Recovering a folder

[SaiyanGoku]

I am sorry I am not getting how exactly to do this. All I can see is to search in c,d,e,f or in the shadow drives.

Open Recuva
Recuva Wizard opens up. Click next
All Files radio button is selected. Click next
Select 5th radio button from top "In a specific location". Specify the location or browse to it and select it. Click next.
Click start.

Then proceed to recover files as you need.

 

[billubakra]

Which version are you using? No wizard or radio button in v1.52.1086

Open Recuva
Recuva Wizard opens up. Click next
All Files radio button is selected. Click next
Select 5th radio button from top "In a specific location". Specify the location or browse to it and select it. Click next.
Click start.

Then proceed to recover files as you need.

 

[whitestar_999]

CCleaner.com - Specifying what to search for

 

[billubakra]

CCleaner.com - Specifying what to search for

Did the same earlier. Is the path mentioned correctly as it is asking for 5 hours

 

[whitestar_999]

Path is correct(C:\users\abc\desktop),number of files is huge because folder location is inside C drive that too in Users folder.That is also why it is not recommended to keep a complicated/large no. of files folder in C drive as any recovery will take much longer compared to a normal drive.

P.S. you are recovering all these files to another hdd,right?

 

[SaiyanGoku]

Which version are you using? No wizard or radio button in v1.52.1086

You could've disabled the wizard. I'm using v1.53.1087 free version.

 

[billubakra]

Path is correct(C:\users\abc\desktop),number of files is huge because folder location is inside C drive that too in Users folder.That is also why it is not recommended to keep a complicated/large no. of files folder in C drive as any recovery will take much longer compared to a normal drive.

P.S. you are recovering all these files to another hdd,right?

You could've disabled the wizard. I'm using v1.53.1087 free version.

Scanned the desktop via recuva, it is not finding even a single file from the deleted folder. There is no trace of the folder whatsoever. I have checked each entry carefully. This is very very strange. How come not even a single file in the scanned list? Can we do something about those shadow/restored files? I mean recover it well?

 

[SaiyanGoku]

I have checked each entry carefully. This is very very strange. How come not even a single file in the scanned list? Can we do something about those shadow/restored files?

Did you restore a shadow copy?

 

[billubakra]

Did you restore a shadow copy?

Restored the exact folder via shadow explorer and system restore explorer as mentioned in this link How to Recover Deleted Files Using Previous versions (Shadow Copy) in Windows » Winhelponline posted by @whitestar_999 It shows all the files- excels, word, jpegs, rar etc. About 10-20% are opening fine, the rest are showing error like the one that I have posted above, the excel screenshot. The first method in that link- recover files using previous versions shows me this Recovering a folder What should I do? The folder is really really important. Yes it is stupid of me that I kept it on desktop and didn't take any backup. It had my work of about 2 years.

 

[billubakra]

I am going bonkers since last night. Was alone in office the whole night trying to figure it out. Ran Recuva, EaseUS, Stellar and few more recovery softwares but no result.

 

[SaiyanGoku]

I don't know what to tell you brother. I don't use any other method to recover files except recuva and I don't do write operations on the affected drive as well till everything is recovered properly.

 

[whitestar_999]

Sorry to say but I think that data is gone if you "did shadow recovery earlier" & exported the folder to same drive/hdd then it overwrote the lost data destroying any chances of recovery. If you exported the folder to external hdd/usb drive then there is still slim chance of recovery by running Recuva on whole C drive & use file extension filtering & then do a manual search & recovery by sorting files date wise/size wise etc.

 

[billubakra]

Sorry to say but I think that data is gone if you "did shadow recovery earlier" & exported the folder to same drive/hdd then it overwrote the lost data destroying any chances of recovery. If you exported the folder to external hdd/usb drive then there is still slim chance of recovery by running Recuva on whole C drive & use file extension filtering & then do a manual search & recovery by sorting files date wise/size wise etc.

Exported the concerned folder from c to d, e and f using shadow and system restore explorer, so no overwrite thing I guess. Any other software/way of recovering from shadow/system restore image?
Any way to get something out of the corrupted excel files?

 

[whitestar_999]

No,overwriting can occur even if data restored is to different drive but same hdd(C,D,E etc are for human convenience,it does not mean actual data on hdd is enclosed in areas named C,D,E.Technically it is much more complex & that's why data recovery recommended practice is to not write anything to hdd from where data is to be recovered). That is why people attempting data recovery make exact sector-by-sector copy which is exactly equal to hdd size instead of using normal image of hdd which is compressed by nature & is always smaller than hdd to be imaged.

 

[billubakra]

No,overwriting can occur even if data restored is to different drive but same hdd(C,D,E etc are for human convenience,it does not mean actual data on hdd is enclosed in areas named C,D,E.Technically it is much more complex & that's why data recovery recommended practice is to not write anything to hdd from where data is to be recovered). That is why people attempting data recovery make exact sector-by-sector copy which is exactly equal to hdd size instead of using normal image of hdd which is compressed by nature & is always smaller than hdd to be imaged.

Few questions-
1. Fine the folder deleted yesterday has been overwritten. So, why are the folders, files deleted months ago still shown in the scan? I didn't bother to check their health whether they can be recovered or not. Yesterday's folder has vanished from the scan/search list also.
2. Will be saving important folders/files in d,e etc. drives and will keep a shortcut on desktop, along with regular backups. How and should I enable a proper backup/shadow image thing so that I am not screwed next time?

Finally is there any way to recover files from that shadow backup or to make the excel files correct i.e. non-corrupted? Partial recovery would also do.

 

[SaiyanGoku]

How and should I enable a proper backup/shadow image thing so that I am not screwed next time?

Don't depend on shadow copies. Just copy/save everything on another/external reliable drive.

 

[whitestar_999]

Like I said,it is too technical.May be the folder was physically located on an area in hdd which was written over completely during shadow recovery(which I assume also gives preference to original physical area on hdd where data was located irrespective of drive chosen on same hdd). As for finding those other files/folders I am assuming either they were relatively smaller in size or located in locations like documents etc & because of that they are relatively easier to recover. You cannot make lost data appear again to make a partially complete file(aka corrupt) complete(aka correct) again.If it is a simple text/doc file then it is possible to do some recovery of text remaining inside those partial files but excel files are probably gone completely.

Don't keep copy of important data only on same hdd(different drive). Since it is office so all PCs must be connected via lan,just zip the important data with password(encryption option) & save it also on another pc in office.

 

[Flash]

Try EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard "Technician" edition (i assume, you've used Free version earlier)

When i dropped my external HDD (which was having Games backup) mistakenly once, something went off and the HDD didn't show any data even though it was recognized in explorer. So, i formatted the HDD completely and used the above software to scan for the remnants. After the scan was complete, i found all of the folders are infact in good condition. Then i used the recover option to retrieve the contents and store it in another external HDD (borrowed from friend). Later i copied the contents back to original drive, and now its good as old.

Successful data recovery depends on how much of the file data cluster are safe (not overwritten with other data). In your case, it's C drive and i assume it's an OS partition - so, there's only little hope for you to recover the data, as OS itself might've rewritten the clusters.

 

[billubakra]

Like I said,it is too technical.May be the folder was physically located on an area in hdd which was written over completely during shadow recovery(which I assume also gives preference to original physical area on hdd where data was located irrespective of drive chosen on same hdd). As for finding those other files/folders I am assuming either they were relatively smaller in size or located in locations like documents etc & because of that they are relatively easier to recover. You cannot make lost data appear again to make a partially complete file(aka corrupt) complete(aka correct) again.If it is a simple text/doc file then it is possible to do some recovery of text remaining inside those partial files but excel files are probably gone completely.

Don't keep copy of important data only on same hdd(different drive). Since it is office so all PCs must be connected via lan,just zip the important data with password(encryption option) & save it also on another pc in office.

The non-needed or the files/folders which I deleted from the desktop months ago are being recovered fine but not this folder via recuva.

Try EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard "Technician" edition (i assume, you've used Free version earlier)

When i dropped my external HDD (which was having Games backup) mistakenly once, something went off and the HDD didn't show any data even though it was recognized in explorer. So, i formatted the HDD completely and used the above software to scan for the remnants. After the scan was complete, i found all of the folders are infact in good condition. Then i used the recover option to retrieve the contents and store it in another external HDD (borrowed from friend). Later i copied the contents back to original drive, and now its good as old.

Successful data recovery depends on how much of the file data cluster are safe (not overwritten with other data). In your case, it's C drive and i assume it's an OS partition - so, there's only little hope for you to recover the data, as OS itself might've rewritten the clusters.

Downloaded those versions, unfortunately they are not finding any file of this folder now. I guess NSFW