Losing precious family pictures or important work documents might be the last thing a computer user wants to experience. Unfortunately it happens all the time! Backing up your data periodically is the best way to prevent the disaster taking place. But if you happen to be the unlucky guy that do not do backups, here's some useful information that may help you out.

Chances of Recovery

Even if you've emptied your Recycle Bin, it does not mean that your data is gone forever. In fact it is still there in your hard disk while the space it occupies is now marked as "available", which means it can be reused by other files anytime. Therefore, the No.1 rule after you lose your files is not to write data on that disk any more. By doing so, it will largely increase the possibility of recovery.

The chances of recovery also depend on how full your hard drive is. Windows tends to avoid reusing the space just been freed to give you a better chance to recover the deleted files. But if your hard drive is full, the free space can be reused soon by other files.

Disk Defragmentation can severely damage the chances of a successful recovery. During defragmentation, existing files will be moved to the free space left by deleted files in order to reduce disk fragments, making it much less likely for you to recover the data.

How to recover deleted files

If your files are still in Recycle Bin, you can just use "Restore" option provided by Windows to move them back to the original location. If unfortunately they have been permanently deleted, you have to get a data recovery tool to help you with the job because such tool is not provided as standard in any operating system.

WinASO Registry Optimizer has just included a free data recovery tool in its latest release V You can download it now to check out this new feature.

The steps of recovery are quite simple.

1. Scan the drive which contains your deleted files.



2. When the scan is completed, go to the folder where the files were stored before being deleted, locate the files, select and click on "Recover". The "State" column tells you the current condition of the file (i.e., whether it has been damaged or not). If it says "Very good", it is most likely that the file can be successfully recovered.