Recommend me a... File recovery programme.

[phil24_7]

So, what do you recommend?

My buddy who had the virus on his laptop, had the virus re-emerge recently (as I said it might), and rather than bring it to me so I could get it working once again, before backing up the files, and then giving it a fresh install, he decided to take it to the professionals. The professionals didn't back up all the files, so he has lost some important stuff.

I need a free, data/deleted files recovery programme, to try to retrieve the lost files.

What do you use or recommend?

Regards

[the_lone_wolf]

PC Inspector File Recovery

Saved our asses when we were doing a big survey and a computer crash caused the loss of three days of our data (~£5k worth)

Used it a couple of times since at work and at home

[mr.anderson]

Recuva?

[phi-dan]

PC Inspector File Recovery

Saved our asses when we were doing a big survey and a computer crash caused the loss of three days of our data (~£5k worth)

Used it a couple of times since at work and at home

+1, used this a number of times

[phil24_7]

I'll give PC Inspector a shot then. Will it run from a USB drive?

[the_lone_wolf]

I'll give PC Inspector a shot then. Will it run from a USB drive?

Don't think so, think it needs to be installed - you can run the installer from the drive though if it's internet access you're having issues with?

[phi-dan]

You can drag the program files across to USB afterwards and it works fine (got it on my pen drive as pasrt of a portable IT fixit kit - oh they joys of being a geek)

[phil24_7]

Hail lord geek... Please detail me the steps I need to put it on a flash drive, as i don't really want to put it on the laptop with the lost files.

[phil24_7]

How far south and west are you phi-dan?

[beabert]

'getbackdata' for ntfs, or ntfs undelete.

[JamesMio]

If all else fails try these guys for data recovery:

http://www.kingdomit.co.uk/

[phil24_7]

Can't get either ntfs undelete, or PC Inspector to work off of a flash drive. One doesn't even see the C drive, and the other wont scan it!

[mr.anderson]

Go to portableapps.com/download (http://portableapps.com/download), download the Platform only. Install that onto a USB jobby.

Then go to http://www.piriform.com/recuva/builds and download Recuva Portable. Install that onto your USB jobby.

Plug into laptop and start recovering data.

[phi-dan]

Hail lord geek... Please detail me the steps I need to put it on a flash drive, as i don't really want to put it on the laptop with the lost files.

Install the program onto your PC
Browse to C:\Program Files and look for PC Inspector File Recovery
Copy that folder across to your removable drive

(sorry couldn't reply last night - Windows 7 64bit through a wobbler on my PC and it's not happy. Back at work at geek central now so free interwebs!)

[phi-dan]

Go to portableapps.com/download (http://portableapps.com/download), download the Platform only. Install that onto a USB jobby.

Then go to http://www.piriform.com/recuva/builds and download Recuva Portable. Install that onto your USB jobby.

Plug into laptop and start recovering data.

Haven't used that particular app, but I do like the portable apps platform / suite

[madcockney]

Portable apps are very good, not just from the fact that you want to carry all your essential apps around on a on a flash (memory) drive or a portable HDD and be able to run, but also in these situations. If files have been lost or deleted then there is always the possibility that you will overwrite the files that you are trying to recover with the recovery program if installed on the same drive.

Just another matter if you have a virus on your system and then get rid of it/them don't forget to afterwards turn of the roll back restore facility in windows so it deletes any previous restore points that may contain virulii. You can then turn it back on if you want to.

[phil24_7]

Go to portableapps.com/download (http://portableapps.com/download), download the Platform only. Install that onto a USB jobby.

Then go to http://www.piriform.com/recuva/builds and download Recuva Portable. Install that onto your USB jobby.

Plug into laptop and start recovering data.

I happened upon Recuva last night, installed it onto the USB drive and it ran without any problems. It recovered over 72000 files, so once I'd sorted through the ones I wanted, and recovered them, it was 05:30!

That portable app looks quite good, I may put that on one of my flash drives for future use.

[phil24_7]

Just another matter if you have a virus on your system and then get rid of it/them don't forget to afterwards turn of the roll back restore facility in windows so it deletes any previous restore points that may contain virulii. You can then turn it back on if you want to.

I didn't do this... Schoolboy!

[phil24_7]

Install the program onto your PC
Browse to C:\Program Files and look for PC Inspector File Recovery
Copy that folder across to your removable drive

(sorry couldn't reply last night - Windows 7 64bit through a wobbler on my PC and it's not happy. Back at work at geek central now so free interwebs!)

It worked where the others wouldn't (due to them being installed straight onto the flash drive I expect), so I rate it.