How to find Deleted files as FLA, PSD, AI....

[smartfla20002]

Accidentally, I Deleted my files

and Confirmed File Delete in my Recycle Bin.

I tried some programs and found JPG or GIF, etc but non of them could find

FLA, PSD, AI sizes.

Someone who is sure and already had same problem,

Please Help me to find my Deleted files!

Thanks lot

[LJK]

Hi -
System Restore to the nearest point?

El

[billingsgate]

Usually the way a file is "deleted" by the operating system is simply removing the suffix (in this case, "fla"). So if you remember the first part of the file name you might be able to locate it with certain recovery programs.

There are many recovery programs out there, but lately most of them are made for digital cameras, to recover image files from corrupted flash memory cards or whatever. If you're using one of these programs, that might explain why you're finding GIF and JPEG files, but not FLA or even PSD, since they only search for camera-type image files. You'll have to search for other "undelete" programs, of which there are many (but I haven't used one for awhile, so I can't recommend one in particular).

Meanwhile, you should avoid doing ANY work on the computer! Upon "deletion", your FLA file will still be intact. BUT the computer will allow such a deleted file's sectors to be freed for other data to be written. In other words, if you started and saved a new FLA file in the meantime (or even reading this page, since your browser is writing cache data to the hard disk), there is a chance that part of your old FLA file has been overwritten. In which case you might recover it, but you won't be able to open it.

[Headshotz]

If you deleted a major project (I mean 1000's of dollars) or can get the guys at your local PC hardware store to recover them for you for about $90 (expensive). If you have a mac with a .mac service they will do the same thing for free.