Data Recovery The Easy And The Hard Way

We hope that you never need to use any sort of data recovery, but almost everyone does eventually, so here are several different ways to recover your data if it gets deleted or destroyed.

Data Recovery The Easiest Way

If you accidentally delete a file, you can almost always recover it using the Trash folder in Microsoft Windows (also called the Recycle Bin). Although almost everyone knows about this trick, what you may not have thought about is how to empty your trash folder to make undeleting a file more effective. Instead of right-clicking on your Trash folder and emptying it out all at once, use the following method: open it up, change to the Listing view, and sort the files by date. Then delete any files older than one month. If you always follow this procedure, you’ll always give yourself one month of easy data recovery.

The same trick also works in most email programs, including Microsoft Outlook. Outlook moves deleted email to its Trash folder. Open this folder, sort by data, and delete only the emails older than one month.

Data Recovery Even When You Didn’t Delete The File

One of the toughest data recovery problems is how to recover part of a file that you deleted and saved and closed. For example, you’re editing a term paper in Microsoft Word and you accidentally delete several pages without realizing it; then you save the file and close it. You don’t discover the pages are missing until the next day. What can you do?
It used to be that there was nothing you could do on a regular PC, but that all changed with the innovative Dropbox backup service. You may have heard that Dropbox lets you share files with your friends, family, and business colleagues, but what you may not know already is that Dropbox keeps old versions of your files around for 30 days (or more with some plans).
Here’s how Dropbox works: you add your term paper to your Dropbox folder on your desktop. Dropbox automatically puts a copy of your term paper on its server. Then every time you save the file, Dropbox copies just the changes to its server (this saves them space and saves you upload bandwidth). On the night you accidentally delete the several pages, Dropbox copies just the changes to their server as usual. My Pc backup also works like this. Computer Backup, File Syncing, Automatic Backup, Simple Restore. All From MyPC Backup. Start Your FREE Trial!
The next day, you realize you accidentally deleted those several pages. All you need to do with Dropbox is find the term paper in your Dropbox folder, right-click on it, and choose the Restore Old Version option. Dropbox will let you choose which version you want to restore and then will automatically bring back your deleted pages.