minitool will take you to a list of all your storage drives and you will then choose whichever drive you’re undeleting from. After you choose, click ‘Recover’ which is a blue button at the top left. If you can’t see all your drives, hit ‘refresh list’.

Clicking recover will take you to a list of all your items. the deleted ones are marked by red crosses. All you have to do is to navigate to where they were and mark them. After you’ve finished marking them click save and choose the save location. NB: DO NOT SAVE THE RECOVERED FILES IN THE SAME DRIVE THEY WERE LOST IN.

The quality of your recovered files may vary depending on whether you had used the drive after deleting them and also how long they’ve been deleted. Sometimes it’s impossible to get your files back.

Have fun recovering your vacation photos.

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Originally published at Decode.