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File Recovery - Undelete

PC Tools File Recover

SUMMARY: PC Tools File Recover is a commercial program for Windows to help you preview and recover deleted files. Note the trial only lets you search for possibly recoverable files.

PC Tools File Recover can scan your hard drive, floppy drive, or other fixed media for files to possibly undelete. The commercial software works for Windows 2000 and up (when this tip was written, Windows 7 support was not mentioned).

PC Tools File Recover can deal with bad sectors and works with multiple file systems including FAT12 (floppy disks), FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS. Multiple scan types are supported - a quick scan for deleted file entries, deeper scan for unallocated clusters, and a physical scan that may be beneficial when dealing with corrupted media. Note that scans can take a long time to perform...

Some files can be previewed before recovery is attempted.

PC Tools File Recover displaying a deleted PNG file

Note that you can download a trial version, but it will not save recovered files even though you can preview them. The trial is time limited.

PC Tools File Recover - http://www.pctools.com/file-recover/

As with all file recovery software, results will vary based on many factors including whether a drive has been defragged, amount of computer use since the file was deleted, etc. Even if software claims to recover a file, information may be lost.