Data recovery from external HDD

[tvang5]

To put a long story short, I deleted a large amount of files from my external hard drive when I was sorting my files and removing old/unnecessary files. After looking through some data recovery programs it seems I can recover most if not all of the files. What I'm wondering is does it matter how long I wait before I actually recover files. Its been about a week, if I continue to wait will it affect recovery? I'm guessing that it wont affect it as long as I don't use the hard drive and write over any of the deleted files, but would like some more expert advice regarding this topic.

 

Currently I am waiting to get a hard drive for my laptop that is at least 1tb to fit the deleted files as I only currently have a 256gb SSD. It also will take about 1-2 days just to recover the files, so that is also an issue currently as my house is quite busy so I wont be able to really do the full recovery yet.

[Vash.]

If the drive is used then the longer you wait the less chance you will have to recover the file. Temp files like cache can effect the recovery process

[tvang5]

I have not and do not plan to use the drive until I'm able to recover it, will not using it and waiting have an effect then?