Retrieval of deleted material

Start with the TR download 200 ways to revive a dead hard drive.

Now, while it is true that when you delete files in Windows, you only remove the pointer to the file from the File Allocation Table, there are other events that will compromise a deleted file.

Once you delete the file, Windows can and will use that same disk space to store a new file.
Or, the swap file may use that space.

My point is, that the longer it has been since the file was deleted, and the more work that has beendone on the PC after the file was deleted, the lower your chances of recovering a given file are.

You can use utilities such as Norton Tools to recover files that have been deleted, but not written over.

It has been reported that some of the data recovery firms can read the changes on the hard drive platter with an electron-microscope, and recover even files that have been written over.
This level of data recovery is VERY expensive.

Chas

http://www.der-keiler.de/Newsgroups/comp.security.misc/2002-11/0196.html

If the drive is working... and the no parts of data has been overwritten... you may be able to use a hex editor to recover your data. You have to be able to locate the data on the hdd... and that's where the problem exists. Often it is a byte by byte search for a pattern... it's something data recovery specialists are trained to do.

If the data has been overwritten, by any program that can write 0's or 1's in random patterns over the data (numerous times), there's no technology that will work 100% of the time in data recovery -- working hard drive or not.