Windows Vista® Inside Out Deluxe Edition

Recovering Lost, Damaged, and Deleted Files and Folders

It takes only a fraction of a second to wipe out a week’s worth of work. You might accidentally delete a folder full of files or, worse, overwrite an entire group of files with changes that can’t be undone. Whatever the cause, Windows Vista includes tools that offer hope of recovery. If a file is simply lost, try searching for it using the tools we explain in "Using and Configuring Search and Indexing". For accidental deletions, your first stop should be the Recycle Bin, a Windows institution since 1995. If you are running the Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise editions, you might have access to a considerably more powerful recovery tool called Previous Versions. We explain how to use both ...