(Based on a true occurrence)

Feeling A Bit Tired? Take A Break NOW, OR Risk Ruining ALL That You've Done!

Rather than wait till the end of this short piece, I will start by offering this moral as a quick take-away: No matter how much you love your work, since you are only human, you WILL get tired every now and then. When you do, your love might make you reluctant to take a break and rest/relax, in order to return for another session. But I beg you, PLEASE, avoid continuing in this state, because you become more prone to making mistakes if you do. And some of the mistakes you make in this state of mind could result in consequences that are not only serious, but also permanent.

I have always had a problem doing the above, and until the experience I describe in this article happened to me, I never really made a point of taking a rest whenever my "body told me" it needed it. Instead, I would often force myself to write an extra article; build an extra web page; design an extra graphic; write more Excel VB code etc, until I got a headache that threatened to split my head in two - OR the electricity supply went off(a frequent occurrence out here) etc.

I Mistakenly Deleted Three(3) Year's Worth Of Data!

Well, that bad habit got me into BIG trouble on the morning of Saturday 11th March 2006. I was doing some "house cleaning" on my PC's hard drive, trying to find/remove obsolete files and free up some storage space. But in a moment of fatigue induced absent mindedness, I mistakenly clicked on and deleted the entire contents of a folder containing over three year's worth of work (over 146 MB - 1,800 files approx), by pressing the Shift-Delete key combination and clicking YES to bypass the recycle bin!

I considered it the biggest mistake of my life, and one that - as I told my wife - could ruin me, since I had not backed up my hard drive for a while despite making many numerous updates to its contents.

Luckily, some quick thinking and timely action(plus a little providence), enabled me get ALL my files back - intact - less than two hours later. Below, I explain what I did, so others may know what to do should they find themselves confronted with a similar dilemma.

How I Successfully Recovered All The Deleted Files(Without Any Losses)

1. As I continued to gaze at the screen, the power supply went off, so that I had to shut down the PC: This would later turn out to be a blessing in disguise, as I later learnt from reading about how to maximise chances of recovering deleted files from a computer. Continuing to work on the system could cause areas from which files were deleted to be overwritten with new files(created by you, or the operating system). To avoid this, it is therefore recommended that you stop work IMMEDIATELY, to increase chances of complete files recovery.

2. I bolted out of the house, and drove to the nearest Cyber Cafe: I did not have a home PC connected to the net, and had to drive about 15 minutes to get to the one that was open that day. Looking back I believe it would probably have taken a much shorter time period to recover my files if I had had internet access at home. Only thing is that it would probably be safer in this case to use a different PC(from that with deleted files) to download the files recovery software I eventually used.

Once online, I quickly Googled the string "free software to recover deleted files on my computer", and in less than a second had a page containing free and sponsored links in front of me.

I was however keen to find something that was FREE - if possible - (who would'nt be? :-) ), so I ignored the sponsored links and clicked on one that read as follows:

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Recovering Deleted Files
When a file is deleted from your computer, its contents aren’t ... Gary Terhune
swears by: R-Studio Data Recovery Software by R-Tools Technology is a ...
aumha.org/a/recover.php - 10k - Cached - Similar pages

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This led to an article page on which a FREE deleted files recovery program called "Restoration" is introduced by Gary Terhune, the article's author. Towards the end of the article, Gary writes:

Brian Kato’s Restoration is so successful so much of the time that I rarely hear from users that it failed them — unless there is actual physical damage to the drive. However, the program has its limits, and, if it fails to recover your data, there are still other possibilities.

3. Downloading The FREE File Recovery Utility: On that article page, a link is provided leading to the downloads page for the FREE program(called Restoration) recommended by the article author.

Clicking the link took me to a long web page alphabetical listing of various free utilities - which the author announced that he personally used. It was comforting to note that the page was last updated in late February 2006, making me optimistic that the utilities offered were not obsolete.

I quickly scanned the list of programs and soon came across the one described as "Restoration - ver. 2.5". This program was built by Brian Kato(a guy people like myself will forever be grateful to!), and made available online as a freeware program.

4. Recovering My Files: The freeware program download to my flash drive ended quickly, and I also downloaded some web pages describing commercial programs used for deleted files recovery(I downloaded trial versions of two of them).

When I ran the trial versions of the commercial programs, they correctly identified the files to be recovered, but prompted me for an activation code which had to be purchased before files could be recovered and saved to disk.

In one of the programs, a message prompt by the developers explained that they had to insist on payment in this manner, because it was conceivable that some people, if allowed to use the program to recover their deleted files BEFORE being asked to buy, may not feel much of a pressing need to go back online and purchase a license - VERY true.

At this point, I went back to my flash drive and unzipped the folder containing Brian Kato's program. The unzipped folder contains easy to understand instructions for use, in a README text file. Next, I clicked the icon for the little program, selected the drive I wished to work on, and within a few minutes, I watched as it automatically restored every single one of my deleted files. I could not at this point help wondering why I ever bothered downloading the other programs!

Click here to view a web page showing step-by-step screenshots of how I first tried to use the evaluation version of a commercial deleted files recovery tool called "Recover My Files Ver 3.1", before later switching to Brian Kato's freeware "Restoration" program

What If Brian Kato's Program Fails To Work For You?

Then you'll have to seriously consider parting with some cash to get one of the commercial software available for recovering deleted files. Specific commercial programs, highly recommended by Gary's professional colleagues are mentioned in the final paragraph of his article at http://aumha.org/a/recover.php. Read the article - it offers a lot of useful information especially basic education about how files are stored on a drive, plus how to boost chances of successful files recovery - including some do's and don'ts.

During my search, I also came up with links to websites offering the following recovery tools and information:

1. R-Studio Data Recovery Software: http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

2. Data Recovery For Windows(Ntfs disk recovery & file undelete for Windows NT/2000/XP): File Scavenger® Version 3 Disk Data Recovery Program at http://www.quetek.com

3. PC World Article: Recover Lost Files That Aren't In The Recycle Bin: http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,112924,00.asp

MORE About Brian Kato's Deleted Files Recovery Program : Restoration

As Gary Terhune said in the article located at http://aumha.org/a/recover.php, even though a file has been deleted from your computer, and is no longer in the recycle bin, the file's contents actually still remain intact - UNTIL the space they previously occupied on the hard drive is overwritten.

Brian Kato's nifty little program, which comes in versions for different operating systems(XP, NT etc) can help you do two things:

1. Restore files that were deleted from your PC's recycle bin by mistake - or that you thought you wanted to permanently delete(using Shift-Delete key combinations), and then changed your mind.

2. Delete files completely from your PC. Examples of files that need such treatment are given by the author as "confidential documents, embarrassing files and so on".

In my case, the first function was what I needed. I have yet to try out the second. BUT, if I were to go by the ease with which I was able to put the program to use in recovering my lost files, I would say anyone who has a need to use the second feature has nothing to worry about.

Note however that the introduction also states that the program makes it "almost impossible to restore all deleted files" - almost being the word you want to focus on here, suggesting that if you use the program to delete files, someone with appropriate know-how might still be able to retrieve them.

Important Points To Keep In Mind

1. No Need For Installation: Brian Kato's program is not just small, it also does not add to the clutter of installation files on your PC because it is delivered as a ready-to-run executable, and will easily fit on to a floppy disk and run from there or your hard drive, if you prefer.

2. The Sooner You Start, The Better: Since your deleted data will likely remain intact for as long as the space it originally occupied on the drive has not been overwritten, it follows that your chances of recovering ALL your lost data, will depend on how soon after you delete them that you attempt recovery. With Brian Kato's Restoration program, you should be up and running within minutes.

3. Be Careful In Installing Other Recovery Software: Brian Kato's program is great because it does not need installation, so chances of its installation files overwriting areas your deleted files are to be recovered from are non-existent. For programs that require it, you will be better off installing/running them from another disk volume - or risk losing your files permanently!

4. Be Pro-Active - Partition Your Hard Drive! My PC's hard drive is partitioned into drives C:\ and D:\, the former being used exclusively for installed programs, while the latter holds my working documents. You can, I'm sure, easily deduce therefore that my deleted files were located on drive D:\. As a result, when I had to use the evaluation version for one of the commercial recovery tools I downloaded, I simply installed it on drive C:\, and ran it from there.

You might want to partition your PC's hard drive in a similar manner to mine - or as you find suitable for your needs. Incidentally, apart from enhancing your chances of recovering deleted files, installing your software applications on a separate partition from that for your working documents, could save you losing ALL your valuable data in the event that your system crashes, and formatting your hard drive becomes inevitable.

Without separating your valuable working documents to a (virtual) drive other than that on which your installed programs run, formatting the hard drive would imply losing all your data. Of course if you have diligently backed up your data to a removable storage device, this would not really be a problem. My experience is however that these things tend to happen just around that time that one has been a "little" lazy about making (or too busy to make) updated backup copies! :-)

Click the following link to go to Brian Kato's web page for this very useful program: Restoration - ver. 2.5 at http://www.geocities.jp/br_kato/

Be Forewarned/Armed!

Hopefully, you won't need to use the information in this article - BUT just in case you(or someone you know) find yourself in a fix similar to the one I have described above, I suggest you keep a copy of this article and/or other resources mentioned in it(including the Restoration program), in a place where you can easily find them. :-)