Help! How to Recover a Deleted Video?!

February 7, 2020

Deleted videos can be recovered. We know. We’ve been recovering “lost” videos for over 20 years.

Even professional videographers "lose" their valuable videos only to recover them later. Because a storage device was dropped or damaged or malfunctioned for no clear reason. Have you just “lost” your videos? Follow the steps below and you may save what you thought lost.

Don't Panic and Assume "Deleted Videos" Are Lost

Whenever we're put under extreme stress, it's best not to try to do too much or too little. Too much would be trying to do it all yourself (which could cause the loss you feared). Too little would be assuming the worst and discarding a device because you're convinced it's gone forever.

Don't Panic and Try to Do Too Much

It’s terrible. You can’t retrieve hours of deleted video and you’ve got a deadline. And a lot of money on the line. You do everything possible to recover it on your own. You download the appropriate software and let it run and run and run… for hours and hours. Still nothing.

Or, you take it to the shop and the technician greets you with a shrug before announcing that there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to retrieve your deleted videos. And you wait. One day. Two days. And you know what the answer will be.

Your damaged hard drive or external storage has gone from a battlefield injury to the morgue. And there’s no second chance at ruined hardware.

STEP 1: If This is a Real Emergency...

If you fear the worst or you're under immediate pressure, please call our sister company The Data Rescue Center at 877-501-4949. Our staff is battle-trained in the triage of data recovery issues. We've recovered billions of files over the last 20 years.

STEP 2: Simple Troubleshooting

If your deleted videos were saved in a PC or MAC, follow these steps first. While working under pressure, you may forget these simple steps for finding your video.

Check your Recycle or Trash bin.

Open Recycle Bin (PC) or Trash (MAC) on your computer by double-clicking on the Recycle Bin/Trash icon.
Search for deleted video files you want to restore. (If you see too many files, you can find files by using search. Or sorting by name, original location, date deleted, size, etc. [anything you can remember]).
Find and restore your deleted video files.

Run a search using the filename extension of the video you cannot find. Common extensions are:

AVI, MOV, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, WMV, ASF, FLV, SWF, MPG, and RM/RMVB

STEP 3: More Troubleshooting

If Step 2 doesn't help, then let's take another approach.

Seems too simple, but under stress, we often forget what happened. Take a few deep breaths and document what happened. Was it just one thing? Or could there have been multiple causes?

What Happened?

Mistakenly Deleted?
- by “Shift + Del” command.
- by “right-click, Delete” or just pressing “Del.”
- by emptying Recycle Bin without a backup.
- from USB drives, SD card, and other removable storage devices.
Formatted Drive/Device?
- Accidental quick or full format.
- Disk initialization upon connecting to the computer.
- RAW disk or Windows asks “Media/Drive is not formatted, would you like to format now?”
Lost Drive Partition?
- Damaged or corrupted hard drive.
- Deleted partition on hard disk.
- Formatted or reformatted partition.
- Improper partitioning or partition error.
- Inaccessible drive.
- Lost partition due to reparation, boot manager, etc.
Damaged Hard Drive?
Virus (e.g.,: wannacry ransomware)?
Drive Failure?
OS Crash on Reinstall?

Or Another Issue?

“Access denied”: corrupted SD card.
“Card not initialized” or “Card cannot be read” errors.
“Media card error”: an inserted media card contains errors.
Interrupting storage media during the writing process.
Locked memory card.

What Kind of Device Were You Using?

Computer:

PC/Mac/Other?

Memory Cards:

SD, SDHC, microSD, miniSD, CF, SmartMedia, MMC, XD

Hard Drives (Internal/External):

Dell, HP, IBM, Sony, Toshiba, and more...

Removable Drives:

Apple, Samsung, Seagate, Toshiba, WD, and more...

Flash Drives:

USB Drives, Jump Drives, Pen Drives, Thumb Drives

Digital Cameras/Camcorders:

Canon, JVC, Kodak, Nikon, Sony, and more...

Professional Grade Video Camera:

Canon, Epson, Fuji, Kodak, Mamiya, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic Pentax, Samsung, Sigma, Sony and more...

STEP 4: Install Our Software to Locate Lost Video

Skip to Step 4 below if you’ve lost video and you're not very tech savvy.

It takes a few minutes.

For Windows:

Download Data Rescue for Windows.
After downloading, double click on the Data_Rescue.exe installer.
Follow the installer prompts.
You will be greeted by the Data Rescue Welcome screen.

For Macs:

Download Data Rescue for Mac.
After downloading, double click on the Data_Rescue.dmg installer.
Drag and drop the Data_Rescue.app into your Applications folder.
Data Rescue has now been installed and can be started from your
Applications folder.

Follow these steps to recover data from the main hard hard drive.

Follow these steps to recover data from a secondary hard drive.

STEP 5: Chat or Email Prosoft Support

Our staff is battle trained in the triage of data recovery issues. For 20 years, our support team has recorded and diagnosed customer issues and recovered billions of files. You can chat or email us now at https://www.prosofteng.com/software-support.