Question by tawnny: My husband deleted everything on his computer due to his internet infidelity, can I retrieved those data?
Let say I suspected my spouse cheating, and he’s knows that I knows. So he deleted all his text messages, emails, websites visited, everything on his computer that’s related to his infidelity. Can I do anything to retrieved those information to use against him in court? (He deleted it like a couple days ago.)
I did hired a private investigator, but he hasn’t gotten anything so far. Any advices?
Best answer:
Answer by Toby Lodge
Why do you want to take him to court?! why not just divorce him?!!?
Give your answer to this question below!.
if its a mac try time machine
If you can prove that he knew that you had suspicion AND that he deleted *all* his message traffic, you don’t need anything else to use in court.
I understand your problem but I think that it’s illegal to do that. It might stand in court but you will have to answer some serious ethical questions.
Google: undelete, recover delete files
It will give you a list of software you can use to recover YOUR OWN data. Use it at your own risk as it is illegal to do sniff other’s personal files (unless he’s a terrorist(no, this is not a joke)).
If it’s his computer, (and even if it’s not) that information is considered private, and it might be illegal for you to obtain it without his permission. Removing or accessing files on someone’s personal computer is essentially the same as reading someone else’s mail, or breaking into their house to look at documents, it will not be admissible in court.
Not if he knows what he is doing… if he is a basic user he may have just deleted them and emptied the recycle bin. if that’s the case then windows just deletes references to the files, but the files are still there most likely still there. Try this! http://www.piriform.com/recuva Hope it works
First thing to do is not to save any more files on the computer.
It depends whether he knows what he’s doing.
For files, if he’s used a proper program to delete things then they are gone for good. If not, and he’s just used the normal delete function, they are still on the disk unless other things have been saved over them, but you can’t see them because the entry on the index of the disk has been removed (yes I know that’s not the real answer but it’s a way of understanding it). I would remove the disk, and mount it in another computer as a slave, before installing an undelete program and following its instructions (see link for an example).
For emails, things are more uncertain. Your ISP may have copies of all emails you’ve sent and received but it’s unlikely they will let you have them, but it may be worth a try.
There are undelete utilities available If you are really serious about it, take the computer or disk drive to a specialist data retrieval company and let them handle it.
I doubt that all this effort will be worth it in the long run, IMHO, but it’s your money!
Goodness me, any investigator worth their salt would tell you this is easy textbook stuff- although some want to charge you a fortune for the equipment and their knowledge!
You can obtain a device like a memory stick, which you would put a sim card in and it will give you all contacts and deleted messages. A lot of our customers use them in the middle of the night when a partner is asleep.
There is some other software which will show you what a person is doing on a computer LIVE – as in your on a computer, he’s on the other and you can watch everything he’s doing – like conversations/chat/websites etc.
Other computer equipment to log every key stroke comes in the form of a memory stick which you can download the information at different times. It logs literally everything, passwords, log in’s etc.
There are privacy issues and your supposed to use this equipment with the users knowledge. A lot of our customers don’t. If you did obtain evidence from it, hand it over to your solicitor who can use it to negotiate and will look into your individual case as to if it can be used in court.
Good luck.
Any more advice feel free to contact us.
Well if you are looking to retrieve recently deleted files from the computer the program you want it called “Recuva”. You can find it at http://www.piriform.com/recuva. (So simple a cave man….)
BUT! and this is a HUGE BUT, think about yourself for a second here. Sure you want to know if your spouse is cheating or not, but will finding out there’s no files proving cheating there will that increase your trust in your spouse? By the sound of it, I think not. And what if you do find incriminating files. Will that make you feel any better? I know it wouldn’t for me. SO I plan this out so my ex’s past doesn’t mess with my future. I would try and find a 3rd party or some I trust outside of the situation (preferable an IT or that PI you have) use the program and generate a report without needing me to get involved much.
First – hire a private investigator who actually knows what he’s doing. (Moist areas license them based on no criminal record and financial stability only.)
Second, try PhotoRec http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec (Read the website before you try to use it). You’ll need an external drive. Website history may not be recoverable. It’s not plain text, so even if you recover the file, you’ll need someone to “translate” it for you. Text messages from chats may or may not be readable. Emails will probably be mostly readable.
Deta Recovery Wizard is a power full toll you can retrieve data even the harddisk is formated.
you simply type Data Recovery Wizard on google search box or goto http://www.mycatalyst.co.cc
You can often successfully recover deleted files from a PC, it all depends on what has happened since the files were deleted.
When you delete files the data itself isn’t deleted, just the index entry that tells the system where the data for those files is located. The area containing the deleted data is also now marked as free space so it is available for any new files to be written there instead.
If and when that happens, then it is too late to recover your deleted files so it is very, very important to not save any new files or data to the device concerned.
One of the easiest ways to see if you can recover deleted files is to try some good file recovery software. One I used to use is asoftech recovery which you can download from site below
http://www.asoftech.com/apr/
Hi
I’m a private Investigator and a computer hard drive forensicexaminer.
I specialize in hard drive examinations to recover evidence of infidelity. I’ve written several articles on this subject and I’ll put the links in the source box bellow.
If you would like to pursue this you can contact me directly for a free initial consultation.
http://www.emailrevealer.com/products.php?cat=13