what's the best program for finding deleted files?

spaceboy

It's lots of photos that got wiped when a computer decided to reinstal windows, then the computer was used for a couple of months after that. Obviously it's not garanteed they'll be retrievable but what would be the best program to try?

b33r

To be honest if the computer has been formatted and windows re-installed your chances are pretty much zero but here is a couple you can try:

Recuva and PhotoRec

Edit: Also computers don't usually decide to reinstall windows, are you sure it wasn't a person? I would suggest reading the sticky in this forum about backing up as well, a hard drive is probably the least reliable thing in a computer.

closed

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

You could try the free ones, recuva etc, but you'll be lucky to get anything back with them, this will tell you what you can get back before you pay for it.

banger9365

i've used recuva a few times on sd/cf cards ect ,work fine for me
hdds are different they read and write alot ,
you might be hard pushed to get any thing worth of a used hdds after a format and few months use

ian2211

closed wrote: »

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

You could try the free ones, recuva etc, but you'll be lucky to get anything back with them, this will tell you what you can get back before you pay for it.

This is definately the one to go for. I have used it numerous times on HDD's that have been formatted and had windows re-installed and have managed to recover just about everything

Marty_J

If your computer has been in use for several months since it was formatted, it's doubtful you'll be able to find anything (though by all means try).

Backup your photos with Microsoft's Live Photos or Google's Picasa Web Albums and then you'll never have this problem again.

The former gives you 25 GB free, and the latter costs £5 a year for 20 GB, so there's little reason not to.