How to Recover Deleted Video Files

Act quickly to get files back.

If your important files are missing, don't panic. There are a number of options to get old video files back depending on what happened to them. Sometimes files end up transferred to other places on your computer, so recovery is fast and painless. Even if the files don't appear to be anywhere on your computer, you can recover them using a free file recovery program. Be thorough when searching your computer for those files, but do act quickly once you realize you've lost video.

Instructions

1. Open your computer's Recycle Bin. Scroll through the files listed to see if you accidentally placed your video file in the Recycle Bin. Files remain in this bin until you manually clear the bin, so there's a chance it will be here.

2. Click "Start," then "Search," and enter your missing file name. Click the "When was it modified?" option, then perform a search. You may find older versions of the video file here, or you may find that you've accidentally saved the file elsewhere or changed its name.

3. Download an undelete program that has the capacity to restore video files (see Resources). PC Inspector, Disk Digger and Recuva are free programs that restore video files. Disk Internals has a free demo download, but if you want to use it repeatedly you'll need to pay for it.

4. Open the downloaded undelete program once it's finished downloading. Follow the program's prompts to search for your missing video file. Wait for the undelete program to complete its search and display results.

5. Click on the files you want to restore. They will open on your computer. Then manually save them using "File," then "Save."

References

• Jake Ludington: Recover Deleted Files
• PC World: How to Recover (Almost) Anything

Resources

• Disk Internals: Data Recovery Software
• Piriform: Recuva
• Disk Digger
• PC Inspector