Recover Files

Windows 7 has a file recovery system called Previous Versions. This allows you to recover files on your Personal Z: drive, Research R: drive and Shared Departmental X: drive quickly and easily.

How long are files recoverable for?

Files can be recovered using Previous Versions from the Research R:, Shared Departmental X: and Personal Z: drives. These copies are taken every day at about 4am, 5am and 3am respectively [UK times] and are retained for:

  • Five days for Z: and X: drives
  • Twelve days for the Research R: drive

Recover folders from your personal Z: drive

You can recover folders you have deleted from your personal Z: drive.

Recover files on your computer

Previous Versions

You can recover a file or revert to a previous version of a file.

  1. Locate the folder in which the file was saved.
  2. Right click in a blank area of the folder and select Properties from the menu.
  3. A Properties menu will appear. Select the Previous versions tab
  4. Select which version of the folder you require and click Open.
  5. Select the file you wish to recover and copy and paste or drag and drop into your Documents folder.

Copy a previous version of a file 

If you recover a previous version of your file and choose to move it to the same folder as the current version of your file, a warning will appear.

  • If you Copy and Replace the file you will lose the current version of the file.
  • If you Copy, but keep both files you will be able to keep both files but will have to rename the older version of that file.

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