The chance of recovery depends highly on the time between the deletion and recovery attempt. Windows for instance does not delete files permanently on the hard drive when the user deletes them from the system. The operating system merely deletes the file information (file xyz is stored here) and enables the space on the hard drive for writing. If no other file has been written partially or fully to the location then it is likely that the file can be recovered.

Undelete 360 is a free file recovery software for Windows that is comfortable to use

A recovery process begins with the selection of Search in the main toolbar. The file recovery program retrieves all connected storage devices and asks the user to select one or multiple devices. These devices are scanned by the application once the Start button is activated by the user.

Undelete 360 displays file groups in a sidebar on the left and the deleted files that it found on the hard drive on the right.

The sidebar items allow the user to filter by application type. That’s handy to limit the file listing to find specific files faster or to recover all files of a specific type. It is possible to switch to a folder display in the sidebar instead which is handy if files that have been stored in a specific folder need to be recovered.

All deleted files are listed with their name, path, recovery status and size. The recovery status gives an indication if a file is recoverable.

A search on top can be used to find files with a specific name or path. File previews are available once a file has been selected.

Files can be recovered by the application by selecting them first in the file listing before the Recover button is pressed.

This spawns the recovery options window where the destination directory and other related parameters can be configured.

File filters can be enabled in the top menu as well. Here it is possible to filter by filename, date range and file size.

Undelete 360 offers another interesting feature: The ability to wipe files and folders. Wiping makes the files and folders unrecoverable on the system.

The application is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Downloads are provided directly at the developer website.

Wipe Disk and Wipe Files (via Download Squad) are two applications that can delete disks and partitions or files securely so that they cannot be recovered by normal means. Normal means are those typical file recovery applications like Recuva.

Both applications are available in different languages which can be changed in the Extras > Language menu. The default language of both applications is German. Both are pretty straightforward. A disk, file or directory is added to the queue and one of the fourteen algorithms is selected that delete the data securely.

Some of the algorithms are being used by the Department of Defense, the US Navy or Nato. I would always suggest to use a software like Recuva after deleting data on a disk to make sure that those cannot be retrieved by normal means.

Those algorithms use different ways to overwrite the location on the hard drive that was occupied by the data. A German basic description of every algorithm is available in the program’s help file.