Recover files deleted from hard drive. How to recover deleted files from a hard drive or flash drive
Data recovery from hard drive is carried out in cases where it is necessary to obtain all the information that was previously located on it.
Its loss may occur due to various reasons, which are installed by diagnosing and launching special programs.
List of reasons for losing information from a disk
In a number of reasons that lead to data deletion, four groups can be distinguished:
1. Consequence of wrong human actions:
- Accidental formatting or erasing of information.
- Incorrect storage area layout
However, very often, to solve this kind of problem, you can try using special data recovery programs.
Advice! With a competent approach, this will not have any risk for further process recovery, and therefore, if nothing works out for you, then specialized companies will still be able to help you. Next, we will look at the best data recovery programs.
Information becomes inaccessible due to physical damage on the hard drive and its individual components, namely the read-write head or the electric motor.
To restore data in such a situation, you will need the help of repair specialists. hard drives.
Voltage fluctuations, surges or drops, as well as complete shutdown power supply may harm the devices on which data is stored.
According to Bell Labs research, data loss in 80-86 percent of situations occurs due to unstable voltage.
Windows users very often encounter problems with the operating system, after which it stops starting.
In such cases, most users think that all data from the hard drive is erased and the only way out of this situation is to contact a specialized service center.
But in reality, all data remains on the hard drive, and an operating system failure has nothing to do with this.
Programs for data recovery from disk
Utility for damaged disk - This great way recover the data yourself. These include the following programs:
- Recuva. This program is provided absolutely free. It is characterized by ease of installation and use, as well as fast recovery data.
However, the software also has its drawbacks: when reconfiguring the digital media, images and documentation have no chance of recovery.
- Undelete Plus. Such a program does not cope with all information storage devices. However, it is quite effective at recovering data from a hard drive.
Downloading and installing do not cause problems, and the utility brings back up to 90 percent of lost information. UndeletePlus is provided in Russian, which allows it to be used by a wide range of people.
- R-studio. The utility copes well with the main reasons for deleting data, but is only available in paid access. So, it copes with tasks such as: returning data from disks, flash drives, memory cards and the like.
In addition, the software helps recover deleted data from damaged and reissued media. The program is offered from disk or from the Internet.
- Recovery Software. Despite the single name, this program is a set of programs for each individual case. They are as effective as possible. This happens thanks to each individual disk.
So, here we can highlight:
- A utility for working with all file systems.
- Program for working with NTFS partition.
- Applications for activities with FAT32.
- A program with two components: File and Photo.
- A utility for working with files.
- Application for working with photos.
- File Repair is a program that restores and edits distorted images and documents.
- The program is ideal when you need to recover files and pictures. It can also be used when certain areas are damaged.
- Stellar Phoenix. This program provides every user with excellent opportunities for recovering data, photos and videos. Its advantage is a pre-compiled menu with a list of all deleted data.
Thanks to it, the user can restore only what he needs.
- Data Rescue PC. This program allows you to not only recover lost data, but also restore RAID. It boots from disk, which allows you not to worry about the inability to start if the operating system freezes.
- Seagate File Recovery for Windows. An old, but very effective program that restores not only general data, but also a clear picture of each image.
In addition, it is capable of extracting information even after redesigning the entire system and its individual components.
- HDD Regenerator. This application is easy to use and effectively recovers hard drives. In the event of a complete failure, the program will not be able to perform repairs, but will quickly diagnose and correct errors present on the disk.
- The program returns and composes data even after severe damage and shifting of sections on the disk.
Its use consists of a number of consistent actions, which will be understandable even inexperienced user Internet and special programs.
You should not worry about the impossibility of recovering information on the disk. In the absence of formatting, any utility can easily bring any file back to life. A file that has disappeared from the hard drive remains on the disk until formatting is carried out.
However, when viewing programs on the HDD, such a file is considered to have disappeared, which means that its place can be taken by new files and folders. When this action is performed, the file disappears completely.
Based on the above, we can conclude: first you should try to recover at least part of the deleted data, and only then “write” something new.
On additional programs and methods for recovering information can be seen in this video:
How to recover data from a hard drive
Data recovery on hard drives, flash drives or flash cards is a very popular topic
After deleting files from the hard drive, even if it is impossible to remove them from the recycle bin, they will still remain on the laptop’s hard drive or personal computer, however, in a slightly different form. In the file table, such files are marked “zero”, which gives the system the right to overwrite them with any others. They will be lost forever unless other information is written to the area occupied on the hard drive.
What to do if important information is accidentally deleted
If laptop computer fell or as a result HDD formatting It is impossible to read important information, but you plan to recover it, you need to remember the following:
- To save data, you can immediately emergency mode turn off the computer and do nothing with hard drive do not take further action;
- In any case, you cannot copy any data to disk C and install applications;
- For subsequent work, it is recommended to use only external media.
The reason was stated above - the area of the hard drive with the necessary data can accidentally be overwritten, and deleted files you will lose. Before contacting specialists to extract information from a laptop, agree in advance how much it costs - the price sometimes turns out to be too high. If this is exactly the case, then you will have to act independently.
How to recover lost data yourself
You can use special applications to recover data from your hard drive.
They don't give a 100% guarantee. positive result, but usually most of the lost information can be recovered with their help.
A condition that sharply increases the chances of successful recovery is to start the system from another external HDD, that is, you cannot download and install these programs on the disk or at least partition of the disk with which you will continue to work.
All of these applications operate almost identically, scanning the surface of the hard drive with a certain depth. Both the table and the load record are checked, and certain types of data are recognized by specific headers. After recovery, sometimes the location of files or their names may be lost.
R-Studio
After launching the application, the “Disk Panel” will open - the main window of the program. All laptop media available in the system will be displayed, from which you will need to select the disk or partition containing the damaged information. All important information about it will be presented in the right window. If there is no damage to the file system, you can do the following:
- Select the required media or partition by clicking on it double click in the program explorer;
- An almost familiar-looking explorer will open, in which deleted folders can be distinguished by a characteristic icon crossed out with a red cross;
- Select the required files with a tick;
- IN top menu select the “Restore marked” command, specify the location for the restored information.
Do not forget that you can only restore data to another HDD or to another partition. This window also contains other useful features, for example, searching for deleted files by extension, name, size or creation date, restoring data by mask, etc.
Actions with formatted and failed drives
If a computer or laptop “fell” or was formatted, individual sectors on it are faulty and the disk has failed, then, accordingly, the file system is modified or damaged. In this case, there is a possibility that data recovery from the hard drive will be incomplete.
The complexity of working with the program does not increase much, but it will take more time.
You will need to create an image of the disk to be restored and that’s it. further actions connect only with him. This will secure the files on the disk and prevent further damage:
- Open the main R-Studio window;
- In the menu ribbon, find the “Create image” item and run this procedure, indicating in the window that opens the storage location for the image;
- Once the process is complete, open the created image by returning to the main program window and selecting the appropriate menu item.
After the image has been created and opened, you can begin the disk scanning procedure:
- in the main menu, select “Scan”;
- a window will open in which you determine the type of scanning - detailed or simple view;
- Next, click the “Scan” button and wait for the results.
The scan type you choose depends on the media size. For small ones, select “ Detail view", since in this case a window will be displayed detailed information about the data found and the structure of sectors. If you are working with large media, to speed up the process, select the “Simple View” option.
At the end of the scanning process, a window will open with a list of found files that can be restored completely or selectively.
You should be prepared for the transfer process to be quite lengthy.
Working with Minitool Power Data Recovery on a damaged hard drive
If the HDD has crashed and is not detected on a laptop or PC, there are specialized programs to recover information, such as Minitool Power Data Recovery. This application is no less popular than R-Studio, but it specializes in working with faulty HDDs. It performs a deep scan, as a result of which the program manages to find many deleted data that cannot be retrieved by other applications.
Minitool Power Data Recovery is characterized by simple interface, the ability to work not only with hard drives and RAID devices, but also with CDs, DVDs, memory cards, USB flash drives, iPod, etc. Main screen designed in a modern tiled interface, allowing you to select one of five available program modules:
- Recovery after deletion is the simplest option, in which you need to get back files destroyed by a combination Shift keys and Del or erased from the basket;
- Recovery digital media– this utility returns lost data from flash drives, cameras, mobile phones, iPad, iPod, etc.
- Recovering lost partitions - returning information from deleted partitions after an unsuccessful breakdown, damage boot entry etc.;
- CD/DVD recovery – the module allows you to “pull out” deleted data from scratched optical discs;
- Recovering damaged partitions is the most powerful module that allows you to restore the necessary partitions, even if the disk has crashed and is not detected.
Procedure
Almost any procedure using this application can be done in a few clicks. Let's look at how the damaged partition recovery module works:
- After clicking on the corresponding icon, a window will appear with all disks and partitions, from which select the one you need and click the “Open” button;
- A list will open with all data, including deleted data (marked with a red cross);
- Select files to recover and click “Save”;
- A window will open in which specify the path to save the recovered information, click “Ok”.
To search for specific previously erased information after scanning is complete, the program offers an advanced filter in which you can specify its type, approximate creation date, or size range. The free version of the program works without functional limitations, but allows you to recover no more than 1 GB of lost data.
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Hello friends! Today we had a small incident, because of which I urgently had to use free program to recover deleted files called R.saver, naturally I’m telling you all the details, so the information may be useful to some of the readers.
I decided a long time ago to do a review on our site. all free programs for recovering deleted files I was planning such an article, but here came the perfect opportunity to test another one similar program R.saver in combat conditions.
The R.saver program is created on the basis of professional versions of very serious data recovery products UFS Explorer, website http://www.sysdevlabs.com/. The program can reconstruct damaged file systems and restore deleted files even after full formatting. You can search and recover deleted files even if required section hard drive is completely deleted and represents unallocated space.
Free program to recover deleted files
An acquaintance of mine collected for several years a “personal archive” consisting of his favorite films, photographs, music and e-books. All these files were located on his additional section(F:) laptop, this section also contained photographs of friends, an archive of the operating system, work documents, and so on.My friend knew that it was unreliable to store what he had collected over the years only on a laptop, and he specially bought a portable hard drive for his collection. USB disk Having connected it to the laptop, he was about to copy the entire collection onto a portable screw, went to the disk (F:), selected with the mouse all the folders needed for copying and accidentally clicked “Cut” instead of “Copy”!
My friend didn’t know what to do next, since he had never used this “Cut” function in his life, he called me and in a panic, said that all his files, collected through long and back-breaking labor, had become translucent. I answered - you need to enter the portable USB hard drive, right-click on an empty space and select the “Paste” function from the menu. My friend couldn’t remember exactly what happened next, except for the fact that during the process of transferring files, for some reason he turned off the computer and decided to wait for me.
Arriving at his place in the evening, I turned on my laptop. Even if you turn off the computer during such a transfer, some of the cut files should remain where they were, and the other part should be transferred to another specified location, but the result was completely different.
The laptop was missing almost all the files my friend needed, which is about 100 GB! Most importantly, the folder called "Personal Archive" with all the archived files disappeared, only the folder " Home video"I was able to find only 5 GB of video files on a portable USB hard drive.
So, let’s get to work and save the collection with the free program for recovering deleted files R.saver. Let's go to official website of the R.saver program and download it.
Note: Friends, if you want to temporarily retrain as a data recovery specialist from various media, you must follow security rules. What are the rules?
The first rule is not to restore deleted files to the same hard drive where they were located. In our case, you can connect a portable USB hard drive to your laptop and restore files there. Or you can connect a simple hard drive to your laptop using . Or, if the case is very serious, you can remove the laptop hard drive and connect it to a simple computer and recover deleted files special program, but this method is of course primarily for repair specialists. Let's launch our program R.saver.
The program is simple and we will figure it out as we work. In the main window you need to select from the list of partitions the one on which the files were deleted. You may ask the question: - What if suddenly hard disk partitions are completely deleted, what to choose then and how to restore deleted information. We will also discuss this case at the end of the article. I will delete all existing partitions from the hard drive and try to recover deleted files located on them.
But first of all, we will select for recovery the partition (F:) of the laptop from which my friend’s files disappeared. “Disk management of our laptop”, here is our section (F:),
On which there is only one folder "Home Video" remaining from the entire collection.
In the main window of the R.saver program, right-click on the F: drive and select “Search for lost data.” Attentive users may notice that there is also the “Recover after formatting” option, later (in the appropriate situation) we will use it.
We answer “Yes” because we want to perform a full scan of the partition (F:) for the presence of deleted files.
Performed file system reconstruction based on signatures using the IntelliRAW algorithm.
We wait for a little over an hour and see that the program did not recover all the files, but oh well, more than half necessary files restored, most importantly, the much-needed “Personal Archive” folder was restored. I didn’t understand one thing in the program, why the size of all files is 0 KB.
So, we restore the found folders with files. I wonder whether the files will be readable; it happens that the information recovery program will restore the files, but they will not work.
We right-click on the folder we need to restore and select (you can click “View” before restoring and see all the files located in the folder to be restored). Select "Copy to..."
Explorer opens, select the folder into which we want to copy the files applying for recovery, then click “Select”
The file recovery process begins.
In the main window, right-click on the formatted partition and select "Recover after formatting"
The file system is reconstructed for an hour, then a search (lasting 20 minutes) for file systems on a formatted partition (volume 50 GB) occurs.
In the window that appears with a list of found file systems, we need to select the file system of the type we need with the minimum positive offset, in our case it means the first one.
This hard drive belongs to another friend of mine who accidentally formatted his hard drive. So, the R.saver program found a bunch of hundred-year-old files on it and only two necessary folders.
Restoration occurs in exactly the same way as in the previous case, select “Copy to...”, Explorer opens, select the folder into which we want to copy the files applying for recovery and click “Select”, the file recovery process begins.
Recovering files from a hard drive on which all partitions have been completely deleted
Now, friends, let’s completely delete all partitions from the Samsung 120 GB hard drive (which we have already mocked in our articles) and see if we can recover deleted files in this case. We delete all partitions from our hard drive and run the R.saver program.
In the main window of the program you can see that our entire Samsung 120 GB hard drive is an “Unknown Partition”. Right-click on it and select “Find lost partition”
Click on the "Find Now" button
The program scanned our 120 GB hard drive for 40 minutes. Save your search results just in case. Among the partitions found, there are two partitions that match the size of those that previously existed on this hard drive, this is the drive (C:) with a capacity of 55, 24 GB and the drive (G:) with a capacity of 56, 43 GB; we mark them with checkboxes and click on the “Use selected” button.
The main program window opens,
We right-click on the found first partition 55, 24GB and select “Browse file system” (if you select “Search for lost data”, the search will be repeated, but personally this did not give me anything and there were no more found files).
In the window that appears, we see all the files located in the root of the disk (C:), let's try to go to the desktop C:\Users\users\Desktop and restore the files located there.
Please, all deleted files on your desktop are available for recovery. Click on the desired folder right mouse and select "Copy to...,
In the explorer that appears, select a location on your hard drive and click “Select”
Files are being restored.
With the disk (G:), things didn’t work out so smoothly; the program couldn’t find the deleted files I needed.
But as I already said, in general for free program she worked well.
Friends, while working with the R.saver program I might have missed something, I will be grateful for any help in the comments.
When important file lost, a document you spent a week on was erased, and photos disappeared from a suddenly formatted memory card, no need to worry ahead of time. When you delete a file from the disk, its description in the system is erased. The set of bytes that made up the file remains in place until something else is written on top of them. So you can try to recover your data using any of these applications.
Be careful if you install applications on a drive where deleted files were located. There is a risk that application files will be overwritten during installation. It is better to select another partition or physical disk for installation.
Platform: Windows.
Price: free, $19.95 for premium version.
Recuva can recover data lost by mistake, for example from an accidentally emptied Recycle Bin. The program can return photos from an accidentally formatted memory card in the camera or music from an empty MP3 player. Any media is supported, even iPod memory.
Platform: Windows, Mac.
Price: free, $89 for premium version.
Disk Drill is a data recovery application for Mac, but there is also a version for Windows. This program supports most types of disks, files and file systems. With its help, you can recover erased files by Recovery functions Protection, as well as find and clean up the disk. However, the free version does not allow you to recover files lost before installing Disk Drill.
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, SunOS, DOS.
Price: for free.
A very functional and versatile open source application. It has a text interface, but it is not difficult to understand.
TestDisk supports great amount file formats. In addition, the program can be burned onto a LiveCD to recover data from a disk on which the system does not boot. The utility can recover a damaged boot sector or lost data.
TestDisk comes with the PhotoRec program, which recovers erased files, photos, music and videos.
4. R-Undelete
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux.
Price: the free version recovers files up to 256 KB in size; $79.99 for full version.
R-Undelete is part of R-Studio. It's a whole family powerful programs for data recovery. Supported file systems are FAT12/16/32/exFAT, NTFS, NTFS5, HFS/HFS+, UFS1/UFS2 and Ext2/Ext3/Ext4.
R-Studio applications can recover deleted data both on local drives and over the network. In addition to data recovery, the utilities provide tools for advanced partition copying and searching for bad blocks on disks.
Platform: Windows.
Price: free in trial mode with recovery of up to 1 GB of data; $69.95 for full version.
Eassos Recovery recovers deleted files, photos, text documents and more than 550 file formats. The application has a very simple and intuitive interface.
Platform: Windows.
Price: the free version does not save found files; $37.95 for full version.
The Hetman developer provides a set of utilities for recovering various types of data: entire sections or individual photos and documents. The program supports all hard drives, flash cards, SD and microSD.
Platform: Windows.
Price: free, $19.97 included with Glary Utilities.
Glary Undelete can recover any deleted files, including compressed, fragmented or encrypted ones. Filtering of recovered data is supported.
You know more convenient and functional applications for data recovery? Tell us about them in the comments.
It is difficult to find a user who has never had to bite their elbows, for example, after accidentally deleting an important document from a disk or an interesting photo from a memory card - this can happen in the hustle and bustle, or simply due to banal absent-mindedness. Of course, a file deleted from the hard drive in the usual way can be brought back to life. using Windows no problem - you just need to restore it from the trash. However, the Recycle Bin is more or less regularly emptied by special cleaning utilities, and data is often deleted bypassing the Recycle Bin using the Shift + Del key combination (in order to save time and space) - in this case, it will no longer be possible to restore an accidentally deleted file from the Recycle Bin using Windows tools. As for deleting files from USB drives and memory cards, they do not go into the recycle bin at all - which means that it is impossible to restore them using the built-in Windows tools. And finally, accidentally deleting files is not at all the only way lose valuable information. You can lose important data in other ways: as a result of a system failure, incorrect operations of a particular program, exposure to viruses, formatting a disk, deleting a partition, etc. In all these cases, Windows tools will not be able to “revive” the files.
So, should you immediately rush to a data recovery specialist when you lose your files? It is not at all necessary if you have a reliable utility for recovering accidentally deleted and lost files. As a rule, with its help you can special problems restore at least part of the information. The main thing is not to waste time and follow certain rules of the game.
In a nutshell about file loss and recovery
You shouldn’t immediately give up on accidentally deleted files, although they, for example, are not displayed in the corresponding Explorer folder and are not in the Recycle Bin. In reality, deleted files still remain on the media, since deleting them using the operating system does not physically destroy the files. It is not the body of the file that is deleted, but only its header; while the clusters in which it was written are simply marked empty and can be read until they are overwritten by new data. That is why deleted documents, presentations, pictures, etc. can be recovered using specialized utilities.
Recovering lost files is also possible in a number of other situations. For example, after quick formatting hard disk - after all, with such a procedure, information about the initial recording of allocated files is reset (for example, in NTFS - in the MFT area), and all other areas of the disk remain unchanged. Some utilities can also recover data from disks that have a damaged file allocation table, a deleted data partition, etc.
However, it would be reckless to say unequivocally that any file (even just deleted from the recycle bin) can always be restored. Alas, this is not the case, and failure is largely due to incorrect user actions. The fact is that any computer activity on a disk from which data was accidentally deleted can lead to the fact that the clusters in which fragments of the corresponding files are located will be overwritten, because operating system now perceives them as empty. After this, restoring the corresponding files will be more than problematic. Of course, with partial rewriting, a number of utilities restore such files, but it is not at all a fact that such files can then be used (the exception is text documents, individual saved fragments of which can be worked with in the future). As for pictures, music, videos and other things restored after partial re-recording, this is usually futile. That is why, first of all, it is necessary to prevent the possibility of overwriting clusters - that is, do not write anything to a hard drive partition, flash drive or memory card with lost data, otherwise the chances of returning to life lost information will become minimal.
In addition, the possibility of recovering lost data may be associated with a number of circumstances that are no longer dependent on the user at the time of recovery. Thus, the chances of success are higher when recovering files from media formatted in file format. NTFS system, not FAT. The success of restoring a particular file also largely depends on the degree of its fragmentation: if the file is highly fragmented, then you can only hope (and even then with reservations) for its recovery in the NTFS system, but on FAT media it is most likely pointless. Naturally, for this reason, it is especially difficult to recover very large, frequently overwritten files on a heavily filled disk, which, due to circumstances, as a rule, always turn out to be highly fragmented.
It is also worth adding that none of the programs will be able to recover data after guaranteed destruction of information using specialized solutions, as well as low-level formatting.
How to recover files
The most important thing is to start recovering accidentally deleted and lost files as quickly as possible (ideally, immediately after deleting the file), although in practice there are often cases of recovering even long-lost data. However, there is no guarantee that the document you need will be among these invisible “long-livers”, so you should not hesitate.
First, you need to stop any computer activity on the media of interest, since the operating system can write some other data in place of deleted or lost files (even if you yourself did not write anything down at all), run the utility installed on your computer to recover lost files and scan it carrier. The situation becomes more complicated if we're talking about about data recovery on system disk, to which the system writes something all the time. In this case, it is best to remove HDD with deleted files and connect it to another computer as a secondary one, and only after that begin the recovery process.
As a rule, in the corresponding tools, by default it is carried out quick scan, carried out by analyzing file records. If during such an analysis the required file cannot be found (this is possible if the disk has been formatted, the partition has been deleted, etc.), then it makes sense to resort to advanced analysis. With this analysis, a deep scan of the disk is performed with full view all sectors - it takes more time, but may turn out to be more effective. In order to speed up the process, you can resort to limiting the search area by data type (images, documents, etc.), file name, etc.
Under no circumstances should you restore data to a scanned disk, although in a number of solutions this is possible (again, due to the danger of overwriting the sectors of interest). Therefore, usually the recovered data is saved to another hard drive, another hard drive partition, or a flash drive.
Before you begin any data recovery efforts, you should consider the possibility that the loss of files may also be caused by a physical malfunction of the device. Most of the solutions discussed in this article will not be able to help in this case, and the process of recovering information in such situations requires certain professional knowledge and experience. In addition, further work with faulty device may lead to the complete impossibility of recovering important folders and files from it. Therefore, in case of loss of critical information, it is wiser to abandon independent experiments and immediately contact specialists.
Utilities for recovering lost files
Until recently, utilities for recovering lost files were among the few categories where the bulk were very expensive commercial products, the capabilities of which are completely incomparable to what affordable, let alone free, utilities can offer. Now the picture has changed noticeably, and today home users, if they wish, can easily find effective programs on the market with which they can not only easily recover accidentally deleted folders and files, but also bring back to life data lost as a result of quickly formatting a disk, deleting a partition, and etc. It is precisely these - affordable or even free solutions for recovering folders and files - that will be discussed in this article.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery 6.6
Developer: MiniTool Solution Ltd
Distribution size: 5.64 MB
Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7
Distribution method: shareware (http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/download.html)
Price: Commercial license - $119; Personal license - $59; Free Edition- free (allows you to recover no more than 1 GB of data; for personal or home use only)
MiniTool Power Data Recovery - comprehensive solution for data recovery from hard drives (IDE, SATA, SCSI, USB), memory cards, flash drives, CD/DVD and Blue-ray drives, iPods and other storage media. The program supports FAT12/16/32, VFAT and NTFS file systems and can recover files deleted from Windows Recycle Bin, find and recover lost data (due to virus attack, power failure, accidental formatting, deleting a partition, etc.). Additionally, you can use this tool to recover data from damaged hard drives, as well as damaged, scratched, or defective CD/DVDs.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery includes five built-in data recovery modules: Undelete Recovery, Damaged Partition Recovery, Lost Partition Recovery, Digital Media Recovery and CD & DVD Recovery (Fig. 1). Each one focuses on different data loss scenarios. The Undelete Recovery module is designed to recover files and folders deleted from the Recycle Bin or using the Shift+Del combination. Works with hard and flash drives, as well as memory cards. Damaged Partition Recovery tool allows you to recover lost data from existing but damaged or formatted partitions. Partitions with MBR and dynamic disks are supported: Simple Volume, Spanned Volume, Stripped Volume and RAID-5 Volume. The Lost Partition Recovery module is used to recover data from a deleted or lost (for example, as a result of disk repartition) partition. The Digital Media Recovery module recovers data from digital multimedia devices (flash drives, flash cards, memory cards, iPods, etc.) and is focused on recovering lost or deleted photos(including in RAW format), music (mp3 files, MP4 files) and video files. The CD & DVD Recovery module is used to recover lost and deleted files from damaged, scratched or defective CD/DVD discs. This module works with various types CD/DVD (CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD-RW), supports multi-session discs, some UDF discs (written using DirectCD, InCD, packetCD) and can restore data from RW disks formatted using quick format.
Rice. 1. MiniTool Power Data Recovery window
with five built-in modules
Despite the lack of Russian-language localization, it is not difficult to understand the nuances of recovering deleted and lost files in this utility, since all operations are performed under the control step-by-step wizard. For example, in simple case- when recovering accidentally deleted files - just activate the Undelete Recovery module, specify the device to be scanned (Fig. 2) and click the button Recover, after which the program will immediately display a list of found folders and files. In most modules, scanning can be quick or full, the latter takes more time but is also more effective. Folders and files found during the analysis are marked with icons in the form of a cross, a question, or exclamation point- a cross serves to indicate accidentally deleted files, and other icons indicate lost data and RAW files, respectively (Fig. 3). Images and text files can be viewed directly from the utility before recovery.
Rice. 2. Run disk analysis for deleted files
Rice. 3. Presentation of scan results
in MiniTool Power Data Recovery
Auslogics File Recovery 3.3
Developer: Auslogics Software Pty Ltd
Distribution size: 3.69 MB
Work under control: Windows XP(SP2 and above)/2003/Vista/7/2008
Distribution method: shareware (15-day demo version that allows you to recover no more than ten files no larger than 100 KB in size - http://www.auslogics.com/ru/software/file-recovery/download/)
Price:$49.95 (in the Allsoft.ru store - 990 rubles)
Auslogics File Recovery (formerly Auslogics Emergency Recovery) is a program for recovering accidentally deleted files, as well as files lost due to viruses or system failures. Using this utility, you can recover documents, music, photos and any other files from hard drives, floppy drives, USB drives and flash memory cards. In this case, you can recover not only files accidentally deleted in the usual way, but also files lost during deletion of a disk partition or quick formatting. As additional functionality, the utility includes tools for guaranteed data deletion and creation of disk images.
Recovery in Auslogics File Recovery is carried out under the guidance of a wizard (Fig. 4) and does not require any effort from the user (it is enough to decide on the media, file types, analysis option and, if necessary, set restrictions on the search area). The program has two scanning options: normal and deep (it is very long) - with deep scanning, it is possible to recover files lost after a quick formatting of the disk. To speed up the scanning process, you can resort to limiting files by type, setting up an exception list that includes files and folders that will be ignored during scanning, etc. Files found during the search are displayed in the main program window, indicating the program’s “opinion” regarding their status ( Fig. 5). The structure and names of folders, as well as file names, are displayed unchanged even during a deep scan for lost data. You can preview files - pictures, photographs, videos, text and PDF documents.
Rice. 4. Configuring settings for searching for lost files
in Auslogics File Recovery
Rice. 5. Result of disk scanning by the program
Auslogics File Recovery
Handy Recovery 5.5
Developer: SoftLogica
Distribution size: 2 MB
Work under control: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/Me/XP/2003/Vista/7
Distribution method: shareware (30-day demo version that allows you to recover one file per day - http://www.handyrecovery.com/download.shtml)
Price: 49 dollars, in the Softkey store - 950 rubles. (we're talking about the last one) Russian version Handy Recovery 4.0)
Handy Recovery is a convenient utility for recovering lost files. The program supports FAT12/16/32/64(ExFAT) and NTFS/NTFS 5 file systems and can recover data from a hard drive or other storage media, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and SecureDigital memory cards. The range of recoverable files covers a variety of formats: MS Office documents, archive files, email databases (Outlook and Eudora), photos, music and video files, etc. At the same time, you can recover not only accidentally deleted files (deleted from the recycle bin, deleted bypassing the recycle bin) , but also files damaged as a result of virus attacks and crashes, and files from deleted or formatted volumes. In addition to this, the utility provides the ability to create exact disk images for delayed recovery.
In Handy Recovery, the developers have implemented two scanning modes: standard (produced by analyzing file records and helps to recover deleted files if these records were not damaged) and extended, which allows you to find even data when the information in file records has been partially overwritten or damaged. Scanning in standard mode starts automatically immediately after starting the utility (Fig. 6); at the end of the process, a list of identified folders and files will be displayed in the program window; For convenience, lost files and folders are marked with a red cross (Fig. 7). For each file, the probability of its successful recovery is indicated. The contents of a number of files (Word and Excel documents, graphic and text files, archives) can be viewed before restoring in the window preview. As for advanced scanning, it is resorted to in cases where, after analyzing the disk, the files of interest were not found. With such a scan, you can search for strictly defined file types (for example, images), lost file records, and also conduct more thorough analysis data deleted from the recycle bin (if standard search some of such data may not be found). The structure of the found folders and file names based on the scan results are displayed unchanged.
Rice. 6. Run disk analysis in Handy Recovery
Rice. 7. Display of data found during analysis
in Handy Recovery
Recuva 1.43
Developer: Piriform Ltd
Distribution size: 2.44 MB
Work under control: Windows 98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7
Distribution method: commercialware (http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download)
Price: Business - $34.95; Home - $24.95; Free - free
Recuva is a very easy-to-use file recovery utility from the developers of popular solutions such as CCleaner and Defraggler. This tool allows you to recover photos, documents, music files, videos, etc. in FAT (including ExFAT) and NTFS file systems from hard drives, as well as from any rewritable media (flash drives, external hard disks, memory cards, etc.). Using this utility, you can recover accidentally deleted files, return files that were deleted as a result of system errors, failures or virus attacks, and also try to recover files from formatted or damaged disks. Additionally, the program can be used to ensure guaranteed data deletion. In addition to the standard edition, the utility has a portable edition, which can be installed on a flash drive or external hard disk.
By default, the file recovery process is carried out under the guidance of a wizard (if desired automatic start the wizard is easy to disable) - fig. 8; using the wizard allows you to narrow the search area, limiting yourself to only searching for images, music, documents, etc. The scan can be quick or deep. Deep scanning allows you to identify a larger number of files “buried” on the analyzed disk, but it also takes much more time. If necessary, advanced users can switch to the advanced operating mode and produce more fine tuning search parameters - use a filter by file type to narrow the search area, enable folder structure restoration, etc. Upon completion of the scan, a list of deleted files is displayed in the main program window (Fig. 9); Each file found is marked in green, yellow or red (the color indicates the chances of recovery). In advanced mode, the program additionally shows details about the file, an image thumbnail, and an assessment of the quality of the restoration.
Rice. 8. Run disk analysis in Recuva
Rice. 9. Result of searching files via Recuva
Pandora Recovery 2.1.1
Developer: Pandora Corp.
Distribution size: 3.11 MB
Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista
Distribution method: freeware (http://www.pandorarecovery.com/download/)
Price: for free
Pandora Recovery is a simple utility for recovering files in a variety of formats: photos, music, videos, documents, etc. The program supports FAT16/32, NTFS, NTFS5 and NTFS/EFS file systems and allows you to recover data from local, network drives and flash drives. It is possible to recover accidentally deleted files, as well as lost ones (if the MFT record was repeatedly overwritten by the OS, the disk is formatted, the file allocation table is damaged or is missing). In addition to the free standard edition of the utility, there is a commercial portable edition of Pandora Mobile Recovery, distributed on 1 GB flash drives ($19.95 per disc). It does not require installation and can be launched directly from a USB drive.
File recovery, as a rule, is carried out under the guidance of a step-by-step wizard, and this process does not cause any difficulties, especially since the wizard starts automatically when the program is loaded. To start the search, you need to specify the disk and select the file search method (Fig. 10) - there are three options here: search for all deleted files, search for deleted files taking into account the file name, its size and date of creation/modification, or a full scan of the disk (Deep scan ). The latter option is used to search for data on disks with a corrupted file allocation table, recently formatted disks, etc. Unfortunately, with such a search, file names and paths are not restored, only certain types of files are detected (images of the most common formats, MS Office documents, MP3 files, PDF documents and ZIP archives), and the scanning itself takes much longer . Additionally, this method only works on unfragmented files. Found deleted and lost files are marked with red crosses, while the names of files with partially or completely overwritten clusters are displayed in red, the names of encrypted (EFS) files in green, and compressed files in blue (Fig. 11). In addition, the program provides an assessment of the success of recovery of detected data in the form of a percentage of overwrites: the higher the percentage, the less chance of successful recovery. You can view images before recovery popular formats and text files.
Rice. 10. Run disk analysis in Pandora Recovery
Rice. 11. Result of searching files through Pandora Recovery
Testing utilities
It was very interesting to try to evaluate in practice various programs recovery of lost data in terms of scanning speed and efficiency in identifying deleted and lost files, which is what we tried to do. To do this, all the utilities in question were installed on one of the hard drive partitions, and a 3.7 GB flash drive was allocated for the experiment. This flash drive was among the workers, and therefore contained certain information - in particular, a lot of distribution kits software, drivers, etc. In one of the driver folders there was a Chipset folder, which included six subfolders with numerous subfolders and 914 files with a total volume of 176 MB. It was this folder that was selected as one of the test folders (of course, the contents of the folder for further analysis and comparison were copied to the hard drive in advance).
After that, the flash drive was formatted in the FAT32 file system using the built-in Windows tools so that nothing was left on it. Then the Delete_files folder, previously prepared on the hard drive, was copied to the flash drive, including 50 files with a total volume of 66.8 MB. The files were the most different formats, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, ZIP, RAR and 7z archives, images (JPEG, TIFF, RAW, etc.), applications, music (MP3, WAV, MID), ISO images, SWF files, AVI videos, etc. Then all files from the Delete_files folder were deleted, bypassing the trash (Shift + Del). After that, we conducted the first experiment on information recovery using each of the software solutions. The results are presented in the table.
At the next stage, in order to complicate the task, five new files with a total volume of 78.4 MB were written to the root directory of the flash drive. Obviously, the last operation should have significantly worsened the recovery results (compare the volumes of deleted and newly written files - 66.8 and 78.4 MB), since there is a high probability that a considerable part of the clusters in which the deleted files were originally located ended up partially overwritten when copied with other data. Then we subjected the experimental media to analysis by each of the utilities discussed in the article to search for accidentally deleted files (the Delete_files folder), and then, to the extent possible, we tried to recover the deleted files. Finally, we conducted an experiment to identify lost files and folders (Chipset folder).
Based on the testing results, it is clear that any of the utilities discussed can be successfully used to recover newly deleted data. And it is equally obvious that the result of restoring such files after writing new information to disk with an impressive volume (that is, when some sectors were overwritten) is disappointing. All this only confirms the most important rule recovery: do not write anything to the media and generally stop any work with it immediately after the emergency.
As for recovering files and folders lost after formatting, the results are mixed. The MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition and Handy Recovery programs coped with the task best, but using Recuva utilities for these purposes, and even more so Pandora Recovery, turned out to be problematic due to the lack of folder structure and file names in their scanning reports. In addition, in Pandora Recovery the situation is further aggravated by the fact that the list of formats supported during Deep scanning is quite limited. Although you shouldn’t discount these programs anyway - these are some of the best free software products in their class, which are very easy to use and do an excellent job of restoring “freshly deleted” files.
Conclusion
Gone are the days when you always had to turn to professionals to recover lost files and this undertaking cost a very large sum. Today, there are many fairly easy-to-use utilities on the market that allow you to return files that were accidentally deleted or lost as a result of a computer failure, virus attack, or other computer disaster. Some solutions are offered at affordable prices for home users or are free for non-commercial use. Therefore in simple situations, when it comes to accidental deletion or loss of files, for example, as a result of quick formatting, it makes sense to restore the data yourself. But if the cause of file loss is damage to the hard drive at a mechanical or electronic level, then you should not experiment - it is better to entrust the data recovery operation to professionals.
When restoring on your own, you should act wisely and take care in advance that such a cataclysm does not take you by surprise. In other words, you should keep it on hand (that is, on disk in established form) a couple or three suitable utilities and, if possible, resort to data recovery as soon as possible in compliance with all mandatory rules (exclude the possibility of writing other data to the media, save recovered files to another media, etc.). In addition, if you fail with one utility, be sure to give another a chance - their media scanning algorithms differ, so it is possible that the second utility will be more successful. And finally, do not forget that not a single solution, even the most expensive and powerful one, guarantees absolute success, and therefore no one has canceled the backup of valuable data.