Lost Excel Files - Help!

[NewGardenStyle]

Hiyas,

I backed up some files to an external hard drive last night but I have lost some very important Excel files. I copied the file parent folder drag and drop style, but only the subfolders copied over, not the individual files that were held loose within the parent file.

They aren't on the external hard drive, and I can't find them anywhere on my laptop.

Things I have tried:

Looking in the recycle bin
Searching for the files by name in file explorer
Trying to recover the files on Excel. Getting the message that the files in question "have been moved or deleted"

Any ideas that I can try?

Thanks!

 

[domainguy]

there are lots of recovery programs available and some are free. I've used a few in the past but can't remember the names im afraid. Also google recovering as you can sometimed find temp copies.

 

[NewGardenStyle]

Thanks for the feedback. I've tried running two programs - Recuva and Easus. No joy though I'm afraid. It's a mystery that these files can just disappear. Perhaps they have somehow been overwritten?

 

[GraemeL]

Searching for the files by name in file explorer !

Have you tried searching for some words that appear on the sheet rather than the file names themselves? I am always forgetting file names and find this way much easier and more thorough.

 

[NewGardenStyle]

Hi Graeme, gave it a try and no luck...plus I used the lost files quite regularly so I'm sure of the file names. I can rebuild the data from paper records so all is not completely lost....just a right job of work to reassemble it all! Still, a lesson learnt on an effective data back up procedures

 

[sharansingh]

Use recovery tool for it. I recommend you "Get Data Back" software with full version , google about it you will find it easily.

 

[simon field]

@Carl "Excel-Expert" Nixon ?

 

[Carl "Excel-Expert" Nixon]

Thanks for the mention Simon, but there is not much I can offer here - unfortunately it is a file keeping/management thing rather than an Excel thing.

GraemeL's idea is probably the neatest for trying to locate the file, but that would depend on if file indexing is switched on on that PC.

I avoid this by backing everything up to Dropbox - their roll back system is great for this sort of thing. Its saved my neck a few times.

 

[NewGardenStyle]

Sure, I've tried a few data recovery tools and no luck, so I'll just have to rebuild the files manually.

Lessons learnt re Cloud Storage!

 

[Nico Albrecht]

I would recommend looking for shadow copies ( goggle excel shadow ) first and keep in mind the more you use your laptop the more likely you overwrite existing data. If your laptop got an SSD drive and TRIM was active chances are slim at best. Backups would be your only hope and for online solutions go for BackBlaze. They support os x and windows for £4 unlimited backups per device. I am running a Data Recovery business and happy to advise and give advise. The big players simply won't care and have a fixed price well over £350. I can advice to never run recovery on the actual hard drive and make a clone first to prevent further data losses. If you have more question always happy to help and feel free to contact me through my website. I am most of the time online via chat anyway. In regards to recovery software stay away from free stuff and the best software you can use is R-Studio which overs a good solution for about $80. No need for the tech version for $800.