How to Recover Overwritten Data

If you accidentally overwrite an old file or folder with new content, you can still restore the previous version. With a variety of software available for all operating systems, you can use them to scan and recover deleted files on your hard drive. If you have previously set up backups through the operating system, data may still be on the backup.

Table of Contents

By PhotoRec (Windows, Mac and Linux)

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Immediately stop saving data to the current drive. As soon as you realize you’ve accidentally deleted or overwritten a file, don’t save any more content on that hard drive. Besides, you need to avoid launching the program. Newly copied data will likely overwrite the old file. Stopping all archiving increases the chances of the file being recovered.

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Download the PhotoRec utility to your computer or another drive. This is a powerful data recovery program. Although the interface is not beautiful, it has similar features to expensive data recovery programs. You can download PhotoRec for free at www.cgsecurity.org as 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 file you are trying to recover. You can also download PhotoRec to another drive on your computer, but another computer is still the safest option.

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Plug in a blank USB. Ideally, you should use a USB drive with enough capacity to store both PhotoRec along with the file 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.

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

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

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Plug the USB drive into the computer where you want to recover data. Open the TestDisk folder on the USB drive.

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Launch the program “photorec”. Command Prompt or Terminal will launch.

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

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

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 containing those partitions.

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

You can change the file type options in the File Opt menu.
On the File Opt menu, deselect them all by pressing the S key. You can then cycle through the list and select each file type to look for.

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

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Select the file system type. On Linux, choose ext2/ext3 . As for Windows or OS X, you choose Other .

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

Free – Select this option if you manually deleted or copied over old files.
Whpe – Select this option if disk failure causes you to lose access to files.

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Select the location to save the recovered file. This location must be different from the partition containing the data you are recovering from.

Use the .. at the top of the directory listing to return to the installed drives. You will be able to choose a location on the partition or USB drive to save the file.
Press C when after selecting the folder where you want to save the file.

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

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

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Check the recovered files. After the scan is complete, you can check the recovery folder to see what files have been recovered. The name of the data will no longer be the same, so you need to look at each file to check if they were successfully restored.

By Recuva (Windows)

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Immediately stop saving data to the current drive. As soon as you realize you’ve accidentally deleted or overwritten a file, don’t save any more content on that hard drive. Besides, you need to avoid launching the program. Newly copied data will likely overwrite the old file. Stopping all archiving increases the chances of the file being recovered.

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

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Plug a blank USB into the computer. This is the drive where you will install Recuva. This allows you to launch Recuva without accidentally overwriting files on the drive that you will restore.

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Launch the Recuva installer. Click Next to continue.

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

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Select the USB drive as the installation location. Let’s create the folder “Recuva”.

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Uncheck all additional options and click . Install (Install).

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Open the Recuva folder you created on the USB drive.

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Right-click an empty space and choose “New” → “Text Document”.

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

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

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Launch the file “recuva.exe “. The Recovery Wizard will appear.

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Select the file type you want to find. You can find all or only specific file types.

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

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Start scanning. Recuva will start scanning the location you specify for files that match your requirements.

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Check each item that you want to restore. After the scan is complete, a list of results will appear. Check the box of each file you want to recover and then click Recover… .

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Select the location to save the recovered file. You need to make sure that this location is not on the same partition as the files you are recovering, otherwise the recovered data will be corrupted.

Restore previous file version

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

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

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Use Time Machine on OS X to restore a previous file version. 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 using Time Machine.

Steps

By PhotoRec (Windows, Mac and Linux)

By Recuva (Windows)

Restore previous file version

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