Did you know that even if you delete a file and empty it from your recycle bin, in most cases, you can still get it back?  In this short tutorial I would like to show you how to use a free program to do this.

Step 1:  Download Restoration.  If possible, save it to a drive that doesn’t contain the files you are trying to recover because you could overwrite them.

Step 2:  Once Restoration has finished downloading, double-click it to run it.

Step 3:  Select the drive that contains your deleted file from the drop-down list in the top-right corner.  If you know the name of the file you are trying to restore (or part of the name), enter it into the box that says “all or part of the file.”  Otherwise, just leave the field blank to scan all deleted files.  Click the “Search Deleted Files” button to begin scanning.

Step 4:  After the scan has completed, you will see a list of deleted files that Restoration has found.  Click the filename that you want to restore and click the “Restore by Copying” button to restore it.

Step 5:  You will now be presented with a “Save As” box asking you where you wan to save the file.  Choose a location and click “Save.”

You should now be able to open your newly restored file.  Please feel free to reply below if you have comments or need help.  Enjoy!

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1. James Macaballug

   October 7, 2009 at 12:16 pm

   nice…it works …

   [Reply]
2. Melissa Burright

   March 19, 2010 at 3:11 pm

   Well I tried this but the restoration software keeps telling me that I need to log on with administrator privileges and then try again. I only have one account on my computer and it’s an administrator account…I don’t know why it’s telling me that. So it won’t let me run the file check…

   [Reply]

   Casey Reply:
   March 20th, 2010 at 2:28 pm

   Hi Melissa,

   I’m not sure why it’s telling you this either if you are logged in with the Administrator account. Are you running Windows XP? I’ve never had any issues with this utility before and I’ve been using it for several years. You might want to try Recuva which is another free file recovery program. http://www.piriform.com/recuva Let me know how it works out for you.

   [Reply]
3. Inadhoolo

   August 6, 2010 at 8:21 am

   By going to Start–search–file or folders–typing the items name on the small window on “in all files and folders’
   the file or folder you deleted from yours recycle bin will appear and then you can delete from the the list and back into the recycle bin and restore wherever u want

   [Reply]