How to undelete file

Certainly you need to restrict access to the disk to minimize the chance of overwriting data. To do that do not write new data on the disk, do not start programs that could write temporary data (if you unsure, do not start any), check that Windows virtual memory does not use the disk you are trying to recover data from, and if the disk with accidently deleted files also contains Windows, better not to start computer at all.

For the second step you need to read the disk and search for files marked as УdeletedФ in the Уtable of contentsФ. As we already know, they a really still there and was not deleted. Finding these files we can read them and remove mark УdeletedФ if needed. This is common algorithm for undelete software.

However it has some problems. Files are not just written on the disk they are divided to a lot of pieces and tossed on the whole logical disk in almost random order thanks to a process called УFragmentationФ. Naturally records of the fragmentation are not saved when user deletes a file from the disk, so you can only get УpageФ where starts data you are require.