File Undelete Freebies I

Accidents happen despite all the precautions you take to prevent them. A simple misguided tap on the keyboard and important data could miss the Recycle Bin on their way out of your computer, thus making their retrieval much more difficult. But the sometimes fatal Shift+Delete key combination has a solution as the entire hard disk acts like a Recycle Bin and what you think that has been lost is actually still available and waiting for recovery.

That is because when files are being deleted the operating system actually tags their size as free space available for overwriting, but until overwriting actually takes place that data is recoverable. There are plenty of complicated methods to get back your thought-to-be-lost files but the handiest solution is software specialized for such activity. And in this case, as in the majority of fields, we have easy to use and, most importantly, free apps ready to pull us out of the jam.

Undelete PLUS

This is one of the most reliable freebies when it comes to recovering beyond Recycle Bin deleted data. It features several downsides, but if you are alert the moment you Shift+Del'ed the wrong files, there is a 100% chance you’ll get them back. The only condition is that you don't place even a single byte on the partition you're trying to recover data from. Of course, formatting is also out of the question. Provided that you respect these two requirements everything should work just fine.

The application is free because it comes included with some adware, but there is nothing to worry about as there are just some slim banners you won't even notice at the beginning. Its options are at hand and at all complex. Undelete PLUS shows all volumes available to the system (removable drives included) and scans them in a pretty short period of time.



Scanning for the lost files generally retrieves more results than you need and to counterattack this issue Undelete PLUS lets you apply filters so that only relevant information is displayed. The search criteria present allow defining the name (or at least part of it) and set a modification time interval and approximate size. For less hassle you can enable the app to hide temporary and overwritten files.

The file preview capabilities of the program will not always work as one would wish, but more important is its retrieving potential. Each of the files found will come with details like original filename, location path, recoverability status, size, creation and modification date.

On the side you can choose to preserve the original folder structure, a great option that turns into an advantage when you want to get back multiple files in different folders. Needless to say that the storage location of the recovered files needs to be on a different volume than the one you are recuperating them from.

Undelete PLUS is not an advanced piece of software, but it is one of the best at what it does provided you follow its instructions. Our latest endurance test for Undelete Plus involved recovering a total amount of 6GB of test data. And it pulled everything right off the claws of oblivion.

Update: Unfortunately Undelete PLUS is no longer free of charge and ad-supported. The application now comes at a cost of $35.64 and the unregistered version won't allow you recovery of the deleted data.

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