Question How can I recover deleted text files ?

[yuriykurri]

Firstly, I don't know if I am posting this in the right section so I apologize in advance.

Basically I may have accidentally deleted a folder with .txt text files of notes that I took which I really need to recover!

This just happened a few hours ago and I don't remember specifically deleting this folder, but I was running out of HDD space and in an effort of making more space, was deleting unused files elsewhere in a different location. The files were emptied out of the recycle bin as well. I don't know how I managed to delete this specific folder full of my notes, I don't recall it even being opened but I suppose anything could've happened. Could they have been deleted on their own by windows somehow?

I got a file recovery program called Tenorshare 4DDiG, and used it to scan for deleted files and it managed to find one of the files but for some reason that was it.

Why aren't the other text files being recovered and how can I recover them? Are there other better programs I can use?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I really need these files!

 

[MJS WARLORD]

Many years ago i used a free program called recuva

https://www.ccleaner.com/knowledge/recuva-v1-53-2096
I did manage to get the program to find what i was looking for.

I dont know what the interface looks like now but it used to have what you wanted to search for in different catagories. One thing i do remember is it gave each item a strange name or number but i did eventually find what i was after.

Just a long shot .... have you looked in the recycle bin to see if its in their

 

[yuriykurri]

Many years ago i used a free program called recuva

https://www.ccleaner.com/knowledge/recuva-v1-53-2096
I did manage to get the program to find what i was looking for.

I dont know what the interface looks like now but it used to have what you wanted to search for in different catagories. One thing i do remember is it gave each item a strange name or number but i did eventually find what i was after.

Just a long shot .... have you looked in the recycle bin to see if its in their

I will try recuva, thanks for the suggestion.

In the process of cleaning out my drive I was also emptying out the recycle bin so it is empty unfortunately.

I still don't know how that specific folder was deleted when I wasn't even in it. All other folders of notes surrounding it are there but this specific one is just gone.

 

[TerryLaze]

Why aren't the other text files being recovered and how can I recover them? Are there other better programs I can use?

Files can only be recovered as long as they are still there...as soon as something else gets written over the space they used to be you can't recover them anymore, or only parts of them as in corrupted files.
Windows, and any OS for that matter, will write indiscriminately on any space that is declared free by the OS, which is what you did by deleting them.

That's why the number one suggestion you get in cases of deleted files is to immediately "pull the plug" on the system, force shutdown it, so that the OS doesn't write anything over them and then try to recover from a different PC with the drive that has the missing files connected as read only.