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File Recovery

File recovery refers to the recovery of individual files in cases where there is little doubt that the file system and hardware are operating normally. The individual files may have been corrupted or even deleted, accidentally or intentionally. Examples of events that can corrupt files are software malfunction, power failure, physical shock and viruses. It must be said that file recovery is a fairly complicated procedure, mostly automated by software, and there is often a limit to what may be recovered. It is possible to manually reconstruct a file from media, but it's time-consuming and requires expert knowledge of file systems.

Regardless of the file system, when a file is deleted Windows doesn't remove the data from the media. Instead, the operating system moves the file's directory entry into a hidden folder that represents the 'Recycle Bin'. In this case, file recovery couldn't be easier: simply open (double-click) the 'Recycle Bin' on the desktop and look for the file in the list that appears. If it's there, right-click on the file and select Restore from the pop-up menu. The sooner a file is restored after deletion, the better. This is due to the fact that as the Recycle Bin fills up the oldest files are (really) deleted to make room.

The Recycle Bin has limitations though. For example, it doesn't store files deleted from the command prompt or from other computers on a network. However, there are programs that will protect against this, such as Symantec's Norton Protected Recycle Bin and Executive Software's Undelete. Even without this type of prevention though, files may be recovered with an undelete utility. These utilities work because when files are deleted from the Recycle Bin, the data isn't actually removed from the media, but the space they occupy is marked as unused. In the worst cases, if files can't be recovered by ordinary undelete utilities, there are even heavier-duty options.