I deleted a file of a finished project that I hate to have to redo. so was wondering if anyone could recommend some recovery software that you've had success with. Thanks

Would help to know what platform -- mac or pc, and what kind of file....There are some very good image recovery programs, and Win 7 keeps previous versions of files if you've set it up to do so....Premiere and Final Cut also keep backups...more info on your problem????

More than likely your deleted video file was way too big to fit into your recycle bin so you clicked "okay" to detete when queried and the file was lost to normal means of recovery. If that is the case then what you want to do is recover using third-party tools. Most important of all... DON'T TOUCH THAT DISK!!!!! The file was not deleted but the allocation table was merely told that it is now okay to write new files to that space. If you write anything at all to that disk you may end up writing to some of the space used by that file and then it will become unrecoverable. You might be able to partially recover it but a partially recovered video file is corrupt and useless.

There are a lot of good tools on line you can use to undelete files but be careful because some sites pretend to have this stuff but only give you a computer virus. When you do a google check include in your search criteria "-free" so that you will look at fewer free sites. Virus hacks like to offer free software to attract unsuspecting people to download their viruses.

The next suggestion is to find a review of these tools in something like TomsHardware.com or pcmag.com and download what they suggest. This is the best way to avoid the virus hacks.

Take a look at LC Technology. Do not video over as then you have zero chance of recovery. I'm currently trying to recover 32 gigs and been running a photo image version for 5 days so far on a 1T drive. I see 5 movies and lots of thumbs, but not sure if this is going to work yet. Again, it's the photo version, not the video version which should be better. Costs around $30.

Hope this helps,
Regards,
Doug.

And start making backups to external drives. (You can easily get 1T of space for $100 these days).

Much faster than rebuilding your work.

Andrew