I am writing because I have just discovered Recuva and am hoping it can help me recover a lost document that was deleted a little over a month ago. First of all I am a little confused on the generL usage of the program as I just ran a deep scan for documents that were deleted from the recycling bin using the wizard and after 4 hours the search resulted in nothing.. No files? Obviously this is a mistake. Did I do something wrong? I followed the steps exactly for what I was trying to find. And obviously there have been many documents deleted from the recycling bin. So I can't see how none were found have 4 hours.
I am trying to find a a .rtf file. It was a contact list full of e-mails that I need back. I was hoping that somehow this program could help after I have exhausted all other ideas. So like I said it was a .rtf (rich text format) file that was opened in microsoft word. I currently am scanning my c: drive for .rtf files. Maybe this will work. Hopefully it will not take as long.
That is another question I have. Is there anyway to cut down on the time? Like I said I am looking for a very specific file deleetd somewhere around the beginning of October. It was a .rtf file and its name was simply "fb"
Is there anyway to just search for this specifically and cut down on the time?
Also if I am able to find this file I have a few folders that contained family photos that were deleted and emptied out of the recycling bin by accident. What would the easiest and fastest ways be to located these ffiles/folders?
I am in desperation mode when it comes to the first file I need to recover it is extremely important. I ask any and all experts of this program for their advice on these matters and all my qyestions. I thank you for reading tthrough this post and hopefully providing me with the solutions that I need.
When running Rucuva I would always cancel stage 2. This seems to make little if any difference (and no difference to the list of files displayed) and cuts down the runtime considerably.
If you use the Wizard then I would press the Switch to Advanced Mode button at the top r/h. You will then have a File/Path box displayed (top r/h). Clear this box to disply all files Recuva has found. I would recommend that you use Advanced mode for your recovery.
Recuva scans the entire contents of the MFT (in normal scan) and the disk (in deep scan). There is no way to do a selective scan. However you can filter your results by entering any file name or path or part thereof in the File/Path box. Just clear the box and the original list will reappear. You can also sort the file list by name, size, path, and date by clicking on the column headers.
In Options/Actions you can check the top three boxes which will show all files. You can't recover zero length files, so you it's up to you whether you include them.
Thank you for the fast response. I am currently running a deep scan now of only documents on the c: drive. I am not hopeful. I don't even see .rtf files listed under associated document files. And that's what this specific file I am looking was it was simply known as fb.rtf The last deep scan I ran resulted in absolutely nothing, which I couldn't believe as obviously there have been thousands of files deleted from my recycling bin.
The one scan that produced resultes only produced temoporary internet files (junk i dont care about) Is there anyway to separate all of that?
Another thing I noticed is all the files Recuva says it ignores. Is there anyway to turn that off? Perhaps one of those files it is ignoring is the one I am looking for as I have said before every scan has either produced no results or just given me temporary internet files that were recent too, like from the past week. I fear Recuva is not going to help me. It certainly hasn't done anything for me yet.
The file I am looking for, fb.rtf was deleted from the recycling bin at the beginning of October and was a small file. I don't why it would be so difficult to be able to find this file and then recover it.
Please if anyone has any ideas on how to go about this easily and effectively, please respond. I am new to this program and last night even tried 4 other file recovery programs all much worse than Recuva even, with no results at all.
You don't have to take any of my advice, but you don't seem to have read or understood my previous post: it answers most of your questions, including how to show all of Recuva's ignored files.
Your file could quite easily have been overwritten in hours, let alone weeks. There's no guarantee that any file can be recovered.
Windows XP, Vista and 7 rename files sent to the recycler, but should leave the correct extension. Have you looked for Dcxxx.rtf or $Rxxx.rtf? Those xxx's are some intermediate chars, don't take them literally. You could sort the Path column and look for entries in blah/blah/recycler.
I just ran a scan for all files in all drives of the computer. It took 5 hours and the only results that came up were literally all temporary internet files. And nothing else. Recuva seems to be pretty useless in my opinion. Thank you for your help though.
I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I appreciate all of your help. I am just extremely frustrated as Recuva doesn't seem to be helping me recover this important file. I tried several other recovery programs last night and all of them resulted in nothing as well.. Actually they all seem to be resulting in Temporary Internet files some I have never seen before. I suppose Recuva is the best out of the group.
What I have done now is a deep scan of my c: drive searching for only .rtf files. Maybe that will result in something. I won't know until I get home. I just let it run when I went back to work before.
As I have said in the past the file was titles fb.rtf
If there are any other ideas on how I could go about locating this file. Even such as different programs and/or methods I would greatly appreciate it as this file is of great importance.
Also on a side and less important note I also have or should say had an entire folder full of family photos that were in "my Pictures" and accidentally deleted into the recycling bin and then emptied around the same time as the .rtf file
So anyone with any idea on how to specifically search for these photos as well would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.