How to Recover Overwritten Files from Hard Disk on Windows?

Can Overwritten Data be Recovered?

Before understanding whether we can recover data, it is important to know what overwritten files are. Generally, it happens when the user replaces an existing file with a new file by the same name or in location.

It may be due to different reasons. Human error is the prominent cause of it. But, it can be recovered until the data is permanently lost. However, having a backup is beneficial in such cases.

How to Recover Overwritten Files?

The files are vital to every user, whether it’s a simple document or an important project detail. But there’s nothing to worry about. There are two manual methods and a professional tool to retrieve overwritten files in your system. The detailed procedure is discussed below.

Method 1: Find Hard Disk Overwritten Files Through Previous Versions

Usually, these are the backups of your original files that were somehow overwritten. The steps are as follows:

1. Open File Explorer and locate the hard disk folder where your file was stored.
2. Next, right-click and select Properties.
3. The properties dialog box will appear. Select the Previous Versions tab.
4. Further, if you find any previous version of your file there, select it, and hit the Restore button.
   
5. At last, click the OK button.

Method 2: Can I Retrieve A File That Was Overwritten With System Restore?

This method allows the recovery of overwritten or replaced files by restoring systems to their last backup point. The steps are:

1. Open the Control Panel on your system. Select System and Security.
2. Next, click System in the window and select System Protection from the window opened.
   
3. The System Properties dialog box will appear. Here, locate your hard disk drive, and click the System Restore button.
   
4. Further, the system restore dialog box appears. Click Next.
5. Subsequently, choose the last backup or restore point for your drive and click Next.
   
6. At last, hit the Finish button to complete the restoring process.

Note: Sometimes, you can encounter error code 0x80070005 during system restore if the restoring file point is corrupted or damaged. However, you can fix this issue. Moreover, it is better to restore data before moving further to avoid any losses. For this, go through the below-suggested expert tool.

Automated Tool to Recover Overwritten Files

In situations like data loss, including overwritten files, the best option is to go for an expert solution. The Windows Data Recovery Tool is such a helpful solution. This tool fixes the damaged or corrupted files before retrieving the data from it. Furthermore, it ensures that data is not altered anyhow. It has some other advanced features, like:

• It is compatible with all the versions of the system.
• Recover data from all storage devices in different file formats.
• It is easy to use and can recover permanently deleted data too.

Steps for Overwritten Data Recovery

1. Download and install the tool on your system. Run it as an administrator.
2. Choose the hard disk and click Next. Further, check the selected disk information and click Next.
3. Further, select the mode of recovery for your data and click Next.
   
4. Once the scanning process is complete, click OK. Next, preview the directory structure containing files and folders of your drive data.
5. In addition, choose the folders to retrieve and click the Save button.
   
6. Subsequently, browse and locate the destination to save your files, and click OK.
   
7. Lastly, hit the Save button to complete recovering your overwritten files.

Conclusion

Particularly, there are two reasons, as stated above, for overwritten files. However, there are solutions to recover overwritten files. This is probably possible because data still exists on the hard drive until it is completely deleted or lost. To recover your data, you can use either of the two manual methods or the suggested tool to ease your task. It doesn’t require any technical knowledge and completes your tasks in seconds.

Frequently Asked Questions

About The Author:

Deep Shikha

Deep Shikha Pandey is a Tech Writing Expert having deep knowledge about Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, SQL, and other databases and email clients. She will guide you the best about email migration and SQL Database recovery using her expertise and making all the processes a cakewalk for the readers. Make your technical journey easy with simple layman’s blogs and accurate technical information.