If you pressed Shift+Delete then i am sorry to tell you but you lost your tutorial update. If you just deleted it, come on, it's on the recycle bin

Actually, I deleted it through my ftp client program. And shift-deletes are recoverable, the files are still physically on the hard drive, just the fat entry was deleted. The files are recoverable up to the point to where the physical space on the hard drive is overwritten with a new file. Though in my case it appears that I am out of luck, I have already checked several other threads and none of the programs suggested have been able to help.

That's bad to hear.BTW i thought you were using NTFS.In FAT32 Norton Utilities can actually recover lost files that are physically on the disk, but only if the program is installed before you delete them( or so i think).NU doesn't have this support for NTFS exactly because NTFS is not using allocation tables.

I'm using NTFS.... It doesn't have FATs? Ooh then I'm in trouble then. Curse these darn secure file systems. So how then are some files recoverable but not others?

I'm quite interested in your post, cause i screwed files like this myself a lot of times and i never sat down to find a solution, but i "cried" instead! First of all a bit on NTFS. NTFS is NOT using 512-byte sectors like FAT32(that's why NU is unable to work on it).Instead it's using clusters(or allocation units).
In both systems if the disk writes on the space that it's marked as deleted(yes the file is on the disk physically, but it's marked as deleted), then the old files are 100% non-recoverable. Your problem is wright now that as time passes the chances that your HD will write on those spaces, gets bigger.
 
I actually found this program ( http://www.finaldata.com/english/product/product1_16.htm)
but you have to pay around 100$ to get it, and i don't think there is a trial version, and i don't think it really worths it(that's depends on how valuable was your files of course)
Sorry if i confused you in my last message about the allocation tables, i hope now you understand what i meant. If i found something new in the next hour i'll let you know.

The folder I deleted was on my C: - so every program I downloaded went to my D: drive and installed it there... but even still, nothing seems to be able to recover the files - it's not even finding the directory that was deleted. I'm guessing that either the little bit of web browsing I had to do overwrote the area on the disk with cache files, or the ftp client I used somehow does unrecoverable deletes. Bah, I already started redoing the whole deal anyway.

I've got this: http://www.r-tt.com/?01G024.There is a demo download but it only recovers files under 64K which is pathetic.How big was your file anyway?
Also here http://www.winternals.com/products/repairandrecovery/filerestore.asp is another program it might work.
There are a lot of programs that do the job after all but none of them is free, and the demo versions only recover small partitions of the file (less than 50K), and the full versions range from 50$ upwards, so it all depends on how crucial your work was.
Good luck though.

Hi zaijian,
 
Try the below links
 
 
http://www.back2roots.org/Aminet/Tree/Disk/Salv/
http://www.davecentral.com/projects/filerecover/
http://www.filerecover.com/
http://www.katho.be/freeware/win95board/messages/8305.html
http://netsecurity.about.com/library/weekly/aa070300a.htm
 
May I know which OS you are using?

Check http://www.download.com for a program called "File Scavenger". I use it and it's damn good.
 
Only for NTFS though.
 
Hope it works.

Hello,
 
DataRecoveryWizard utility can help. Speaking about me, it was
easily able to restore lost partition, so I think you will
also find it quite useful. Really recommended tool, give it a try.
 
http://www.[censored].com/
 

Try Runtime Software's GetDataBack NTFS (or FAT32) depending on what kind of partition you are running).
It can help you recover deleted files AS LONG AS YOU DID NOT OVER-WRITE them with new data.