I just deleted my backup file! How do I save it?

I just accidentally deleted a backup file that I need to restore my system. It's an Acronis True Image TIB file. It was stored at H:\My backups and the name of the file was File_backup_2012-10-18.tib.

I did a quick scan with Recuva 1.43.623 and it found the file using the recovery wizard, but it was unable to recover it. The "state" of the file is "unrecoverable". So the resulting file is 0 byte.

I am trying to do a deep scan with Recuva right now but it takes a lot of time. If it should fail, what other recovery option do I have? Is there any other good file recovery software that's free to use for home users?

I do have a second copy of the whole system partition, but I needed this file backup copy because it is more up to date.

recuva 1.43

That's the file, right there! But why is Recuva unable to recover it?

Samir

Posted 2012-10-18T20:51:32.287

Reputation: 17 919

Why are you worried? Acronis is so unreliable anyway a missing file won't make much difference.

– Daniel R Hicks – 2012-10-18T21:51:23.060

@DanielRHicks I've not tried replacing only the boot partition myself, but I use Acronis to backup my entire drive (as an image) and have used them to restore multiple times. Never had issues. – Ben Richards – 2012-10-19T16:46:21.497

Answers

Perhaps you're trying to recover it to the same drive? This can cause issues where you are likely (especially if it's a large file) to overwrite parts of the disk that haven't been recovered yet, while it's saving the file.

Try recovering it to a separate disk. Just in case, and for future reference: Make sure you leave the disk untouched immediately or as soon as possible after you deleted it! You don't want to accidentally overwrite part of the data, making it truly unrecoverable, which can happen at any time a write occurs.

If that doesn't help, then perhaps after deleting the file, you actually did overwrite some of the file's data on the data. It may have been accidental (maybe other files moved around afterwards). But if that's the case, it's likely unrecoverable.

Ben Richards

Posted 2012-10-18T20:51:32.287

Reputation: 11 662

1+1 - Overwriting (the last paragraph) is my guess. – None – 2012-10-18T21:05:26.900

It is crucial that you DO NOT use your computer until you recover the file or you determine that it is indeed unrecoverable. You can give the following pieces of software a shot.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm

Scandalist

Posted 2012-10-18T20:51:32.287

Reputation: 2 767