Used Recuva to recover .wav files that were deleted by accident

The .wav files were files used for Cubase 5 program.

After recovering the .wav files, the files appear to be renamed in such a way that the Cubase program does not recognize. Please help.......

How were they deleted, shift/del or recycler?

Did you run Recuva normal or deep scan?

How are they renamed?

In the beginning, we deleted 3000 files out of a folder on desktop (select all then delete) not realizing that the wav files were larger than what the recycle bin held..so approx. 1300 wavs were removed from recycle bin and then realized we needed some of the wavs back in order for Cubase to run properly...which are the ones we are trying to recover with Recuva. So now, the Recuva recovered files cannot be used with the Cubase 5 program nor played in the media players such as Windows Media player or Winamp.

Ran the Recuva normal scan and we did nothing to rename the files; they seemed to have renamed themselves which is part of the problem I think and also thought perhaps these wav files might have been compressed in the process of recovering.

Its almost as if the Recuva recovered files are no longer wav files..despite having files names that read as .wav files.

For all practical purposes all 1300 were recovered except 133 wavs which were corrupted in some way) red circles..Just cannot get the good ones to work in the Cubase program which is where they were made in the first place. (If a track or sample was not good Cubase would put the wav file in a folder automatically;there would be samples per one drum track for example of over 100 files.)

All the Cubase wav files that were deleted were named/ numbered by Cubase with the words Audio in front of the numbered/lettered files

Now the Audio word is gone with the recovered files. So instead of lets say Audio$IB4309V.WAV it now says $IB4309V.WAV

I know this sounds confusing, I am confused just trying to explain it.

Have you tried renaming $IB4309V.WAV back to the original Audio$IB4309V.WAV ?

I am quite sure that no recovery program would compress the files that it restores.

I do KNOW that Windows can compress files to occupy a smaller number of sector clusters than you start with,

AND that when you read that compressed file, Windows will decompress it so that you read exactly what you originally wrote,

because Windows has the knowledge that the file was compressed.

I think that once a file has been deleted and Windows has lost track of it,

then any data recovery program that finds the deleted file is unlikely to know that it is compressed and requires decompression.

... and then realized we needed some of the wavs back in order for Cubase to run properly...which are the ones we are trying to recover with Recuva.

Were the wav files needed for Cubase 5 to run properly not part of the original installation?

If so a re-install of the program would re-install those wav files.

When a file is sent to the recycler (in Vista and above) it will be renamed $Rnnnnn.etx and $Innnnn.ext, where .ext is the extension type. It looks as if the $IB4309V.WAV file you have found is part of the renamed and deleted wav file.

The $I files are index files used for recovery with file name, directory etc. They are text strings 544 bytes long and contain no file data.

The $R files are the actual files and should be recovered. You can open the corresponding $I file with a text editor to find the original file name and directory, if you wish.

I am confused when you say that Audio$IB4309V.WAV is the original file name: are you sure?

Not sure Dennis, regarding your question about the wav files being or not being part of the installation. Will look into that.

Regarding Augeaus post, we did think that the file names did have the $ in front but that may not be the case because of overall confusion of what was happening and panic about possibly losing important wavs, so we are not sure. Will try to open with text editor and find out and will get back to you.

Augueaus, I opened two of those $ wavs in text editor and sure enough there were the original names of the files, totally different.. I also saw the directory. So, if I just rename the file to the original name will the wav play? or are you saying that the $ files and original name files are in two different places? (sorry, computer savvy I am not.)

No, the $I files are just indexes and contain nothing that will play. You need to find and recover the $R file with the same string of characters. This is how the recycler works, it renames the file to $R something, and creates a same-named $I file containing the file and directory name (as they are not held in the file). If you recover the $R files and don't or can't identify the file name then the $I files are useful.

All the recovered files are $I wavs except for 2 or 3 $R wavs

The 2 or 3 $R files are the only files available for recovery, the $I files are of no use.

You might be able to find more of the wav files by doing a deep scan, but this will take some time, the files will have a number not a name (but will have the .wav extension), and will not be recoverable if in more than one extent.

I don't know what Cubase is, it might be better doing a reinstall as Dennis suggested if Cubase doesn't run, or if they are user files seeing if they can be reconstructed by other means.

What are the sounds (wavs) you're trying to recover?

Are they sample sounds, sample compositions or as Augeas mentions ... user created?

The wavs are user created instrumental tracks to create songs. Each song requires a certain amount of tracks for each instrument and for each person singing. One song could be made up with 100 tracks or more. Sometimes they made 20 different versions of the same song etc etc.

Cubase software works directly with the computer, adaptors, the musical instruments, drums, mics via a sound board of some kind ( I am just a helper trying to get help for a band.) http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/cubase/why_cubase.html

8 entire songs were created but all divided into individual tracks totaling 3,000 or so wav files and were mistakenly deleted. Approximately 1,300 have not been able to be recovered. It had been discovered that the recycle bin was not large enough to hold all those wav files as they are so large which is why we decided to try Recuva.

It doesn't sound as if the lost files were part of the original installation.

A little research shows that templates and presets and a bunch of other stuff are made up of everything but wav files. Mostly xml but quite a few program specific file types.

I was gonna have a look at the complete program myself under a virtual installation to see as to whether there are any wav files in there, but it's such a huge beast that I gave up on that one I'm sorry to say.

And sorry I couldn't be of any help.