Tips to Recover Folder Contents
It only takes a slip of the wrist and a little distraction to accidentally delete a folder. The problem with deleting folders is that everything residing within that folder is also deleted including subfolders and all of their files. A single folder can contains thousands of files.
Fortunately, if you've deleted a folder you may be able to get your files back. When a folder is deleted, it goes through several phases of deletion. Each of these phases has a different recover folder process.
First, the folder is removed from its original location to the Recycle Bin where recovery is a simple matter of locating the folder, right-clicking it, and choosing "restore." Once restored, the folder and all of its contents go back to their original location.
If you've emptied the Recycle Bin since the deletion, the folder is no longer able to be restored without outside assistance. Once removed from the Recycle Bin, the folder and the contents remain on the disk drive until something else overwrites them. Windows doesn't automatically erase files and folders when they are deleted (or even when the disk is reformatted for that matter). Instead, it removes them from its master file index and from general view. Windows considers the disk space where the folder resides to be free space and will use up the free space as needed.
Because the free space actually contains real folders and files, data recovery is possible. You can recover folder and file data with special data recovery software so long as the data hasn't been replaced by new files and data. If the folder's header becomes damaged, corrupt, or overwritten, you will not be able to recover it, even with data recovery software.
If you're not comfortable trying to recover folder and file data on your own, you can send your disk to a data recovery service. This option is much more expensive than data recovery software and it still involves a great deal of work on your part. For example, unless the service is local, you'll need to pull out your drive and carefully pack it before shipping it to the data recovery center. Even if you pay extra for overnight shipping (both ways) and rush service, you will still wait several days to recover folder contents.
Data recovery software is much more affordable and generally easy enough for the average computer user to use. You can recover folders and files from deletion and reformatting incidents without any technical know-how so long as the data hasn't been replaced. It only takes a few minutes to get your folder back compared to days with an outside service.
Because the potential for data loss is so high, it's important to act quickly and protect your drive from further loss. Do not let any process write data to the drive that has lost its folders or any data.
If the data loss was due to computer errors or a failing hard drive, you'll want to backup existing data and recover folder and file data that was lost. Finally, run the Error Checking utility and consider upgrading your disk if you think it's about to fail.
