I'd like to further develop Rick's good description of file deletions.  You
should think of a deletion in two parts, removal from the 'file system' (in
your case windows file system) and overwriting on the hard disk.  These do
not take place simultaneously EXCEPT in the case of secure delete programs
which overwrite with zeros, and with certain programs that perform updates
to data.

Windows employs a two step process to remove a file or folder from the file
system, first moving it to the recycle bin, (which is itself still part of
the file system) then removing it from the recycle bin (and thus out of the
file system).

The secret to cheaply and successfully recovering a deleted file is that its
file system membership information is not overwritten until its needed by
another file in the file system. Simply finding this information and putting
it back into the file system restores the deleted file.

Now, the level of success that you get depends on two conditions still being
the same as when the file was deleted.  The location of the membership
information has to be untouched.  (This was called the directory entry in
DOS.) This points to the address where the file starts.  From here a chain
can be recreated showing all the addresses, called clusters, used to store
the file.  If the clusters are not contiguous, the file is said to be
fragmented.  If any of the clusters used by the file have been used by
another file since the deletion took place, the chain is broken and all
clusters of the deleted file that come after the reassigned cluster are
assumed to be lost.

What the program demo you have means by saying 'poor' is that it has
detected that some clusters have been reused by other files.  This means it
can't determine the original size of the deleted files so it can't determine
how much of it is still 'undeletable'.

It depends on what you want to undelete.  Letters, word documents, other
kinds of text may be recoverable.  Music, games, windows files, registries,
programs, video, pictures, any kind of download that is not html is going to
be junk.
Tom Turak

-----Original Message-----
From: Al Kohout [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2002 9:29 PM


Is there a true undelete program that will give me back the programs I
deleted from the Recycle bin?

Many make e claims...but what works?

I tried FILERECOVERY FOR WINDOWS (demo version) and it shows up many
files that I wish to recover (I need to buy the full version however..)

The files have a few digits and letter missing form the font of them and
show as 'poor' in the condition segment....

can these be recovered?

Should I try or not bother...and just cry/??

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