Recently I had to help a friend recover some important files that she had accidentally deleted from her SD card. She was in a panic, and don't know how to deal with this problem. Here is what I did:

Firstly, I checked the recycling bin on her computer,  but she had already emptied the recycle bin. I don't know why she did that and so that didn't help.

Secondly, I tried a software which I searched from Google. The software was called Card Data Recovery. It has Windows version as well as Mac version designed separately for Windows and Mac users. I downloaded and ran Card Data Recovery for Windows on her SD card. It took a few minutes to scan her entire SD card. However, the program is a shareware, I could only preview the deleted files on the task list, if I want to recover the lost data, i need to pay for $19.95. At the very beginning, I was not willing to register it, then, I tried other SD card file recovery program including the freeware Recuva, but it can't help me get back the data. Some other tools are much more expensive than that one. At last, I purchased that SD card file recovery tool. It was able to recover files completely! Not bad to spend a little money on it, though!

Through this experience, I would like to share you some advices when you deleted files:

1. Do not empty your recycle bin. If you deleted important files, simply explore the recycle bin and restore the files that you had just accidentally deleted.
2. Do not use SD card or defragment SD card. Why not? Well when you deleted files, the files don't really get deleted off the SD card. They are just removed from "table of contents". And remarks that the room can be used by other data. If you use the SD card again or defragment the card, the existed may be overwritten. This rule also applies for all storage media like SDHC, CF, USB, external hard drive, etc.
3. While use SD card file recovery tool, do not save the recovered files to the original card in case that the data in SD card will be overwritten by the new data.

If you have other suggestions about data recovery, please let me know. Isn't it a great idea to share brains together?

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