File Recovery?

[Serenity]

So... I accidentally deleted all of my photos from my MIDN time off of my external hard drive. Yeah. Stupid. They were on the external, so they didn't go to the recycling bin on the desktop, and there was no "undo" option with which to retrieve them. As I understand it however, they're still there on the external HD and can be recovered until they're overwritten. So, I haven't put anything else on the HD in hopes of saving them. Can anyone recommend the best, most reliable option for recovering my lost pictures?

[jigsaw]

Have heard good things from some of my other photographer friends using Sandisk's recovery software.  There's a free demo version that will tell you what files have a good chance at being recovered.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4985/~/data-recovery-for-memory-cards-and-flash-drives

[100Coogn]

https://www.piriform.com/recuva

I've had good luck with this software in the past.
Good luck.

Coogan

[MrRiplEy[H]]

So... I accidentally deleted all of my photos from my MIDN time off of my external hard drive. Yeah. Stupid. They were on the external, so they didn't go to the recycling bin on the desktop, and there was no "undo" option with which to retrieve them. As I understand it however, they're still there on the external HD and can be recovered until they're overwritten. So, I haven't put anything else on the HD in hopes of saving them. Can anyone recommend the best, most reliable option for recovering my lost pictures?

Remember not to use the external drive for _anything_ before recovery. Remember not to try to recover to the same drive - you'll end up overwriting your lost files. You MUST have a second hard drive large enough to recover the data. Try R-studio ntfs, it has worked well in the past

[Bizman]

Remember not to use the external drive for _anything_ before recovery. Remember not to try to recover to the same drive - you'll end up overwriting your lost files. You MUST have a second hard drive large enough to recover the data.

This. Just for clarity the second hard drive you'll need for data recovery can be inside your computer if there's enough space on it.

As for programs, there's some free alternatives. I've used PC-inspector: http://www.pcinspector.de/ and sometimes also its sibling Smart Recovery. Recuva has already been mentioned. As a last effort I've been using Testdisk/Photorec, but there's a caveat. Not only the download site and GUI are somewhat nerdy, it also doesn't care about the folder structure or the names you've given to your files. It simply gives them a number. But it can find data from corrupted disks so as a last option it's very recommendable.

[Serenity]

Thank you so much guys! I'll have a crack at this at work this week.