It has happened to all of us. For some reason, you have felt compelled to work at the computer with a toddler perched upon our lap. Getting into the spirit, as little people will, he pushes “delete” button and your work vanishes. Stuff gets lost on the average computers all the time. But, where do the deleted files go? Can they be brought back?

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy, in his earlier years, did a little piece about how a redneck doctor handles brain surgery.

“First, we gonna saw off the top of your head. Then we gonna root around in there with a stick and see if we can’t find that daggum clot.”

This is precisely the method used by untrained computer users when they attempt to recover data lost as a result of a computer failure. Oh, they may not use a stick. They will usually go out and buy inexpensive data recovery software and attempt to find the missing data without the help of professionals. The results of these exercises will be just as effective as rooting around in the human brain with a stick. It’s apt to make matters worse if it doesn’t destroy the unit completely.