Prospecting Data

It’s funny how if you wish to permanently remove a file from your Windows based PC or Mac all you need do is select that file and press shift-delete. This process will bypass the Windows recycle bin or Mac trash container sending the selected file into oblivion. Yet as simple as it is to delete files there is no direct path to undelete them.

When we bypass the safety step of the Windows recycle bin or trash can from Mac we create a situation where we must purchase and download a powerful third party data recovery tool designed to scan for drive or partition recovery. Many of the best of these tools such as those offered by Remo Software are actually designed to target files lost in several different ways. For example when a file is deleted by emptying the Windows recycle bin it is located in a different folder structure for recovery than those files that were directly deleted using shift-delete.

I recently downloaded the trial version of a photo recovery for Mac software utility. I was extremely disappointed to discover that this particular program was merely a rehash of an earlier version photo recovery Mac operating system software. Before the implementation of Mac OS X it was necessary to access Mac computer hard drives from a data recovery program that was installed on to a Windows based PC and connect it to the Mac hard disk drive by means of cables.

And it should be noted that these programs were only capable of entering a crashed hard disk drive on a Mac and copying visible files. Mac photo recovery programs based on a Windows PC are for the most part unable to recognize file information in areas of that drive marked as available to write new information. It is in these file locations that deleted files reside. So basically this program which claimed to be capable of Mac OS X file recovery was of no value whatsoever.

What program does one use in order to restore files accidentally deleted by reformatting a USB flash drive? Would you use a general purpose hard drive recovery tool? You might but if the files in question were camera Raw files created on a high end camera such as a Nikon or Minolta then that particular data recovery utility will be of no use to you. The best type of program to use for memory card recovery or recovery of lost files on any type of digital media connected to your PC externally will always be a digital media recovery tool. This type of software supports rescue of files from camera SD cards, compact flash drives and memory sticks.

You can usually use a digital media recovery program to help you with iPod recovery of videos or to scan your smart phones internal hard drive for accidentally deleted applications.

Modern tiny netbooks and other new smart devices such as BlackBerries and Palm Pre phones are used almost exclusively for surfing the Internet. And when one surfs the net more frequently the likelihood of downloading a computer virus or other malware is significantly increased. The best way to counter attacks from computer viruses is to reload our operating system. This tactic also applies when the operating system on our smart phone or other compact device is attacked.

Quality programs to recover deleted files on digital media such as USB flash drives and digital camera memory cards can also be used to recover files that have been deleted during the process of reloading an operating system. These digital media recovery programs can be used on netbooks, smart phones and all types of MP3 players. Considering the cost of many downloadable applications for phones and music the low price of the data recovery tool used to rescue those files seems to be a very wise investment.

Many people are under the assumption that Mac computer problems are far more expensive and difficult to deal with than those one will run into when using a Windows based PC. This is partially true for Mac file recovery tools are somewhat more expensive than those available for Windows but generally speaking the process of Mac recovery is nearly identical to the steps followed when attempting to recover lost, damaged, or deleted files from a Windows based PC.

The first step in any data recovery task is to try to ascertain where our files were deleted or lost from. For example if you interrupted the downloading of digital photographs from your camera’s memory card to your computer’s hard disk drive you might look for the lost files in either your computer’s internal hard drive or preferably the camera SD card onto which the files were originally loaded. The further upstream one can travel in looking for lost files the higher the likelihood of successful data recovery. After you have determined where you feel your files were last located you can then use a powerful third party file recovery tool such as those offered by Remo Software to scan that drive and search within it for any recently deleted or damaged files.

The first rule when attempting Microsoft Outlook Express recovery or recovery of files when using the larger Outlook e-mail client is to never compact folders before backing up your stored file data. Both Outlook recovery and recovery of Outlook Express data is a relatively simple task if one does not institute the compaction option beforehand. When one compacts the Microsoft Outlook inbox several things are accomplished.

First all of the space used for deleted messages is overwritten with the data used for stored emails. The purpose of this is to constantly keep the size of the Outlook PST file inbox folder to under 2 GB. However as with any situation where we overwrite a file area on our computer’s internal hard disk drive once we put new data over the sectors that held the old the older information is no longer recoverable. Compaction squeezes all of the files into a smaller area by overwriting those messages and options previously deleted. But if the deleted information is actually still needed and if one hopes to use a data recovery tool to find that information the process must be done before compacting files and folders on Outlook and Outlook Express.