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We have a peer to peer network with one "beefy" computer with three hard drives as our file server. The three hard drives are used as follows; C: Operating System and software, E: Shared Data Storage, F: Exact copy of the E: drive. The "file server" is accessed by multiple computers. All computers are running Windows 7 Pro. We use a file synchronization program to provide an exact copy of the Shared Data Storage on an internal and external hard drives. The external is taken off site nightly.

The beauty of using the file synchronization software is the backups are quick and no software is required to access the files on the backup drives. However, we had an issue where a file came up missing, it was deleted/moved by an employee. Because it was discovered for several days, there was no back up of the file. I tried using several different restoration software, but was not able to get the file.

We have made a new plan to adjust our back ups, to provide some level protection and recovery. What I discovered was that the Windows Recycling Bin does not work on network accessed files. After some research, I found this to be true, and there is third party software to provide a Network Recycling Bin. Has anyone trying any of these programs? How did they work?

I would also be interested in any recommendations to improve our back ups. We back up approximately 250 GB of information. Please do not recommend file recovery software, whereas we have moved past the file issue and where able to recreate the file with some progress files.

Hi Arthur,

Did you try to recover the deleted file by running the recovery program on the server?

A safer way to do things is to have a folder to keep old / superseded files in - we just have a folder called Old Drawings for this.

The recovery software I have used is able to find files on hard drives that have crashed, and they can find files that been deleted, as long as they have not been overwritten. So, if you can recover it sooner, rather than later. Once a file is deleted, the sectors where it was more or less randomly.

The program is called Get Data Back, which you download for free - and if it can recover your file, you then pay them to license the program, and you can then save the file(s).

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

Yes, we did try several different recovery programs, but couldn't find the delete file. Thanks for the program suggestion, but we have moved past needing to recover the file.

The big important questions is a software of some sort that will automatically copy files that are deleted. The Windows Recycling Bin does not work for files accessed over a LAN. It only works for files accessed at the source computer.