Introduction to Data Recovery Software
Recovering your lost data is never an easy task. There are lots of data recovery vendors out there that claim to recover the data by selling their software at a hefty amount. However, there are some decent data recovery software available online that are both effective and free of cost.
The data recovery software can recover different types of files, be it your favorite songs, movies, or some important document files. Some of the recovery software are limited to only internal drives or partitions but there are few which can recover the files from digital cameras apart from recovering the data from internal and external drives.
We have shortlisted the top 5 free data recovery software based on the features and customer ratings.
Free Data Recovery Software Reviews
1 Mini Tool data recovery
This data recovery software from Mini Tool is designed for Windows, Mac, and iOS users. This versatile data recovery tool features Undelete Recovery used to recover deleted files, Media Recovery helps in recovering pictures, music, and video files, Damaged partition Recovery lets you extract the data from RAW or damaged partition, lost partition recovery option can recover deleted partition and CD/DVD recovery is used to recover data from scratched CD or DVD.
Data recovery with Mini Tool is a simple 3-step process that starts with selecting a recovery mode (as described above), scanning the storage device, and finally previewing and recovering the files. The advanced mode will help you recover the data at a rapid pace since you can select the filters to pinpoint the lost file.
Highly recommended, the free version can recover data up to 1Gb and if you need more features you can buy the premium version after trying the free version.
2 Recuva
Recuva from Piriform is a Windows-compatible data recovery software that supports all the earlier and latest versions of Windows OS. Recuva is available for both 32 and 64-bit versions. The interface of Recuva is user-friendly and you can either recover lost files by following the auto-recovery wizard or if you know the file name or the actual location of the file you can opt for manual mode.
You can recover the data from hard disks, external hard disks, or USB pen drives. The Recuva software is capable of recovering all types of files including media files, document files, or emails. By using deep scan, the advanced mode you can recover the files from damaged or fully formatted disks.
After recovery, the Recuva software enables you to preview and save the file to your preferred location. One of the best recovery software tools, Recuva is available as both free and paid premium versions.
3 Pandora File Recovery
Whether you remember the file name or not, Pandora allows you to recover the accidentally deleted files from any storage device. You have the option to browse or search the file from the selected location and after pressing the search button, you will be shown the recovered files before saving any file you can preview it by selecting the quick-view button for its authenticity.
Pandora works on both FAT as well as NTFS partitions and can recover music, pictures, documents, or movie files without any hassles. The software is fast in scanning the files and doesn’t slow down the PC. Pandora works on all the versions of Windows OS starting from WinXP to Windows 10. You can download the Pandora File recovery software absolutely free.
4 Undelete 360
Instead of pressing the copy, you accidentally pressed the cut button! No problems, Undelete 360 allows you to recover deleted files due to virus attacks, shift/delete commands, or sudden power outages. Apart from recovering files, Undelete 360 is capable of recovering folders as well.
Low on resources, this lightweight data recovery tool recovers data quickly and the speed of the system does not lag while running this fast and best data recovery software. Not only hard drives or memory sticks, but Undelete can also recover data from mobile phones, memory cards, and digital cameras.
The software supports all versions of Windows OS including Windows Server. The supported file system includes FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS. Undelete 360 is available as multi-lingual and is free to download.
5 Disk Drill
Disk Drill offers data recovery tools for both Windows and Mac devices. The best part of the Disk Drill is its simple user interface. Even if you are a novice, you can easily recover the data from any partition or disk volume. Disk Drill gives you two options for recovering the data. If you want to recover an accidentally deleted file, a quick scanning will bring back the lost file not in minutes but in seconds. To recover a file from bad sectors or files with corrupted structures, you can use the deep scan mode to recover the files.
What makes Disk Drill unique from other data recovery tools is that it also lets you protect your data even there is no loss of files. By enabling the Recovery vault, disk drill will mark the properties of files and in the case of deletion of files, 100% recovery will be done in a matter of seconds.
Disk Drill can recover data from multiple file formats like HFS, NTFS, and FAT32 and works efficiently on both internal and external memory and storage devices. With a free license, you can recover up to 500Mb of data.
We hope the above list of free data recovery software will help you in picking up the best tool for you. You can share your views in the comment section of this post.
6 EaseUs
EaseUs is a professional application that comes in more than 20 languages. You can recover the lost or deleted files completely from where it is lost. There are only 3 easy steps that you have to follow after downloading this application to your desired device.
Step-1: select the location from where the file is deleted or corrupted.
Step 2: initiate a scan so that your lost file can be recovered.
Step 3: Preview the files and recover the data you wish to.
You can also pause the scan in between if you want to do some important work and resume it later when your work is done. It is compatible with Windows 10 with great customer reviews.
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7 Data Rescue 5
This application works on both Windows and MAC. It is very easy to install and activate the software. It has been tested that this software is faster than other competitive software in the market. It has brilliant scanning results, it uses about 15% of CPU, less than 1% of RAM, and scanning time is much more which is around 6 hours but it is worth the wait. It rescues all file types like .exe, .jpeg, .mp3, .zip, .txt. if you have never used this kind of application in the past, separate customer support is available 5 days a week from 8 AM-5 PM PST. While you are searching for the files to recover, you can select any file type with actual size, this application will help you to recover the exact same files after running a thorough scan on it.
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8 Photorec
Photorec is a free data recovery software that helps you to recover files including videos, pictures, documents, and all your lost data. It directly goes after the underlying data so that if your important files are lost or deleted and your system has crashed, you can still recover everything with ease. It can recover all the pictures and videos directly from the digital cameras which have been successfully tested.
This software is just an extension of another software test. Photorec will not save the partitions of the documents in your system rather it recovers each and everything in its actual size and chosen file format.
Photorec recognizes and recovers various types of file formats which include some known file headers like ZIP, office, PDF, HTML, JPE, and various graphics file formats.
9 Testdisk recovery software
Testdisk is mainly designed to perform disk-related recovery tasks. Testdisk has no graphical interface. It will help you to recover lost partitions and make your non-booting devices boot again. This software is made for those people who have much knowledge of computers because booting and partial recovery are serious stuff.
If you don’t have that knowledge of the software and how to use it, I recommend you not to take a risk because your data, important documents, and everything else can be put at risk. It directly identifies the type of data and type of file contained in a system and reports its extension due to which the data can be recovered.
Every time a file is deleted from a system, the main icon or document is deleted but its extension remains there which is pulled up by the recovery software and helps the user to recover it through that extension.
10 R-studio
This is a disk and hard drive recovery tool that gives you absolute control over data recovery. If a file is formatted, damaged, or deleted, it can be easily recovered by this software. It supports different file systems. It has advanced recovery algorithms which means if a disk file system is heavily damaged or unsupported, R-studio finds specific data patterns that are needed by some special type of file systems and creates a new file signature so that it will work properly.
R-studio emergency version can also be used in some emergency situations when the computer is not even starting up because all its system files are corrupted or deleted. This software also recovers those files that are deleted from a system without a recycle bin or an emptied recycle bin. It has a multi-language user interface that includes various languages, you can choose the language that suits you.
Download Free Data Recovery Software
When you are creating your important documents and saving them for the future, there are chances that devices get corrupted sometimes and you will no longer be able to see those docs again. Data recovery software is made for this purpose only. People don’t create backups sometimes and get worried when the system crashes down while you are writing something important. These are some of the best software in the market that are listed above, you can use them to recover your files in the actual size when your data is lost. Nowadays technology is so advanced that the deleted items can be restored in just a few simple steps
Nice to see the list of free data recovery tools. The list of the software will help user to choose the best option for recovering their lost data. However, the editor missed out my favorite software from the list, Stellar Phoenix Free data recovery software worked very fine for me. I suggest the editor to add this tool to his list so users get more options.