How to Recover Deleted Files from C Drive in Windows 11/10: 6 Solutions

Can deleted files on a C drive be recovered? Definitely! While the success rate of recovery will vary based on the time when data loss occurs and the way how C drive files get deleted. As a general rule, the sooner you take actions to do data recovery, the more C drive data can be restored back. And if the files are accidentally deleted when freeing up drive space, it’s less difficult to recover them than the case of physical damage and other severe corruption.

No matter when and how the files are deleted, stop using your C drive immediately after realising the deletion to minimize the chance of data overwriting. Then head straight into this guide which puts forward several practical solutions to walk you through step-by-step instructions for deleted C drive file recovery on Windows 11 or 10.

1. Recover deleted C drive files from Recycle Bin

By default, mistakenly deleted files will remain in Windows Recycle Bin until you manually empty the Recycle Bin or its contents are over 5% of the C drive’s capacity. So go to check Recycle Bin for retrieval if your files are deleted from C drive just recently.

How to recover deleted C drive files from Recycle Bin?

1. Double-click the Recycle Bin icon on desktop to open it.
2. Check if the file you deleted from C drive earlier is present. If yes, right-click on it and choose Restore. When there’s a need to recover multiple files at one time, select these files while holding Ctrl key and choose “Restore the selected items” from the top menu bar.

2. Recover permanently deleted files from C drive with Cisdem

Deleted C drive files are not available in Recycle Bin? They are much likely to have been permanently erased from the hard drive. Here the most suitable solution could be making use of a specialised data recovery tool, such as Cisdem Data Recovery for Windows.

Cisdem Data Recovery is a professional-grade program that comes with signature one-click recovery method and extensive numbers of useful features. It supports to get back more than 1000 file types, including document, photo, video, audio, archive, email, etc. Cisdem can offer a brilliant recovery performance on wide range of storage devices like Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista PC, laptop, SD card, digital camera, USB drive, HDD, SSD and so on. Even more specifically in Windows OS, Cisdem Data Recovery has the ability to resume lost files from emptied Recycle Bin, Desktop or other system folder on C drive.

How to recover permanently deleted files from C drive with Cisdem?

1. Download, install and open Cisdem Data Recovery on your Windows.
2. Select the local disk C: and click Search for Lost Data to start to scan the C drive.
3. Cisdem will perform both a quick scan and a deep scan to find most deleted files from C drive. After scanning, look through the folders or use filter tools to quickly locate any files you want to recover.
4. Before recovery, preview is allowed by double-clicking on the file.
5. Finally select the wanted files and click Recover button to revert them back to C drive.

3. Retrieve deleted files from C drive with Windows File Recovery

Besides Cisdem Data Recovery, another data recovery application to be recommended is Windows File Recovery, which can be freely accessed from Microsoft Store. It’s designed to help Windows users to undelete lost files in various formats. Compared with Cisdem, one obvious shortcoming of Windows File Recovery is that it uses command lines with no graphical interface, which might be not friendly to beginners.

How to retrieve deleted files from C drive with Windows File Recovery?

1. Download Windows File Recovery in Microsoft Store.
2. After installation, the program will automatically open on your PC.
3. Type the winfr command according to your case, and press Enter to execute it.

To recover deleted files from the Documents folder on C drive to D drive, type this command: winfr C: D: /regular /n \Users\(username)\Documents\.

4. Exit CMD and go to verify if deleted C drive files have been recovered back to your selected location properly.

4. Restore deleted C drive files using Recuva

Favored by many people who have ever suffered data loss, Recuva is reported to deliver a good result especially in recovering files lost due to deletion or formatting. Although available in both free and paid version, the free version of Recuva is indeed effective to recover deleted files from C drive easily on Windows 11/10.

How to restore deleted C drive files using Recuva?

1. Download and install Recuva on your PC.
2. Open Recuva, select the file type you need to recover and click Next button.
3. Click Browse to select the C drive to scan.
4. In the Recuva Wizard window, it’s suggested to enable Deep Scan before clicking Start.
5. After Recuva completes the scanning, select your desired files and click Recover to restore them back to C drive.

5. Undelete C drive files via backup

If any previous backups have been created before the deletion of C drive files, things will go much easier. For the backup made with an external hard drive, deleted C drive file restoration can be achieved simply by locating file copies in the external device and transferring them back to C drive. Otherwise, Windows 11/10 operating system also has a few built-in file backup features, such as File History, System Restore, and Backup & Restore. When enabled, these features could help to recover deleted files from C drive without effort. As below is the exampled tutorial for File History workflow.

How to undelete C drive files via backup?

1. Ensure the external backup drive connected to your computer.
2. Open File Explorer, right-click on the drive C:\ and select Restore previous versions.
3. From Previous Versions tab, choose an earlier version that contains the C drive files you want to restore. You can expand Open and select Open in File History to preview the content of the chosen version.
4. Click Restore to undelete any deleted files from C drive.

6. Get deleted files back from C drive in cloud storage

As a final resort, cloud storage provides one more chance for you to get back deleted C drive data. Part of Windows users prefer to synchronize their local files across reliable cloud platforms, such as OneDrive. If you count yourself among them, this is your direct way to undelete files from C drive.

How to get deleted files back from C drive in cloud storage?

1. Sign in to OneDrive online with your Microsoft account.
2. Head to Recycle bin option, find the file deleted from C drive.
3. Right-click on it and select Restore to recover it back to its original folder.
4. Download the restored file and save it into the C drive again.

This is the end of this article. Hopefully you could solve the problem of how to recover deleted files from C drive on Windows 11/10 after reading it.