how do i recover deleted files

first thing's first, don't use your computer. Your PC does not really delete the files, but rather renders them invisible so that it can overwrite the existing files with new ones.

The best option would be to find a recovery program like restoration I have used it before and its quite easy and quick. It's also freeware so there's no cost for the recovery.

Thanks as long as i can recover excel sheets i will be ok, all of those i have recovered so far cant be read.
i will download your suggestion and see what i can do.

Thanks for your help
i will let you know if all works out ok

No worries. I'm glad I could help. If there is anything else you have problems with, give me a shout.

will do thanks. it is running like the clappers at the moment, i presume that i will only need to recover the files i need as opposed to 7 year files on everything

yeah. That's the down side of it all. You have to highlight the individual files to restore them one at a time. It's kinda time consuming, but better than having to pay for the restoration of a file. It will show you every deleted file you have that is ready to be overwritten. Depending how much you worked on the pc up until now, you might be able to restore them all.

That i can live with as long as i can read the accounts, thats the most important bit, the rest can be rebuilt, if required.
It never rains but it pours. I am very busy doing other things and the backup from my pc loaded itself onto my external memory and so i have major problems and so when i deleted some of the main files i did not realise that they had blended into the backup files hence a major disaster.
but thanks to you i may have a recovery plan now.
i could put the invoice details in a new set of accounts but the incoming payments are lost as well and so i would not be able to have linked all expenses & income together

You're welcome. I hope it finds them all for you. I found files I had deleted a long time ago, and was quite tempted to restore them, but didn't need em so I left em be. The only problem I have with a PC is that when a file is deleted, it tends to overwrite the newly deleted ones first and not the older ones. Kinda peeves me off, but I guess its the way it is. I just ope I got the link to you in time so you could recover as much of it as you can.

no probs, it was my fault so i will have to pay the price if it does not recover it all.
we shall see. as you say there is a lot of stuff that is tempting to put back on there but i am only interested in 2011 -2012 and only the deleted from yesterday but i have mountains in here.
think i will have two external memories going once i have this sorted

its asking for a licence code where do i get it from