need information on how to restore lost .dat files deleted from recycle bin

[ladyhawk1]

Raymond,

This is all new to me so please be patient. I am not a computer geek by any means. I have lost some .dat files from my yahoo messanger archive ( which had been saved to my archive) that I desperately need to recover for legal purposes. Of course if it has been past 24 hours yahoo server does not still have them. EVeryone says that once they are gone they are gone forever.

I installed RegTool on my computer around the 24th of April. It seemed to be working great for the most part until the other night May 12 it deleted all of my folders in my message archive saved on yahoo messenger. I did a live chat with RegTool tech and they told me to restore back to a previous scan prior to May 12, but that did not work. Then I was told to restore my computer from start to a previous date before, it would restore: saying that it was because my antivirus had detected or deleted corrupted files or something of that nature. Have tried this several times.

At first (May 15) I could go into my C drive and click on yahoo messages under program files/archive and find the message folders. I was told to uninstall messenger and reinstall it, but that didn't work either and it wiped out all of those personal file folder extensions listed under archives. Now I really don't know what to do.

RegTool is set to scan once a day on my computer. When it does, it clears the recycle bin. I have unchecked the privacy box so that it won't delete anything else. What baffles me is that prior to May 12 it hadn't deleted my archives. I don't understand why all of a sudden it did.

My question is: Is there some way to recover those lost .dat files after they have been deleted from the recycle bin and restore them to my active archive or at least save them to a folder somewhere else so that they can be kept and copied for my purposes. I checked out your top 10 favorite data recovery software and downloads, but as I said, am not what you would call real computer savy. I am a single partent, returing to college, living on very limited funds at present and I can't afford to spend a lot of money on taking my computer somewhere or purchasing software that may or may not work. I definately don't want to screw up anything else as I have to use my computer every day and have to have my computer for classes. Please can you advise.

Thank you Jackie Newby

[Raymond]

It is still possible to recover the deleted files BUT the chances are getting lower each time you do something on your computer. Try this.

1. Plug in your USB pen drive
2. Download Recuva to your pen drive http://www.recuva.com/download
3. Install it in your pen drive.
4. Run it and try to search for the deleted .dat files.

[ladyhawk1]

As stated I know virtually nothing about a computer. What is a USB pen drive and how do I plug it in. is that the same as a flash drive? And is this possible to do through my Backup D harddrive? thanks.

[hellnoire]

USB Pen drive and a Flash Drive are the exact same thing. And I would think it would be cleaner if you install to a Flash drive then to your backup drive myself.

[ladyhawk1]

Raymond,
I downloaded onto my flash drive and ran the scan. It pulled up numerous temp files. I only showed four places that anything had been overwritten. But I'm still not sure what I am looking for from this list. Nothing says program file thus far that I have found. It is currently downloading all of these recovered files onto my flash drive. Do you have any suggestions. The original files were located in C drive, program files, yahoo, messenger, archives under my username. My daughters archives were also deleted and I would like to recover them for her too if possible. Can you give me an example from which to go by.

Also, if I find them is it best to leave them on my flash drive or can they be restored to my current messenger archives.

[Raymond]

After finished scanning with Recuva, try to locate if there's any .dat files in C:\Program Files\Yahoo\Messenger\Archives\YourUserName

If you can't find it, unfortunately those files has been overwritten and cannot be recovered