Unfortunately they don’t. Files deleted from removable drives in Windows aren’t saved to the Recycle Bin. Micorsoft discuss this on their website at Files or Folders Deleted from Floppy Disk Not in the Recycle Bin

If you haven’t used the floppy disk since deleting the file, there is a good chance you can recover the lost files by using the software described in our Recovering Deleted Files post.

Your emails probably won’t be in My Documents unless you’ve specifically told your system to save them there.

Finding your emails on a Windows system is particularly irritating as the different programs dump them into different folders. In Outlook Express and Windows Mail the address books are also saved in a completely different location.

The best thing is to back up your entire profile, this sits in the Documents and Settings folder on your C: drive and the profile will be either your log in name or something close to it.

By backing up this entire folder, you’ll save your My Documents folder, desktop, web browser bookmarks, address books and email. Just take care that your email folder isn’t so big it won’t fit on a single DVD.

First you should try to show hidden object on the drive. To do this, follow our instructions in the Finding Hidden Files and Folders page.

You should copy the files off your USB stick so you have a safe copy somewhere else.

If you are still having trouble accessing the files, you may need to run the Restoration freeware program to recover your files.

Good luck.

If you haven’t done anything to the USB drive since the accident then there is a good chance you’ll be able to recover them.

We covered restoring files in a previous post. The important thing is not to panic and to save everything onto a different drive so you don’t overwrite anything important on the original drive.

Best wishes and we hope you get those Christmas pictures back.

Do not open the attachments on these emails!

This is a nasty little piece of malware known as the Ztob Trojan, it pulls all the tricks in the book including disabling firewalls, anti viruses, spamming your inbox and, finally, stealing your credit card details.

Using emails claiming to be spurious airline ticket bookings to spread the thing shows how devious the malware writers are. While it reminds us of the Anna Kournakova virus of 2001, the motives are totally different. It shows how things have changed in the last seven years and today viruses are written by organised crime to rob you.

We need to be careful with these things this Trojan is rapidly being rewritten by the malware designers and many antivirus programs are having trouble keeping up with the changes. We do have some discussion about this in our PC Rescue newsletter.

Do not open anything with a .Zip attachment unless you have confirmed with the sender this is a legitimate file.

Sadly there’s not a great deal we can do about these emails as the spammers are ahead of the curve on this one. All we can suggest is keeping your security software up to date and practice safe computing.

We’re not in a position to give legal advice so we really don’t know the answer for the second question. You need to talk to a lawyer or contact your local consumer advice service for some guidance 0n this.

To answer the first question, we like the Restoration utility.

Keep in mind with lost data is that every time you use the drive, the less likely it is that you’ll find the lost data.

So stop using the computer NOW!

The best way to recover data is to take the drive out of the computer and put it into another machine, then run the utilities and save recovered files to your external drive. You can also do it by booting from a boot disk and running some recovery utilities.

Generally it’s best to consult a professional. Recovering deleted data is a delicate operation which is best done by experienced technicians.

There are good businesses that specialize in data recovery but, quite rightly, their services are expensive and they don’t guarantee success. It may be possible to get the offending shop to pay at least part of the recovery costs.

Sadly, it may be that data is totally lost. That’s why we recommend backing up as much as possible.

When this happens, computers slow down as the system has to search for files when it needs them.

To overcome this problem in Windows computers, you can run the Check Disk command. Click Start, Run and type Chkdsk c: /r in the box. On Windows Vista machines click Find and do likewise.

The c: refers to the main disk drive. If you have more drives you can insert d:, e: or whatever. Note this won’t work with CD and DVD drives but it will with external and flash drives.

A black box will appear and if you’ve chosen the C: drive or any other drive that’s in use, it tell you the drive is locked and do you want to run chkdsk the next time you start the computer. Type Y (for yes) and press the enter key.

If the drive is in use as a network or data drive, you may be asked if you want to dismount the drive. Press N (for no) and then Y for the next question.

When you restart the computer a blue screen will appear telling you a disk check has been scheduled and press any key to cancel. Leave the computer alone and let it run.

Be warned this process might take several hours. Once the process starts, you cannot cancel the operation and the computer must not be restarted.

If Chkdsk detects bad blocks on the hard drive, then you should contact your computer expert immediately as your hard drive is probably beginning to fail.

Unfortunately we can’t recommend any specific company but there are companies that will recover data from even the most catastrophic failure.

This is a very specialised business so the services don’t come cheap for the equipment and skilled staff to operate it. Expect to pay several thousand dollars if it is a head crash as they will have to dismantle the drive and build it up again.

The best thing we can suggest is to contact your local computer shops and ask who they use for such work. Don’t trust the shops themselves as none will have the equipment to do this sort of recovery.

Best of luck in recovering those baby photos.

I have been able to initialise the external HD as HFS+ OK.

I am instructed to use ‘Custom’, enter the number and size and name the partitions, but I can’t get to ‘Custom’ to do it. 

It’s an excellent idea to split up your drive in this way as it makes recovery a lot easier should something bad happen.

In the Silverline pro, make sure you have highlighted the drive and not the Bus or Partition in the first screen. Until you do this, the Custom command won’t be available.

LaCie have detailed instructions on how to do this in OS9 on their website.

It may be worthwhile trying the Mac Drive setup utility to see if this will resolve the problem. In the Drive Setup box you should get the Custom option after you click Initialize.

Generally the Silverlining Pro and LaCie disk should be very reliable and straightforward to use. If the problem continues you should contact your supplier to check the drive is okay.

There’s a number of data recovery services available but all of them are going to take your drive for some weeks. You can contact your local computer tech for more details.

If the drive has format or partition problems, then you can recover data using programs like the free Restoration program or more user friendly commercial programs like Recover My Files.