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It is nearly always the 59th minute of the 11th hour when my 25-year-old daughter calls with a computer problem.
This time she had "lost" the latest version of the document that she had spent two hours working on that day. The work, written using Microsoft Word and presumed to be lurking somewhere on her portable PC hard drive, was of course due in the following day.
Unfortunately, the most obvious methods for finding files, such as the list of recently opened documents displayed under the "File" drop-down menu in Word, the woefully inadequate Windows search feature and considerably better desktop search tools such as x1 (www.x1.com), all failed to locate the errant document, although they did turn up an earlier version.
One possibility, I surmised, was that the latest version had never been saved. But given my daughter's protestations, it seemed more likely that it had somehow been accidentally deleted. All, however, might not be lost.
There are quite a few "undelete" software packages, including some sophisticated tools used by "forensic" computer experts to scour the hard drives and disks used by criminals and others in search of evidence of misdeeds.
Two of my favourites are Easy Undelete (www.easy-undelete.com) and GetData's Recover My Files (www.recovermyfiles.com). Generally, these tools rely on the fact that it is actually quite difficult to erase or "wipe" a magnetic hard drive and it is relatively easy to retrieve a file, even if it has been "deleted".
When a file is deleted or dragged to the Windows "recycle bin", all hat actually happens is that references to the file on the hard drive are removed and the space freed up on the drive is tagged for reuse. Most of the file data is still there -- it is simply "hidden" from sight and does not show up in ordinary search results.
Software tools such as Easy Undelete, which costs $23, exploit this fact. Easy Undelete works with virtually any PC running Windows. It can recover files, including those emptied from the "recycle bin", those deleted accidentally or deliberately, or those erased by other means. It cannot, however, retrieve deleted files on damaged, deleted or reformatted hard-drive partitions (partitioning is the method used to format a hard drive ready to store programmes and data). That is when you need Recover My Files, in many ways a more polished and sophisticated programme. Priced at $67, it is also a significantly more expensive package although there is a "try-before-you-buy" option.
Aside from recovering deleted files emptied from the Windows recycle bin, Recover My Files can also retrieve those lost when the hard drive is reformatted, or after virus infection, unexpected system shutdown or software failure. And despite this sophistication, I found it very easy to set up and use.
Recover My Files operates on two levels. When a file is deleted from a Windows operating system the content is rarely destroyed. If the Windows reference information remains intact, the programme can reconstruct the link to the deleted file.
Even if the reference information itself has been destroyed, Recover My Files locates "Lost Files" by their internal file structure.
Of course, the fact that files and data can often be recovered even if the original data has been deleted or overwritten by a new file can itself pose a problem if, for example, a company or individual is disposing of an old hard drive or an ageing PC. Many hard drives -- even those that have been reformatted -- can contain confidential information that it may be possible to retrieve and use to support identity theft or even industrial espionage.
So, in addition to "undelete" software, there are programmes designed to "wipe" drives definitively. Two of my favourites are Sure Delete v5.1.1, a free downloadable programme from Wizard-Industries (www.wizard-industres.com) designed to shred sensitive information or free up resources on a hard drive, and WipeDrive from AccessData (www. accessdata.com).
Sure Delete works with Windows 98 and later Windows operating systems and supports most types of hard disk partition. It allows you to erase whole folders at once and promises "permanent data removal, beyond the possibility of recovery".
WipeDrive, which was formerly known as ClearDrive, costs $40 for a package that can be used to "sanitise" between one and 20 computers an unlimited number of times provided that the software is not run on more than one machine at the same time.
Despite being an extremely powerful programme that includes support for any drive size and most PC operating systems, WipeDrive is also remarkably easy to use making the programme suitable for both home and commercial users.
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