File-Recovery.NET

Searching for Deleted Files and Folders

Below are the steps you should perform to locate your files and folders:

1. Check the Windows Recycle Bin to see if the file or folder is there. If it is, use standard Windows Restore command to recover it from there. If not, continue with step 2.
2. If you know exactly where the files or folders located, you can use  drive scan procedure. After drive has been scanned go directly to the folder the same way as you do in Windows Explorer. If no your files there, try to look under UNKNOWN FOLDERS tree node (if parent of file/folder has been deleted either, most likely item will be placed to this virtual folder). If you are still unable to locate your data, proceed to the next step. 
3. If you are not certain where the deleted file or folder was located before deletion, try Search mode. Position marker to the Drive or Folder and click the Search button on the toolbar, or right-click the drive or folder and click Search in the context. In Advanced Search dialog specify search criteria:

1. Find what - define a search pattern, for example type *.DOC to find all files with DOC extension (Microsoft Office Word Documents).
2. Find where - define location - Logical Drive, or Disk Image, or Detected Partition where search will be performed.
3. File type - you can define search by file type using the most common extensions associated with particular applications.
4. You can include only deleted or only non-deleted items, specify case sensitive or case insensitive search.
5. If you know approximate date where file or folder was Created, Modified or last Accessed (in most cases - deleted), you can mark the related checkbox and specify date range.
6. If you know approximate file size, you can mark Size checkbox and specify minimum or maximum files size (or both) in Kilobytes. 

Figure 2-2 Define a Search Pattern

1. Click Find. After the search is complete, examine Search Results virtual folder that contains matched files and folders.
2. If no files were found, try to apply Thorough Scan  for the drive to look more closely on all drive's surface and then repeat Step 3.

If after completion of all 5 steps your files and folders still cannot be found, it means that drive's space where these files were located has been completely overwritten with other data, so no recovery tools could help you anymore. It could happen when a lot of writing operations occurred on this drive (like software installation). Besides Windows Operating System sometimes creates temporary files for different processes, so this might affect your data either.

Important 

The search pattern is the same pattern recognized when searching in Microsoft Windows. The asterisk symbol (*) in the pattern means that at this place can be zero or any number of any symbols. The question mark symbol (?) in the pattern means that at this place can be any single symbol.

Some examples are listed below: 

See Also:

Performing Extended Device Scan, Searching for Deleted Files and Folders

Back to Contents