How to Restore AutoCAD Files?

“Ever been in a situation where you lost your AutoCAD file, on which you have been working since three days and now feeling that all your hard work has gone in vain, want to know on how to recover your AutoCAD file. Then go through this article and find out about how to restore AutoCAD files on Windows system.

AutoCAD is a Computer Aided Design (CAD) software application used for designing 2D and 3D formats, this tool was one of the first programs to run on personal computers. Nowadays this software is widely used by industries, project managers, engineers, architects, etc for many purposes. Although this software has numerous benefits, there are numerous reasons for an AutoCAD file to get deleted or lost; it may be due to system crash, format, virus infection, accidental deletion, improper termination of AutoCAD file, power failure and many more. But there are many ways to get back this CAD files and following are few methods that might help you to retrieve your CAD file.

Method 1: Recover AutoCAD file by using recover command

Recover Command is one of the simplest way to retrieve your AutoCAD file, to recover your file using this command follow the below procedure:

Open a new drawing and select File->Drawing Utilities and then “Recover”. Select the drawing from the dialog box and click OK.

Method 2: Recover AutoCAD file by using Auto save feature

• Open AutoCAD application
• Go to Tools and then Options
• Under Options go to “Files” Tab
• In files tab click on “Automatic Save File Location” and check the location of the auto save files(Default location would be at C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Temp)
• Access the folder and try to search for your CAD file name, but the file would be of different extension(BAK or SV$)
• See the date modified of those files, if the date and time corresponds to your lost / deleted CAD file then change the file extension of those files from .bak or .sv$ to .dwg

Note:  If your Auto save feature is not enabled, you can enable it by going to Tools-> Options-> "Open and Save" Tab->and make sure “Automatic save” is active and set the time for auto save

If the above two methods doesn’t help you in recovering your AutoCAD file, then go for the third method, it will definitely recover your AutoCAD files after unexpected scenario.

Method 3: Recover AutoCAD file by using a recovery program

Yodot Photo Recovery tool is a media recovery software which is especially built to recover AutoCAD files (.dwg) along with all other media files. This tool performs rigorous scanning and retrieves CAD file deleted / lost due to any scenario. Apart from recovering DWG files, this utility also recovers other media files such as photos, videos, audios, RAW images, documents and many more from all storage devices like hard disk, Pen drive, memory card, USB, iPods and etc.

Recovering AutoCAD files using the software

• Download Yodot Photo Recovery and install the application to your desktop / laptop
• Launch the application and follow the main screen procedure
• Click on “Deleted Photo Recovery” option to retrieve your deleted AutoCAD files or Click on “Lost Photo Recovery” option to recover your missing CAD file
• The software scans your computer hard disk and displays all the drives present on the computer
• Choose the drive from where file is to be recovered and click “Next”
• The application repeats the scanning process and displays all the deleted / lost AutoCAD files in 2 views, “Data View” and “File Type View”, data view displays your files in hierarchal format and file type view displays your files based on file extension format
• Choose the files which you would like to obtain back
• Preview the files before saving
• At last, save the rescued files to your  desired location
• You can also use the software to save the files to an optical storage device like CDs and DVDs