Many of the long time power-users of Windows know that, you can press Shift-Delete key to permanently delete a file without ever sending it to the recycle-bin. As time goes by, we can get so used to this key without realizing we had accidentally deleted a file we actually wanted. So what can we do ?

Back in the good-old DOS day, we did not have recycle-bin, but luckily we have the UNDELETE program. For those of you old enough to remember this, the UNDELETE program only existed starting MS-DOS 5; and before that, we had that famous program called Norton Utilities with the trusty UNERASE program. We can always use it to recover files quite reliably if the file wasn’t being overwritten by something else.

But in this modern-days Windows OS, Microsoft just asked us to rely on the recycle-bin, without the UNDELETE program’s equivalent. This means that if the file is not in the recycle-bin, there is no hope in getting in back.

So if you're somehow in that unlucky situation, you can rely on Recuva to recover your files. Using it is pretty easy –

1. Just select the drive where the deleted file resided in. Click Scan.

2. Recuva will then search for traces of all the previously deleted file on that drive.

3. A list of deleted files will be listed, along with the state of the file, whether it is still in excellent shape, partly overwritten by other files, or totally hopeless.

4. Just select the file you wish to recover, then choose where you want to save the recovered file. If the file is already partly overwritten by other files, you can still recover it – just bear in mind that part of the file content will be gone. This may be OK for text file (you just need to retype the content of the file after the recovery), but for many other types of file, it may be pretty much useless.

The following video gives a good tutorial on using Recuva (not produced by me).

Anyhow, I guess the best way to prevent file losing is to do your regular backup; and unlearn your Shift-Delete habit!