Finding lost data on hard drive

[startingovernow]

Anyone any idea how to do this?? I used to be able to do this once upon a time but can't for the life of me remember how to do it. I've lost a file with photos & I'm trying to recover it from my hard drive. I know you can press something & it shows all the files on the hard drive but can't remember what you press. Would be v grateful for any advice.

Hi there
See you've posted this in Site Tech Stuff - this is for MNers who're having Tech probs with MN itself so I'm going to move this to Geeky Stuff where there are more people who can help with general stuff
HTH and hope you can find your missing data
MNTowers

Recuva is software that will UNDELETE files.

There are some ways to do it in DOS - but it gets rather technical and I don't know your knowledge level of old MS-DOS command lines.

You know that you are looking for Photos... so you could search for all files ending in .JPG

I have Google Desktop running, so not sure how it differs to a standard Vista installation... but on my system I can click the Windows start button (bottom left of screen) and type *.JPG in the search box. It isn't ideal though, as will list a lot of files.

Is the file deleted or is it just that you can't remember which folder it's in?

Oh Thank you MNHQ for moving my post to correct place. I'd thought I must have only imagined posting it when it vanished .

Nannynick, am going to try what you suggested now thanks.

Cruel, think it could have been deleted as I've done a search which I think showed me all pics stored on computer. I did check the recycle bin aswell & nothing there either. It was about 300 holl pics so would love to be able to get the file back if at all possible.

Will do a JPG search now & let you know how I get on. Thanks