This is my 1st use of Recuva, so if you can help using newbie language, I'd be grateful (I'm sure that'll help many other people, too).
I've deleted files from the Recycle Bin, located them based on deletion time, and want to make them usable again. In the case of a renamed file (given the name $XYZ..), how do you recover it and return it to its original name? Why can't they just get returned to their original names anyway?
Why do some files deleted from the Recycle Bin retain their names and be found on a scan of their original locations (using the date under Last Modified), but not be found in any form on a scan of the Recycle Bin?
METHODS OF SCANNING
Where are there directions on how to use the drop-down Scan menu in advanced mode? Is Scan Files the same as clicking on Scan? What's a search string?
NEARLY ALL FILES UNRECOVERABLE
If fragmented, can defragging help?
NTFS not damaged, not corrupted, not MFT or zero size, existed some time before deletion, no secure deletion, Deep Scan run. Why unrecoverable?
We all had a first time (for everything) so no shame there.
Windows renames files sent to the recycler, and uses an index to show the correct name to the viewer. If the recycler is emptied the files are deleted under their new names. You have to find these files using Recuva based on date, time, folder name and size. You can recover these files and rename them back to whatever you want. Recuva doesn't know what the names originally were so it can't rename them back again.
Scan Files is the same as Scan. A Search String is, as far as I can remember, a particular string within a file. But just having a go now it doesn't seem to make the slightest difference. Perhaps some other user of this can enlighten us.
Defragging will greatly reduce your chance of recovering anything. Recovery depends on the deleted file not being overwritten. Defragging is a huge overwrite process.
A file can be unrecoverable if it has been overwritten by another live file and no doubt there are many other reasons. There's an awful lot to say about deep scan that I haven't the time tp go into at the moment.