There are important things to be noted if you want to recover data from your hard disk, flash drives, or multimedia cards:
♦ do not install ♦ do not copy ♦ do not save ♦ do not reboot
The reason is when you delete data from your hard disk, it does not go anywhere - it is not “destroyed” as yet. The data is still present on your storage device, the space occupied by the data simply marked as deleted and made available for reuse, Now, if you write any data on to that drive (by means of installing, copying, saving or rebooting), chances are, that the data you want to recover, might get overwritten with the new data. This will reduce the probability of getting back your data from that drive.
Before the catastrophe
I hope you read this before the catastrophe. If so, congratulations. Now, this very instant install a data recovery program. You might need it in future, and you’ve just learned not to install anything after the catastrophe.
Install the software now!
After the catastrophe
Too bad – but not soo bad. If you need to recover data from your system drive, follow the four hints above. Go to a friend, colleague or simply to your second machine. Install “Recuva” on an USB-Stick and run the recovery from that thumb drive.