Documentation
How to Recover Deleted Files and Folders?
- Step 1. Select Logical Drive to Scan
- Step 2. Scan Selected Drive
- Step 3. Review and Organize Scan Results
- Step 4. Recover Selected Files and Folders
Step 1. Select Logical Drive to Scan
List of logical drives available for Active@ UNDELETE can be seen in "My Computer" tab. Select "My Computer" node in Recovery Explorer tree to see list of all logical drives (including detected deleted partitions, see Recover Files and Folders from Deleted Partitions) organized in groups by Data Storage Devices.
You can also view and select logical drive in Recovery Explorer tree (left pane).
Note: Not only existing logical
drives can be scan for files, but also Detected Partitions, Virtual Drives or even
Drives from Assembled RAID's.
Step 2. Scan Selected Drive
From the Recovery Explorer ("My Computer" tab) toolbar, click Default Scan button or Right-click the selected logical drive and click Scan from the context menu or double click on logical drive to open Scan Logical Drive dialog.
In Scan Logical Drive dialog:
- Select one of the scan you wish to execute:
- Quick Scan – (Recommended) quick and sufficient in most scenarios.
- Low Level Scan - where files will be detected by a unique file signature.
- For Low Level Scan click Options button to specify File Signatures to be detected during the scan.
- Specify path (optional) where scan results will be saved after scan completes
WARNING: It is strongly
recommended to do not select folder to save scan results on drive you about to scan! - Click Scan button to start scanning the logical drive.
Note: Scan for files by its
signature. Each and every files format has its own unique characteristics
(signatures) by which this file can be recognized among the others. Active@ UNDELETE
scan can analyze the disk content for such file signatures and deliver great results.
You can select desired file signatures from the list of supported files formats.
Step 3. Review and Organize Scan Results
Depending on which scan type (Quick or Low Level) was selected you will receive scan results differently. In any way, you will be able to review scan results in Recovery Explorer (“My Computer” tab) and sort it by using tools Active@ UNDELETE provides (File Filter, Search and Document View).
In general, you need to find and select files you wish to recover and proceed with actual recovery.
Note: In case if you’re using
Quick Scan and not found files you’re looking for – try scan again using
Low Level Scan.
Quick Scan results can be viewed in Recovery Explorer or in Document View (if this option was selected in Scan dialog then Document View will be shown right after scan completes. Deleted Files and Folders are marked black'n'white icons when "live" files by icons "in color".
Document View is a tabbed view that helps review detected files by sorting and\or group them by Application, File Types or their Extensions. See Document View for details.
Low Level Scan results are shown in separate node in Explorer Tree View. You can see the list of files signatures and how many files was detected. Detected partitions also shown and one of them will be scanned automatically for deleted files and folders.
File list can be filtered by file’s recovery status (Health or Deleted) or by its name or part of a name. Simply, to recover only deleted files select Logical Drive and click Show Deleted Files only button in File Filter toolbar. As a result, you will see only deleted files in Recovery Explorer tree. Click Reset button in File Filter Toolbar to return to previous stance.
See File Filter Toolbar for details.
Search scanned Drive for Files and Folders
Scanned drive can be searched for files and folders by different criteria, including recovery status (Healthy or Deleted). Search results will be shown in separate tabbed view. See Search for Files and Folders for details.
Step 4. Recover Selected Files and Folders
When files you seeking for are discovered, you can recover them on local computer, network drive or even burn them to CD\DVD media.
Click Recover to start recovery of selected files
Recovery toolbox is a tabbed view, where all selected (checked) files are collected to be recover at once to one destination (local Hard Drive of network) or to be burned to CD\DVD media. See Recover using the Recovery Toolbox for details.
