Files deleted actually remain in the hard drive till they are not overwritten, so make sure no drastic/ big additions, installations to the drive from which the files were deleted. It is better to leave the drive alone.
Use the following steps:-
1. Download Recuva(
You must be registered for see links
), there are other softwares like Pandora, Wise data recovery, Restoration, Puran but imho, recuva is the best because of it's ease of use.
2. Install it, it would be better if you install it to a drive other than the one from which files were deleted because it increases the chances of file overwriting. You can also install it on another computer and copy paste it's contents and make it run from an USB by creating a portable.dat file, look for steps
You must be registered for see links
3.Now run recuva> follow the wizard, i.e select file type, drive/location of deleted files, and first run the software without deep scan, chances are if files have been deleted recently, they would be found without deep scan.
4. If files are not found, then run deep scan which may take time according to the size of the drive.
5. The files found are listed> click switch to advanced mode tab> check the files to be recovered> right click and select recover checked files
6.
Make sure that the path to be selected during recovery is in another drive, better if you recover files on a USB
This procedure works well, if files have not been overwritten i.e. no significant/ big changes to the drive from which the files were deleted.
