Deleted your pictures/important files accidentally? Worried about recovering those files? It is indeed very frustrating situation when you lose your data and you don’t have any idea about recovering it. Sometimes it can be recovered easily but most of the time situation gets out of the hand and data is lost permanently.
Not to Panic:
Most important thing after you lost your data is that how you handle that lost data. Multiple unsuccessful tries to access and recover the data can result in permanent loss of your data. So from few methods to recover data, you have to select the right one based on how you lost data. You can use generic methods or there are many third-party software in market through which you can recover your lost data.
Staying Calm is not a solution to recover your lost data but it helps you choose the best possible solution for it. If you panic, there is a possibility that you cause more damage to that lost data. Sometimes data is lost due to errors in software, so if you panic in this case and continuously try to recover your data without any proper method, it will worsen that error and your data will be lost permanently. So the first thing to do after data loss is to stay calm and don’t panic.
Find the Reason:
After making it sure that you really lost your data, stay calm and think about the exact reason of losing data. There could be number of reasons for it like: updating system software, installation of any new third-party app from un-trusted site, someone else tries to access your data, any physical damage to hardware or any accident, or transfer of data recently.
Once you find out the exact reason, you can choose the right type of recovery method, and this can be only done when you are calm.
Quit using Device:
Stop using the device normally as there are high chances of that drive to be overwritten, and once it is over written, there is no method found yet to recover data from over written drive.
If your data is affected due to any physical damage to drive or due to any accident like water is spilled over it, then you must stop using device to avoid situation from getting worse.
Recovering Files/Data on Windows 10
First of all if you think you have deleted the file which was not meant to be deleted, search for it in your system by its name. If it’s not found there, Windows users can check their Recycle Bin and file can be easily restored from Recycle Bin. But if there’s any cleaning app working in your system, there is high chance that it will clear the Recycle Bin even before you check it.
Now when you are sure about deletion of data, there are few steps which may help you recover your lost data in Windows 10.
- Using File History:
Search for the File History on your PC and select the name of the file you lost and its version. Choose “Restore” and it will return your file to its original location again and your file is recovered.
- Using Command Prompt:
- Open the Start menu.
- Search “cmd”.
- Right-click and select “Run as administrator” to run the Command Prompt.
- Type “chkdsk Y: /f” and press Enter. Replace “Y” with the letter of your hard drive.
- Type “ATTRIB -H -R -S /S /D Y:*.*” and press Enter. Again, replace “Y” with the letter of your hard drive.
Make sure that all other background processes are paused in the meantime as there is a chance of disk overwriting which is totally a nightmare.
- Using Backup and Restore:
Backup and Restore tool was removed from Windows 8 but it is available in Windows 10 and data can be restored using it:
- Open the Start menu.
- Search “Backup and Restore”
- Under “Looking for an older backup?” select the “Go to Backup and Restore”.
- Click “Select another backup to restore files from” option and choose your backup.
- Click “Next”, follow the instructions and be patient to complete the recovery process.
- Third Party Softwares:
There are many free softwares available to aid you in data recovery. They are easy to use and come with manuals. Some of top rated recovery softwares are: Disk Drill, Ease Us and Recuva.
You can simply download these softwares and follow the instructions to complete the recovery process.
Data Recovery on Mac
Just like Windows’ Recycle Bin, first of all check “Trash” in Mac after losing data. If files are not found in “Trash”, then go for further options.
- Time Machine:
Recovering lost data is much easier in Mac as compared to that of Windows. Apple introduced the “Time Machine” in their MacBook for storing and backing up data. Time Machine backs up the data of user on selected external drive every hour, assuring the backup of all files.
How to Recover Files using Time Machine?
- Firstly, Open the Mac migration assistant.
- Then, choose and select how you want to transfer the target files.
- From there, choose the ‘time machine back up and startup disk’ and click on ‘continue.’
- Select the time machine back up.
- Choose the files that you want to transfer from the backup.
- Once transfer is done restart your Mac computer and use your recovered files.
The transfer process can be time taking, depending upon the size of files to be transferred.
- Third Party Apps:
You can use recovery softwares like: Disk Drill, Ease Us and Recuva in Mac too to recover your lost files. There are ways to recover the lost files, but it is not possible every time depending upon what happened to the data. So the best way to avoid it to back up your data to Google Drive, Time Machine or to any other drive in order to save yourself from any huge loss.
