Given that I rufuse to spend money on computing..

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

Is there any free way of getting deleted photos back from my C drive ? ...

[Richard]

[Paul]

For a C: drive, you must stop using it *immediately* when you realize your mistake. The operating system on C: should not be used to aid in the recovery. Windows 10 is a particularly nasty little OS, that can harm the files we're trying to recover, so this recommendation is not at all easy to do! You select shutdown, but the stupid thing can do a shitload of writes before the screen goes black.

Carry the disk drive to a second computer, as if the drive was a "data" drive. Do *not* boot from the drive when it is connected to the second computer. The boot order in the BIOS will help you determine which hard drive is selected for boot. You boot from the regular drive on the other machine.

*******

When you delete a file, a single byte in the $MFT (master file table) is flipped. This is why "UnDelete" utilities can work. As long as the clusters the file rests on are not overwritten, simply flipping that byte back, magically brings your files back.

$MFT +------+---------------+ | byte | other details | <=== for this part, if you use the +------+---------------+ partition for long enough, the entire entry is reused, and recovery is not possible.

+-------------+--------------+--------------+ Your file is stored as a series | 4KB cluster | 4KB cluster | 4KB cluster | of clusters. If you use the disk +-------------+--------------+--------------+ these will get overwritten by new files

These programs, when they scan the $MFT, they will give you ratings for each file

Jims First Picture Good Jims Second Pic Moderate Jims Third Pic Poor

A rating of "Good", means the three clusters in the picture have not been overwritten. When a "Good" file is recovered, you can actually use it.

If the file has any other rating than "Good", that means there is a hole burned in your picture, like a cigarette burn. Your image editor may complain that something is wrong with the picture, or it may try and repair it (and make a big mess).

If you stop using the disk right away, before the OS does any more writes, then all the files could have "Good" ratings. (I've actually done this, had 100% "Good"!) You ask the program to transfer the recovered files to your Technician Machine C: drive - do not write the files onto the "damaged" C: drive that we're trying to isolate.

By moving the C: drive to another machine, the idea is that no operating system is running from there, so it stops writing crap on the drive, and changing all the file status from "good" to "poor".

*******

And Recuva was bought out by scumbags, and the installer of the program, may attempt to install Avast or something similarly worthless, on your Technician Machine C: drive. Be careful to untick any boxes where additional undesired software will be downloaded and rammed into the rescue computer.

*******

There is another way to get files back, which is Windows "File History", but the user has to set that up before the disaster, for it to help. You restore the folder the files were in, to get the files back. That's how deleted files are recovered using "File History".

*******

But Recuva works just about any time. As long as you don't allow writes to the disk, and make all the files "Poor".

Laptop Desktop Regular C: drive <=== what the desktop boots off C: drive --------------> Put the drive needing recovery, in this bay.

When the files are recovered from the ---> drive, the recovered files are written on the <=== drive, so that no writes are done to the ---> drive, ruining it. That's what this little ceremony is about, the moving the drive over. There are other ways to do this, if you have enough spare materials around for the job, that would not require touching the insides of the left-hand item. I'm not set up for that here, so I just carry the drive over to the other machine.

And remember, it's digital. And will be merciless.

Paul

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

beyond me sorry ...

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

[GB]

You have looked in the Recycle Bin?

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

yip

[John Rumm]

So to answer your original question then, nope you are shagged - kiss your photos good bye.

If you were prepared to get some one competent to look at it, or to expend some personal effort following advice, then the situation would be different - however since you are not, then your files are gone, and anything you do subsequently will make the future possibility of recovery ever less likely.

Your call...

[Paul]

Download Recuva, run it, use it.

I provide the back story, so you'll know what the red-yellow-green traffic lights are for.

Only "green" files are worth saving to a separate disk drive.

If there is anything to recover, Recuva will show you.

The filename could be completely missing (won't be in Recuva list).

The files that are listed, have colors, and only a "green" or "Good" file is worth the recovery effort.

If you were a lazy git and booted the C: with the UnDelete files on it, Windows will write over the file carcasses and ruin them before you can recover them.

Paul

[GB]

Tough love, but very true.

[GB]

Perhaps you should explain how you deleted the photos.

[Scribbles]

The last time I restored deleted files this way was on an XP laptop but it may just work in W10 if you haven't already tried it.

Go to the all apps list on the Start menu and scroll right down to Windows System. Click on this and from the options that come up, select Open Command Prompt and then Run as Administrator. The DOS command window will appear on your screen.

In this command window, type the following C:\ restore c:\ *.* then press the Return key

With any luck, the file path of anything you have ever deleted from the C: drive will start scrolling up the screen in front of you and, when the process is complete, you can work your way through and identify the files you wish to keep and re-save them. Of course,if all the deleted pictures were together in one folder and you know the file path, you should be able to restore only that folder to save having to work through all the other restored crapola. If this is the case, from the command prompt, type, eg C:\ restore C:\photos\jim\2019\holidays\skeggy Press Return and you may be lucky.

Whether this works or not largely depends on how full your C: drive is. Files deleted from the trash can are simply "parked" somewhere on the hard drive and the system notes that this is now potential free space. As your drive fills up, gradually those files are overwritten by newer stuff that you've saved.

I don?t guarantee anything and it's a hell of a long time since I did anything in DOS but give it a try. You have nowt to lose. HTH

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

easy come easy go ....

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

that worked great...thanks

[Andrew]

From your backups. You *did* take backups, didn't you ?

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

That depends on whether the drive was written to at all since. To be honest, I've had little luck if it has. as unless its a SSd win doze tends to defrag it in the background and overwrite deleted stuff to make it faster. Brian