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Special File Recovery Software

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MerleOne:
Hi,

Once again I lost a big file, a DVB-T recording of around 8GB, because I deleted it and emptied the trashcan.  When I realized my mistake, I tried immediately many recovery software, such as Recuva, but also the excellent Active@FileRecovery Pro and also FileScavenger, they all see the deleted file, but with a size of ... 0. Smaller deleted files (1-2 GB) show their original size before deletion.

It already happened to me once, that is I deleted a big file and no recovery tool seems able to recover it, because the seen size equals zero.  With smaller files, it works almost everytime (provided I act immediately).

Does anyone knows a file recovery software that also recovers "big" files, that was confronted to this issue, and found a solution ?

Thanks.

IainB:
@MerleOne: Offhand I can't think of a piece of software that might be able to help recover this file - I would only suggest those proggies that you have apparently already used but to no avail. I don't understand why the 0byte size though.

There is something you could do to reduce the chance of such a thing happening in future though:
Never "empty recycle bin", but instead go into it using Windows explorer and carefully sort the files into "Size" and/or "Original Location", and delete them manually there once you are sure they are unwanted.
I always do this periodically - typically every few days - as I became a bit paranoid after doing what you have done. Once too often I mistakenly deleted something useful into the Recycle bin when I had been in a hurry.
--- End quote ---
If that fails for me, then there's always my backups to recover the file from. I run a backup of all my useful/work-related data on a daily or weekly basis, depending on how much work I have been doing. If I am on a busy project, then it's daily.

These are habits of working, drilled into me or learned by error years ago, to avoid potential problems or to make it easier to recover from a problem.
The cause of a lot of problems is usually "user error", and you cannot eliminate that unless you eliminate the user's involvement and automate everything...oh, but wait...       ;)

MilesAhead:
What OS are you running?

If it's Vista or W7 and the file existed when you made the last restore point, there's a chance you can pick it out with Shadow Explorer

I don't know if there's anything similar that can look in XP restore points to pick out files.

Curt:
Shadow Explorer-MilesAhead (November 21, 2011, 03:03 PM)
--- End quote ---

 :up:

A little tip, because I didn't notice this myself the first time I ran the program: the default view is the oldest shadow copy. You have to click the date, and scroll, to find the newest:

4wd:
I've used GetDataBack on a 1TB HDD, (partition table went south), which had multi-GB video files.  It recovered every single file.

Not quite the same scenario as you, deletion versus partition error, but it did also recover a LOT of deleted files off the same partition - I had to then sort through what was current and what was past  :-\

Only catch is, it isn't free, (and at US$79 it's not cheap).  During it's Demo period it will do everything the full version will do EXCEPT recover your files.  It does tell you if they are recoverable, then you can purchase a license and copy them without scanning the drive again.

However, it's possibly one of the best programs I've ever used for recovery - far better than any of the free alternatives.

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