How can I recover deleted files from external hard drive?
Recovery of the deleted files from an external drive is not a difficult task.
Just note that the success of the recovery depends on how often you used the drive after deleting files,
especially, in terms of writing.
When you delete a file, the file system driver doesn't actually erase file content,
but instead it just marks that the clusters storing the deleted file content now are free and
can be used for another file.
That is, if you delete files and then write a lot of new files, it is highly possible that the system
has already written new files data to the clusters previously used for the deleted files meaning that
it is impossible now to recover deleted files. Since it is quite hard to predict the allocation algorithm of the filesystem driver,
it is better to run data recovery software and see what it brings.
To recover deleted files from the external hard drive you need to:
- Immediately stop using the drive.
- Prepare a storage device to copy the recovered files to.
If only few deleted files involved, you can copy them, say, to a system drive.
- Download data recovery software, like ReclaiMe File Recovery and start the scan.
- Save the recovered files and check them.
For more detailed tutorial on how to recover deleted files,
refer to this page - How to undelete files.
Still have questions?