By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Trevor_Johnson]Trevor Johnson
Sometimes you just get too trigger happy. You know the sinking feeling when you've pressed the delete key and don't realize in time. It always seems to be the important files that get accidentally deleted. Never the trivial ones. Or maybe they get deleted regularly as well but you just don't notice. Either way, there comes a time when you need to retrieve a file you've accidentally deleted and it's stubbornly not showing in the recycle bin. Is there anything else you can do to get that pesky file back?
The first thing you need to do is stop everything you're doing on your computer.
In olden days, that was easy because the chances are there were only one or two programs running on your machine and you'd deliberately started them up.
Nowadays it's nowhere near as easy. Your antivirus software goes off and updates itself on a regular basis. Other software monitors stuff and does updates or saves stuff. Instant messenger programs store your conversations somewhere. Your internet browser keeps all sorts of files just in case you go back to a website any time soon.
The reason for stopping absolutely everything from running is that Windows overwrites parts of your hard drive when it needs to store a new file. And it doesn't much care whether that space used to be occupied by some or all of the file you accidentally deleted. So the less you do on your computer before you've retrieved the missing file, the greater the chance of getting it back.
Probably the safest thing to do is disconnect your internet connection and close the computer with the missing file until you are equipped to do your own search and recover mission.
Using a different computer, you'll need to download some specialist software to recover your accidentally deleted file.
This isn't the kind of thing you can do yourself - you definitely need a computer program to help you.
Software like this comes in many variations.
Some programs are free but unless they're open source (and sometimes not even then), you're in the lap of the gods as to how efficient they are.
Some programs offer a trial option and tantalizingly dangle the option of being able to recover your file in front of you but, like lots of things on the web, they won't actually deliver until you pay to unlock the full version. By that time it's often too late to change, even if the price seems high, as you've already invested time and effort in the program.
Other programs are up front and charge you a one-off fee and let you use the program as often as you like. That's my personal preferred option rather than having to guess.
Once you've downloaded the software, burn it onto CD so that you can run it on the affected PC without damaging your chances of recovering the accidentally deleted file.
If you're patient, do a test run on the computer you've just done the download on. This will give you chance to learn how the software operates and you'll be surprised at just how many files it discovers.
Then you're ready to run the software on the affected machine and hopefully be reunited with your missing file.
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Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Recovering-an-Accidentally-Deleted-a-File&id=7302117] Recovering an Accidentally Deleted a File