How to restore deleted or lost files on laptop

Many people start to panic as soon as they accidentally hit the delete button and lose important files like photos, videos, folders or other important documents on their laptops or computers. Things become more complicated if you accidentally delete important files from the recycle bin. Missing files or data may occur due to one of the following possibilities:

• The file was mistakenly deleted.
• Files that are corrupt and deleted by scandisk.
• Another program deletes the file.

However, you should be aware of the various ways in which lost data can be back into your computer's hard drive. Before reviewing the recommendations and suggestions below, make sure that the file has actually been deleted, in some cases the file may have been moved. You can search the hard drive for files that you believe to be missing by running find or searching on the computer.

Restoring Files from Backup

If a file has been backed up to a floppy disk or other media such as a flash it is recommended that the file is restored the backup if the file can not be found.

Restoring Deleted Files from Recycle Bin

If you are running Apple MacOS, Microsoft Windows and newly deleted files it is possible that the file is still possible in Trash or Recycle Bin.

If it still exists, then the file can still be restored. By default when a file is deleted in Microsoft Windows, it is automatically sent to the Windows Recycle Bin. In that case, it should be returned if the file is erroneously deleted. Here are simple steps that can be followed to recover files if they are mistakenly deleted.

1. Go to Desktop where you can see Recycle Bin icon.

2. Double-click on the Recycle Bin icon to open a window that displays all the files in the Recycle Bin. If no file is visible skip to the paragraph below.

3. To restore any of the deleted items you can follow the steps below.

• Highlight the file you want to restore, right-click the file and select Restore option. This will restore the files from the original location it was deleted.
• Highlight the file you want to restore, right-click the file and select Cut. Next, switch to the location you want to move the deleted items and click Paste.
• Drag-and-drop from Recycle Bin to the folder you want to save.

If the Recycle Bin is empty you may have activated Windows to not send the file to the Recycle Bin or it is more likely that the Recycle Bin has been emptied by you or someone else who uses the computer. If the file is visible in the Recycle Bin but not the old file you are looking at the possibility that the older file has been deleted to make room for other deleted files.

When a file is deleted even when deleted from Recycle Bin the files are marked as deleted, but not deleted from the hard drive. Assuming no other files have overwritten deleted files on the hard drive recovery program can be used to restore deleted files. Below are some freeware file recovery programs that can be used for free to restore lost data:

1. Recuva
2. Restoration
3. Undelete Plus

I hope the way I have been able to be useful to you and can help you all.

Good luck.