How can I recover a deleted file from my computer? - podcast episode cover

How can I recover a deleted file from my computer?

May 26, 20144 min
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Episode description

In many cases, it's possible to recover files that have been deleted by using your computer's Recycle Bin. Marshall Brain reveals ways to recover deleted files -- and how to erase them permanently -- in this episode.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Brain Stuff is sponsored by Harry's dot com. Get a great shaving experience for a fraction of the price. The quality of the shave is so important that Harry's purchased the factory that makes their blades. Fifteen dollars gets you a set that includes a handle, three blades, and shave cream. Go to Harry's dot com use the code brain stuff to save five dollars off your first purchase. Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com where smart happens.

Hi Am Marshall brain with today's question how can I recover a deleted file from my computer? When the idea of the trash can or the recycle bin became popular on the Apple Macintosh and then in Windows, it immediately became a fail safe for many users. If you delete a file and realize that you actually need it, you can recover it easily by doing the following. In Windows. First, you open the recycled bin by double clicking on the recycled bin icon on your desktop, or you can go

to the recycle bin folder in Windows Explorer. Next, you find the file you want to recover and click to highlight it. Then you go to the file menu and choose the restore option, or you can write, click over the file name and select restore from the menu. After you do this, the file is now back on your computer in its original place. It's a great feature. While the recycle bin is a great utility, there are many times that a file is not placed in the recycle

bin when it gets deleted. These include files from removable storage such as flash memory and zip disks, files deleted from within some applications, and files deleted from the command prompt. Also, there are times when you'll empty the recycle bin and then realize that there was a file in it you wanted to keep. A common misconception is that the data is actually removed from the hard drive erased. That is, when you delete a file. Any time that a file

is deleted on the hard drive, it's not actually erased. Instead, the tiny bit of information that points to the location of the file on the hard drive is erased. This pointer, along with the other pointers for every folder and file on the hard drive, is saved in a section near the beginning of the hard drive and is used by the operating system to compile the directory tree structure. By erasing that pointer file, the actual file becomes invisible to

the operating system. It's still there, it's just invisible. Eventually, the hard drive will write new data over the area where the old file is located, but immediately after you delete it, it's still there. There are several hard disk utilities that you can find on the internet that will allow you to recover deleted files. What these utilities do is search for data on the hard drive that doesn't have a corresponding pointer information package and present you with

a list of these files. Your chances of fully recovering a file diminish the longer you wait after you deleted the file, since the probability that the file has been overwritten increases. Sometimes you can recover portions of a file that's not been completely overwritten. What if you really do want to delete something, Say you have financial information or passwords or something in a file, and when you delete it, you really want to delete it and make it disappear

completely from your hard disc. What if you don't want the file to remain on the disc after you delete it at all. There are other utilities you can find that will go in and zero out the files sectors to completely remove that information. For more on this and thousands of other topics because that how stuff works dot com and don't forget to check out the brain stuff blog on the house stuff works dot com home page.

You can also follow brain stuff on Facebook or Twitter at brain stuff hs W. Brain Stuff is sponsored by Harry's dot com. Get a great shaving experience for a fraction of the price. The quality of the shave is so important that Harry purchase the factory that makes their blades. Fifteen dollars gets you a set that includes a handle, three blades, and shave cream. Go to Harry's dot com use the code brain stuff to save five dollars off your first purchase.

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