How to recover an overwritten file

In the following practical guide exposed later, I will explain what are the operations that must be performed when you have mistakenly overwritten a certain file: even if ” Microsoft Windows ” always warns if saving a certain document, there is another that has the same name and the same extension, it may happen that you inadvertently overwrite the old file with a new one.

This event makes the previous archive inaccessible, and all the data contained in it are lost; despite the error, there are still hopes that the document of interest can be recovered: there are two ways to attempt to recover the overwritten data and read the instructions below carefully if you want to know how to proceed.

In this guide, as you may have already read from the title itself, we will see how to recover an overwritten file. When we talk about files, we tend to talk about any type of file, i.e., World, Excel, etc.,

Furthermore, we always recommend reading more than one guide since not all guides are the same for operating systems, but they can also change with regard to the versions of the programs themselves.

So a very important thing is to pay attention to avoid creating further damage or accidents that can also cause the deletion of the file permanently so that it is no longer recoverable.

The partition and use of the computer

First of all, the actions that you must perform before trying to recover an overwritten file are the following:

• Limit the use of the computer to the minimum necessary to prevent further documents from actually overwriting the data that needs to be recovered.
• Close all programs in use (except the one that overwrote the old file) and save the open documents in a partition different from where the Operating System is installed, or in a second hard disk (virtual or real) or in a memory external.

These operations are necessary because, when you casually overwrite the file, it is difficult for the program in use to physically rewrite the new archive in the same portion of the hard disk occupied by the old one: consequently, your document of interest could still be completely or partially existing on the hard disk.

When you start a partition, the computer or rather the dedicated program tends to partition the memory into many parts in order to facilitate the task of searching for the lost file.

Furthermore, another very important thing is to use the computer as little as possible when you want to recover a file because it is very possible that by saving many files, the one we are interested in can be lost.

The operating system

After carrying out the previous operations, you will have to follow a procedure that is not too complicated, that is, first click on the ” Start ” button and then on ” Run “: in ” Windows 7 “, ” Windows Vista ” and ” Windows 8 “, the latter button it is hidden by default and, although you can eventually activate it, you could directly use the line ” Search programs and files “.

Whatever your Operating System, you will need to type the command ” %temp% ” and then click on ” Ok “: in doing so, a window will open showing all the temporary files in use and not yet deleted. After that, do a search of your archive among these files, but consider that perhaps its name and extension could be partially different: if you are timely and have a lot of luck, you may find a copy of the document you have mistakenly overwritten.

As we said before, the procedure for finding an overwritten file is not the same for all operating systems. Still, they tend to be different from one operating system to another. In this step, as in this case, we will see operating systems like Windows and Vista, which tend to be similar, and the steps are still the same.

Speaking of different operating systems, we can say that the procedure, in this case, is the same, but the positions of the keys to be pressed could change both within the program and within the computer.

Backup

If you are one of the lucky few, you can copy the file, paste it into another system folder and open it using the appropriate program, which must be left open: it will be important not to close this software because, quite often, closing it deletes all used temporary files, resulting in the security of the loss of your overwritten document.

If you have not been kissed by luck, it will be necessary to understand if the program you were using automatically creates backup copies: usually, the latter is located inside a system folder located among the folders intended for installation, and this means that you will have to go to ” C:\Program Files\Program Name” and browse through the various folders, hoping to find the copy you need.

Another very important thing to always do at any time is the backup copy. The backup is just a simple copy of all the data that is present on the computer so as not to lose any data if you take a wrong step. We always recommend backup copies, especially when you decide to do a risky procedure or rather as regards the files inside your computer.

Dedicated software

Another option available is to use some software dedicated to recovering overwritten data, many of which are completely free: I recommend that you use those programs that do not require installation, possibly download them from a different computer and run them from memories. External files, to avoid that writing them to the hard disk, overwrites the data you are trying to recover.

Whatever software you use, the activities you have to perform are always the same and are the following:

• Start the program
• Select the driver from which to recover the overwritten file.
• Start the scan, at the end of which a window will appear with all the documents that can be recovered, being physically still present in the hard disk, but invisible to the Operating System.
• Proceed with the search for your archive, select it, and confirm the recovery. Obviously, the recovery of data or rather of overwritten files can also be done through the use of some software that tends to save us the whole issue of backup and partition.

Obviously, with the use of this software, it is not said that the file is found also because the software with respect to a partition tends to work only on the superficial parts and does not tend to enter the memories where the files generally reside.

The chances of success

Unfortunately, the chances of success are not high, also because numerous processes are running in the Personal Computer (PC) (although I have suggested you to completely close the programs in use), which are necessary for the correct functioning of the Operating System and more and they may need to write different data to the hard disk, thus making all your attempts to recover the mistakenly overwritten file useless.

As we said, the chances of success are not very high also because we are talking about a file that we have either accidentally deleted or lost, and when this happens, it is very difficult to recover it. We can always try in any way written within this guide to recover the lost file.