Restoring files

[Blue Rose]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick query:

I know if you accidently delete files, the computer can be restored & files recovered. Is this still the case if files are 'professionally deleted'?

Any help appreciated as always

 

[Bev Rose]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick query:

I know if you accidently delete files, the computer can be restored & files recovered. Is this still the case if files are 'professionally deleted'?

Any help appreciated as always

What do you mean by 'professionally'?

If you have deleted a file, generally, it should be in the recycle bin - if you go the that and then right click, it will ask you if you want to permanently delete the file or restore it.

 

[Blue Rose]

What do you mean by 'professionally'?

If you have deleted a file, generally, it should be in the recycle bin - if you go the that and then right click, it will ask you if you want to permanently delete the file or restore it.

It's an ongoing saga with an ex-employee. She didn't do the work she was supposed to do on my laptop & is now claiming that it was done on her desktop PC instead. For some reason or other she had them professionally deleted (her terminology).

Just wondered if she could be telling the truth?

 

[Fitz]

It's an ongoing saga with an ex-employee. She didn't do the work she was supposed to do on my laptop & is now claiming that it was done on her desktop PC instead. For some reason or other she had them professionally deleted (her terminology).

Just wondered if she could be telling the truth?

If she has then the HDD contents would have gone to, if thats still intact with old contents then its bollox basically. There will be a trace of it on the PC somewhere if the HDD hasn't been scrubbed. With any PC you get loads of chances to restore old files, folders and documents.

You could always do a search: Start > Search > Files and Folders - Type in the File name you are looking for.

Or do the same and search for a File or Folder called 'Recent' Once you have found it take a look for it in there, if its not in there and the HDD hasn't been restored/wiped she is lying and you'll need to give her the Tin Tack AGAIN.

 

[Zingara]

She could be , but I'd be more inclined to believe she could be blagging and did a quick wipe in the hope you'd believe her. A true professional clean would probably mean sending it away and would be costly.

It's quite hard to actualy get rid completely of files on a PC. Even if you have cleared them out of your recycle bin then you will usually have an image somehwere that can be recovered.

The other option is she could have used a free download of something like Windows Washer, which will get rid of files...pretty much completely. A real expert may be able to recover some 'meaningless' bits but once someone has deleted....unless you really know what you are doing, it can also be extremely costly to get them back!

 

[Fitz]

She could be , but I'd be more inclined to believe she could be blagging and did a quick wipe in the hope you'd believe her. A true professional clean would probably mean sending it away and would be costly.

It's quite hard to actualy get rid completely of files on a PC. Even if you have cleared them out of your recycle bin then you will usually have an image somehwere that can be recovered.

The other option is she could have used a free download of something like Windows Washer, which will get rid of files...pretty much completely. A real expert may be able to recover some 'meaningless' bits but once someone has deleted....unless you really know what you are doing, it can also be extremely costly to get them back!

Its no more costly than getting rid of them and it really wouldn't take an expert to recover them either.

 

[Ruth Mills]

Right, now I am guessing what she may mean by "professionally" deleted is that she's run some software that actually overwrites the section of the hard drive where the files were stored - usually with a load of random data - before deleting the reference to the file from the table of contents? In which case it would be particularly difficult to try and retrieve the file.

If she's only deleted the reference to the file from the file allocation table, then as long as the sector(s) of the disc where the file was have not been overwritten with other data, then it should be possible to retrieve the file using specialist software...

 

[Blue Rose]

All I know is that she's apparantly had a computer tech delete the files. We're only talking basic client details here - hardly major national scandal stuff!

 

[looby lou]

I got more than I bargained for when i clicked on this one!!! I thought it meant 'nail files'!!