Data recovery question.

If you delete something from the recycle bin, and then the file gets somewhat overwritten, like say something like a quicken data file, which I think needs to be mostly if not completely in tact in order to get it back into the program is there any special software that can possibly recover it? Or at that point is it pretty much a lost cause? I'm interested if there is such software, even if it's not free.

Also is there really much difference in different programs abilities to recovery data that has been deleted or if one doesn't work is it pretty certain the next one will not either?

Search VDR for "data recovery" and you'll find many threads on this same subject.

The sooner you attempt recovery the better your odds are.

I will search for it, however I just wonder if you know off hand of a file recovery program that can recover the orginal file names of files it recovers? I have only found one so far, it was file scavenger but it didn't seem to keep the name for long.

They're suppose to keep the same file name. No sense recovering hundreds of files with weird names that don't mean anything. (course that would be better then nothing)

Well, in my experience so far of the ones I've used they don't really keep the file name. I deleted an mp3 file, removed it from the recycle bin and then many of the programs either didn't find the file or found the MP3, but the mp3 had a 4 character name and then .mp3

Although they don't seem to keep the file name the same, it does keep the extention, like a found a ton of MP3 files but they had no real file name so they were called unknown 0000123.mp3 etc. Also most of the mp3's I recovered still had ID3 tag info on them so I was able to use a program to rename them with their ID3 info.

However it would be nice for other file types if it was able to recover the original file name and not just the extension, but if they couldn't get the extension then they would be pretty much worthless.