How to Recover Overwritten Data

By PhotoRec (Windows, Mac and Linux)

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 1

Immediately stop saving data to the current drive. Once you realize you've accidentally deleted or overwritten a file, don't save any more content to that hard drive. Besides, you need to avoid launching the program. Newly copied data will likely overwrite the old file. Stopping all archive operations increases the chance of file recovery.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 2

Download the PhotoRec utility to your computer or another drive. This is a powerful data recovery program. Although the interface is not pretty, it has similar features to expensive data recovery programs. You can download PhotoRec for free atwww.cgsecurity.orgas part of the TestDisk utility.

PhotoRec is available for Windows, OS X and Linux operating systems.

This needs to be done on another computer to avoid overwriting the files you are trying to recover. You can also download PhotoRec to another drive on your computer, but another computer is still the safest option.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 3

Plug in a blank USB. Ideally, you should use a USB drive with enough capacity to store both PhotoRec along with the files you want to recover. Because restoring data to the original drive increases the risk of overwriting the drive itself and causing errors.

PhotoRec is only about 5 MB in size, so any USB drive can store it.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 4

Extract downloaded compressed file. TestDisk is downloaded as a ZIP (Windows) or BZ2 (Mac) archive. Please unzip the TestDisk folder.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 5

Copy the TestDisk folder to the USB drive. You will be able to launch PhotoRec from the USB drive.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 6

Plug the USB drive into the computer from which you want to restore data. Open the TestDisk folder on the USB drive.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 7

Launch the program "photorec". Command Prompt or Terminal will launch.

Use up, down, left, right keys to navigate and press Enter or Return to confirm selection.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 8

Select the disk from which you want to restore data. The discs will be numbered, so you need to rely on the disc size to differentiate.

If the disk has multiple partitions, such as C: and D: on a physical disk, they will not be listed unless you select the disk that contains those partitions.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 9

Select the file type you want to find. By default, PhotoRec will attempt to recover all supported files. You can speed up the process by specifying the file type that needs to be searched.

You can change file type options in the menuFile Opt.

On the menuFile Opt, deselect them all by pressing the S key. You can then browse through the list and select each file type you're looking for.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 10

Select partition. You will need to determine based on the size of the partition. Some partitions can be labeled.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 11

Select the system file type. On Linux, selectext2/ext3. As for Windows or OS X, you chooseOther.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 12

Select a space to search. Depending on how the file was lost, your options could be:

Free- Select this option if you deleted or copied over old files manually.

Whole- Select this option if a disk failure causes you to lose file access.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 13

Choose a location to save the restored files. This location must be different from the partition containing the data you are restoring.

Use accents.at the top of the folder list to return to the installed drives. You will be able to choose the location on the partition or USB drive to save the file.

Press C after selecting the folder you want to save the file to.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 14

Wait for the file to be restored. PhotoRec will start trying to recover deleted data from the partition you selected. The number of files recovered and the remaining time will be displayed on the screen.

The recovery process can take a long time, especially if the partition is large and you are searching for many types of files.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 15

Check the recovered files. Once the scan is complete, you can check the recovery folder to see what files have been recovered. The names of the data will no longer be the same, so you need to view each file to check whether they were restored successfully or not.

By Recuva (Windows)

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 16

Immediately stop saving data to the current drive. Once you realize you've accidentally deleted or overwritten a file, don't save any more content to that hard drive. Besides, you need to avoid launching the program. Newly copied data will likely overwrite the old file. Stopping all archive operations increases the chance of file recovery.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 17

Download Recuva to another drive. Download the installation program to another drive or computer. Recuva is available and free atwww.piriform.com.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 18

Plug the blank USB into the computer. This is the drive where you will install Recuva. This allows you to launch Recuva without accidentally overwriting files located on the drive you are recovering from.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 19

Launch the Recuva installation program. Click Next to continue.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 20

Click . Advanced to change the installation location. Choose another location to proceed.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 21

Select the USB drive as the installation location. Let's create a "Recuva" folder.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 22

Uncheck all additional options and click . Install .

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 23

Open the Recuva folder you created on the USB drive.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 24

Right-click in an empty space and select "New" → "Text Document".

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 25

Rename the file to .portable.dat. Confirm that you want to change the file extension.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 26

Plug the USB drive into the computer from which you need to recover files. Open the Recuva folder on the USB.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 27

Launch the file "recuva .exe". Recovery Wizard will appear.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 28

Select the file type you want to find. You can search for all or just specific file types.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 29

Select a location to find the file. You can search anywhere on your computer, or specify a specific location.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 30

Start scanning. Recuva will start scanning the location you specify to find files that match the request.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 31

Check each item you want to restore. After scanning, a list of results will appear. Check the box for each file you want to restore and click Recover.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 32

Choose a location to save the restored files. You need to make sure that this location is not in the same partition as the files you are recovering, otherwise the recovered data will be corrupted.

Restore previous file versions

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 33

Use Windows File History to restore previous file versions. Both Windows 7 and Windows 8 have file history backup utilities. These utilities need to be enabled before you can use them to restore previous file versions.

You can find more instructions on how to use File History on Windows 8.

How to Recover Overwritten Data Picture 34

Use Time Machine on OS X to restore previous file versions. You need to configure Time Machine and store backups on an external hard drive first, then you will have access to all file versions over time.

See more online about how to use Time Machine.

Jessica Tanner

Update 07 May 2024