Data recovery prog. Not a free one

[RestingCatsArseFace]

Please could someone recommend a data recovery prog. to recover files from a hard drive?

I don't want a year's subscription, just a single use. I also don't want a free one as it needs to be reliable.

The one I used before seems to have vanished from the internet and I am wary of choosing a bad one.

[weathervane1]

Hi, I've had good success with Recuva: www.ccleaner.com/recuva

[Dbank]

I hope I can help, but some questions first
What format is the drive? (FAT 32, NTFS etc)
Does the drive mount? (i.e. can you see other files on the drive)
What OS are you using? (Windows, Mac OS)
What happened to the files? (were they accidentally deleted)

[Dbank]

OP, why post a question and then fail to respond when people try to help?

[RestingCatsArseFace]

@Dbank

OP, why post a question and then fail to respond when people try to help?

@Dbank

I came back several times in the day I posted and there were no replies so I went and looked again for a program and spent the rest of the day trying to recover the files which takes several hours with the situation I was in, and it is time sensitive to avoid losing them.

I am now reading the answers as I have found the files but not recovered them so far. And yes, I have come back, just not as fast as you wanted me to. However as it took a number of hours for a reply I did think it would be better to try to resolve the situation rather than wait another day.

Thank you for posting. I will now read the replies I skipped to answer this one.

[RestingCatsArseFace]

@weathervane1

Hi, I've had good success with Recuva: www.ccleaner.com/recuva

Thank you for that, from what I read it seems to not always work, as in, unable to open files? I will take another look.

[RestingCatsArseFace]

@Dbank

I hope I can help, but some questions first
What format is the drive? (FAT 32, NTFS etc)
Does the drive mount? (i.e. can you see other files on the drive)
What OS are you using? (Windows, Mac OS)
What happened to the files? (were they accidentally deleted)

FAT 32
Windows 7 mail files
Accidentally deleted. It looks as if they are all still on the hard drive but I haven't identified the ones I need to recover. There are thousands of them on there and I don't need them all.
I am not sure what you mean by seeing other files on the drive. I used a recovery program and have all the eml files on it but as I haven't identified them I haven't tried to recover any. I also can't open them. Have left it for now as my brain is fried.

[Dbank]

Thanks for coming back!
Presumable these are cached copies of emails, which if you only deleted the files, then presumably the emails are still on the from the mail server?

If this is the case, you should be able to just reload all the emails? (and it won't matter that you had deleted the cached copies)

I suggest the following steps.

1. See if you can "refresh" or "re-download" they emails in your mail client and see if the emails are as you expect.

If that fails:

1. Login to your webmail account (i.e. with a web browser) and see if all of the emails you expect to see are there including sent items.
2. (Optional step) On another computer, add the email account and see if all the emails are as expected.
3. If they are, then delete and re-add the email account on the original computer.

N.B. Don't use POP connection, as this may download and remove the emails from the server.

I asked if you could see "other files", as it was unclear as to the state of the drive, i.e. was it corrupted. but it sounds like it's fine.

So in short it doesn't matter that you deleted some cached files if you can reload the information from the mail server.

Good luck!

[RestingCatsArseFace]

@Dbank Thank you for your time. I tried all those before I resorted to looking elsewhere.

I tried system restore. Set up on new laptop and was hoping to transfer them once I had sorted all the mail first.

The mail settings were set to delete from server. I had saved them on the laptop and accidentally deleted a folder and subfolders.

I used Stellar which has located thousands of eml files apparently, but I can only save a limited amount without paying, no idea which ones they are, and the one I tried to open didn't open so don't want to pay if it won't work.

Then I needed to stop for my own sanity.

[Dbank]

okay, if you have deleted the emails off the server, then you are correct file recovery will be your only solution. incase it's not obvious the less writes you make to the drive the greater the chance of recovering the files.

Doing a system restore may have over written some of the files.

I don't think I can help you any further. Best Regards

[RestingCatsArseFace]

@Dbank Thank you. I took a chance with system restore and only went back a short time, not been using it. Tried everything before resorting to a data recovery.

I was hoping someone might mention the name of the one I used before which was good, but have forgotten what it was.