Software Review

Eliminating the 'Oops' Factor

There is a program for all occasions, all types of Windows computer configurations, and all types of users. It overcomes an over zealous deletion of files.

Lawrence S. Gould
Contributing Editor

Most people don't habitually delete files by mistake. It's just that we are human — and the computer is not. Accidents do happen. Automation sometimes does the wrong thing. Sometimes that wrong thing is deleting files +that you absolutely can't afford to lose. And then they are lost.

Undelete from Executive Software International, Burbank, Calif., protects against such losses. It does this so well that it has saved my — well, let's just say it saved the day a couple of times. Simply put, Undelete recovers deleted files regardless of where that file was deleted: within an application, Windows Explorer, the command prompt, or even a DOS application.

Undelete is available in three versions: server, workstation for networked environments, and "home user edition," for stand-alone computers environments. I installed Undelete as I would in any office environment involving a local area network (LAN); that is, I installed the server version on my main computer and the workstation version on my backup. Both computers run Windows 2000 Workstation Pro and a LAN connects the two computers.

While Executive Software assured me I can write version 3.0 over any previous version, I first copied Undelete's Exclusion List file, exclude.dat, to a different directory. Uninstall will generally leave exclude.dat for manual deletion, but I've been burned before with other software.

The Exclusion List specifies the drives, directories — including subfolders if desired — as well as filenames and file types you want Undelete to ignore as files are deleted. Files not matching the Exclusion List are captured by Undelete for later recovery or for eventual, honest-to-goodness deletion.

Needless to say, the Exclusion List is important. Undelete 3.0 can use the exclude.dat from previous versions back to 1.2. It used mine from v2.1 without a hitch.

There are other configurations to be made within Undelete. Here are some of the basic ones. You can install an Undelete recovery bin on all drives or just the ones you pick. Each drive can have a recovery bin or you can have one recovery bin for all the drives at a location you choose. You can define the size of the bin on each drive or the size of the common bin. You can also choose whether to auto purge the bin when it becomes full and whether to save zero-length files.

Version 3.0 adds an option letting you purge files older than a certain number of days that you choose. Such automation is surprisingly helpful. I'm cautious enough to clean out the recovery bin regularly; however, some people aren't. In fact, some computer users don't know they're supposed to delete files from their computer's recovery bin. This tidbit always brings a laugh — or tears — to system administrators when users start complaining that they're running out of hard drive space. That they have hundreds of megabytes of deleted files in their recovery bin comes as a rude shock.

Undelete server edition is just for those people, though they're not the ones who'll be using it. The server lets system administrators connect to the recovery bins in remote computers across a LAN. They only need to click the appropriate icon in Undelete, choose the computer they want from the list of full computer names, and there they are: looking at the recovery bins on the remote computer and the files contained within.

As with the workstation version running locally, you can use the server edition to restore a deleted file to its original location or to an alternative directory on the computer where the deleted file exists. No, you can't undelete to a remote computer. That's what copying across a LAN is for.

Undelete's two-pane, browser-like interface shows the name and size of the deleted file, as well as its creation and deletion date. New to version 3.0, Undelete also shows who — or what user account — deleted that file and who owned the file. You can search for deleted files based on those attributes as well; that is, version 3.0 lets you search for files based on file deletion or creation date, file owner, or the account from which the file was deleted.

There are two more features of note. First, Undelete 3.0 includes a feature that stops computer viruses from truncating and thus damaging the file names of deleted files saved in the recovery bin. Second, for security-conscious users, Undelete 3.0 can completely erase files. The program's SecureDelete option overwrites the file slated for removal with a specific bit pattern that complies with Department of Defense security standards. After the file has been overwritten, it is then deleted.

However, there's a catch — two catches really — to SecureDelete. First, SecureDelete really, truly obliterates a file's chances of recovery. It voids the "undelete from disk" option, which is capable of finding and recovering files that have been deleted from the recovery bin but have not yet been overwritten. (Think of the "undelete from disk" option as a last-chance, oh-I-really-didn't-want-to-do-that file-recovery function.) Second, SecureDelete increases disk traffic; that is, it slows the file-deletion process.

By the way, not all is lost if a file just got deleted — and you don't have Undelete installed. The Undelete CD comes with Emergency Undelete. This program can be run from CD or floppy, thereby lessening the chances of overwriting a previously deleted files — and improving the chances of that file's recovery.

Your best bet is not to get into that position to begin with. Be prepared: Just install Undelete 3.0 now to supercharge the anemic recovery bin included with Windows. This way you'll have the right utility in place for the eventual day you need to recover a deleted file from anywhere on your computer or network.