No need for that, as you will have to run it from another disk anyway.

Yes.

My advice when such issue arises is to make a full dump of the disk on another storage device (`dd` is great for that on Linux, or `ddrescue` for damaged disks), and run the recovery tool on the dump.

+1 Excellent advice. Unix is far superior to Windows for multitasking and file management. :)

Windows has only the Read-only attribute to protect files.

Curiously, I experience a write-lock error — almost every time — whenever, later, I try to rename a folder created through the browser for a game download. There is no possible reason for this lock, and eventually (usually) I can rename or whatever I want to do with the file. When I cannot, I create a new folder and copy the contents from the old and then try to delete the old (which only failed once, and even failed at the command line, but then didn't.) Windoze. >_< I now regularly copy all the contents of a reply into a (plain) word processor (e.g., Notepad is fine for this, since it can be copied out again after a failure without clobbering the formatting). Too many replies lost to the aether … That's actually a good way to remove carbon scoring. ;-)

edit: GoG merge & emoji edit

Although I am fully aware of this phenomenon, I've had very little occurrence personally with disc rot.
Had it with one or two video DVDs out of the couple of hundred in my collection. Some older game CDs had physical reflective layer damage from poor handling in the late 90s, early 00s too.
But when you purchase decent media, and store in the proper environment, they are quite reliable for medium term.
I've had more burnouts with HDDs in the short term, compared to data loss from DVDs.

And as I said, the main backup is HDD. When it gets clunky, I copy over to a new one. The DVDs are secondary backup should the HDD fail without warning, and I fully intend in burning new ones eventually.
Can't accidentally delete files from a finalised data DVD by a simple keystroke, so they're good for me.

Yeah, shit happens. And that's why I plan to burn every game I've digitally purchased and played (here or elsewhere) on their own optical disks with updates, patches, cracks and whatnot.

Buy archive class DVDs as they last much longer. Can be found in office supply shops.

FTFY,

please don't drag other people down to your level.

I have the recycle bin deactivated on all my devices :D.
Every other time a misshap happens but i still keep it that way as well -.-

Is there an option or program on Windows 7 to add a "Are you sure you want to delete this, Yes or No?" prompt when you want to delete something, whether by accident or otherwise?

Oh yeah, I forgot that when you delete something it goes to the recycle bin first.

Then there is the "Do you want to refresh your Windows when upgrading" or the MBF gets fragged DUE to windows support, on the freaking phone. Not counting games and the reinstall of windows, it takes 12 hours to put all my programs back. That is if I don't have to redownload them.

Many years ago I did a similar thing. Popped a floppy in the drive, to make a backup. Brand new disk so I went to format it. Format C:, Enter. Oh, crap! And this was on a customer machine I was installing, so the machine software got wiped. Panic mode since we were pre-email at that time and getting a factory backup would be tricky. Was sweating bullets until I remembered that I made an initial backup a couple days earlier, and the machines always shipped with the MS-DOS installation floppies.

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I once managed to wipe my entire ripped music library - around 400 CDs at the time - with the iPod software, when I chose the option to remove the entire library from the software. Apple interpreted it to mean "delete all my music files", while I read it as simply removing the file index from their software and leaving the actual files alone.

Looks like it is time to upgrade my burner

I would wager that everyone who ever used a command line has done it — precisely once. :)

It's also possible to use recovery programs to recreate freshly deleted data. So permenently deleted isn't necessarily permenent.