WinUndelete Review

I accidentally deleted a file once, and went through the whole rigmarole of downloading various recovery tools, in an attempt to recover my file.

Some could only handle certain document types, images, etc. Others, undelete included, would show the names of the files it found. Sure, it proved it worked, and could perhaps recover the file, but $45 is insane.

The thing is, they can charge this amount, because panicked people who just accidentally permanently deleted a file are blinded by the situation. It may be that the files are worth $45, but there are alternatives that work just as well.

Such utilities are not so advanced. Modern filesystems do not frequently overwrite their data. When data is deleted, it is marked. The initial form of marking involves placing it in the recycle bin. This still protects the data from being overwritten. When the recycle bin is emptied, the data is unregistered - it still exists, the filesystem just might write over it if it needs to. So, all the program really needs to do is scan through the drive data, for unregistered file heads.