IT HELP = recovering overwritten files

I’m guessing I’m scuppered and I know I’ve been dim. Transferred so video files from a memory card into a folder laptop, overwriting current files in the process. Then formatted the memory card. Any way of recovering the folder to the earlier state to retrieve the original files?

It’s work stuff so feeling apprehensive 😳

Important work stuff? Just restore it from your backup.

Try Recuva.

I’ve (also) had success with Recuva, free FWIW.

However, my stuff was relatively trivial – annoying had it been lost, but replaceable and in no way critical or important.

My understanding is that you should do NOTHING to the disk in question until you are settled on a plan, then go for it.

Although you think you’ve overwritten the files, there is a good chance that the data is still there and may be recoverable. I’d try recuva on the memory card first – don’t do anything else with it in before though, and then if that fails try something on the laptop.
Dos used to have a fantastic undelete command that got me out of the merde a few times!

EDIT: Just to be more positive, unless you’ve done a low level format on the memory card, you’ll have just deleted the references to the file and any half decent recovery tool should find it and recover it without any trouble.

Just trying recuva. Is ‘overwritten’ the same as ‘deleted’?

And I formatted the card after transferring the files – won’t that mean it’s gone gone?!

Is ‘overwritten’ the same as ‘deleted’?

Yes, sort of.

And I formatted the card after transferring the files – won’t that mean it’s gone gone?!

Quick format, or full format, and how much would you spend to try to get the data back?

And I formatted the card after transferring the files – won’t that mean it’s gone gone?!

Probably not – see my post above

Hang on.

You overwrote files on the PC with files from the card. So you have those files, what’s recovering the card going to achieve?

Hang on.

You overwrote files on the PC with files from the card. So you have those files, what’s recovering the card going to achieve

Good point well made! 😕

There is still a good chance the files on the hdd are there though.

OK – I transferred video files from memory card into a folder on my desktop. Then quick formatted memory card. Recorded new videos on the memory card. Dragged into the same folder on desktop and STUPIDLY ok’d ‘overwrite’.

And ‘recuva’ is doing a deep scan for video files ‘anywhere on pc’ – says it’ll take 11hrs to complete!

Would’ve been quicker to restore from backups.

You know that bit at the end of He-Man, where every week Prince Adam learns an Important Lesson About Life?

Cougar … loved He-Man in my youth, but clearly missed the lesson!

How to restore from back-up? Or have I messed that up by running recuva (which now has 60 mins left to run)?

Well the first question is, do you have backups? Work laptop synced with a file server perhaps?

As far as I’m aware, no backups set up. Def no syncing. Checked the folder for ‘restore to previous versions’ but blank…