Download a program to recover files after deletion. How to recover deleted files from a hard drive or flash drive. Using the paid EasyRecovery program

When an important file is lost, a document you spent a week on is erased, and photos disappear from a suddenly formatted memory card, there is 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 restore erased files using the Recovery Protection function, as well as find and clean 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 a huge number of 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. This is a whole family of powerful data recovery programs. 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.

Do you know more convenient and functional data recovery applications? Tell us about them in the comments.

Situations where users accidentally permanently deleted some necessary file or formatted a flash drive with important information occur quite often. But you shouldn’t despair in these cases. After all, something was erased from the disk, but physically this data is still saved. The main thing is that they are not overwritten. There are several ways to effectively recover data, both on HDD and Flash drive. We will look at the most effective ones.

Recovering information from a hard drive using standard Windows tools

First, make sure that the items you are looking for are not in the Trash. If they are there, then all you need to do is right-click on the file and select “Recover”.

If you do not find the file you are interested in in the Recycle Bin, you should try the following method. Click Start => Control Panel => System and Maintenance => Backup and Restore. Next, select the “Restore system settings or computer” command and follow the wizard’s prompts.

The second option is to click on the Computer component and select the drive or folder where the deleted files were stored. right-click on this object and click “Restore previous version”. In this field you will see a list of previous versions of the disk or folder. It will contain the files included in the backup copy. Here you will also have access to points for their backup.

Recovering data from a hard drive using special utilities

To recover data from your hard drive, go to the Start menu and select Computer. Next, find the drive or folder where the deleted data you are interested in was stored. Right-click on the drive or folder and select “Restore Previous Version.” After this, a list of files will appear, including those you are looking for (saved in the backup copy). Double-click on the object you are looking for and select the version (for example, if you deleted a folder today, select yesterday’s), and then drag the recovered file (folder) to another location.

Recuva, for example, after launch, prompts you to specify the type of files that need to be found and restored, as well as the location where they were located. After this, scanning will begin - found files that can be fully returned are highlighted in green. Next comes the actual restoration. When scanning, we recommend setting “Deep Analysis”.

1. Recovering data from a flash drive

It is also possible to return files deleted on a USB drive. But before using applications, scan your drive with an antivirus. This can be done using or. The fact is that some malware can cause data to be hidden - it will not be displayed.

If it turns out that the information on the USB drive has been deleted, you can resuscitate it using the tools Easy Drive Data Recovery or.
When specifying the location where you want to find data sent into the unknown, select “Removable disk” (“Memory card”, “Specified location”). Please note that some data can only be partially recovered. During the analysis, Recuva marks what is in doubt in yellow or red (unlike those that will be restored 100% - they are marked in green).

There is a high probability of “returning everything to normal” if you did not save anything to the Flash drive after you deleted something there. The disadvantages of free programs that provide recovery of deleted files are either a limitation in the period of use or a limitation of functionality (the support for different file systems and different formats of the searched files is of decisive importance here). You can compare utilities from different manufacturers in the selection.

Recovering files from a hard drive is an issue that worries many personal computer owners.

This includes the loss of valuable information and the time required for its successful recovery.

Specialized services charge a lot of money for this, but if the media is in good condition, it makes sense to try to recover the data yourself.

Reasons for losing information

If the storage medium is undamaged, the main reason may be:

• errors that occurred in the partition table or file system devices. Most often this happens due to incorrect shutdown of the personal computer, failures, malfunctions in hardware and software;
• the harmful effects of viruses, as well as user errors, often lead to the loss or corruption of data. With such failures, the information usually remains on the disk, but data about its location is lost. This is expressed in the loss of several disk partitions, displaying the partition as unformatted;
• Inaccurate file system entries can also lead to partial or complete loss of individual files and directories.

The main causes of malfunctions that lead to loss of information

Or maybe files, important data were accidentally deleted or the partition in which they were located was formatted. Information recovery is carried out using certain software in manual or automatic mode.

When using the appropriate programs, all information that exists on the media is scanned. Based on the detected information, a “map” of fragments of recovered data is created. It contains information: which file belongs to which sector, names, sizes and other parameters of the elements of the system being scanned. The selected data is then transferred to another drive.

What to do if data is lost?

If nothing was written to the sectors from which information was deleted, then the data was not physically destroyed, but information about its location was distorted or lost. First of all, it is necessary to determine exactly where the sectors that store the necessary information are located, and also to reproduce it in the correct sequence.

If information was written to the disk from which the files were deleted, for example, formatting and installation of a new operating system, there is a high probability of physical destruction of the data. In these cases, the feasibility of successful information recovery depends on the ratio of lost and recorded data. For example, if you delete 2 gigabytes of databases and write 100 gigabytes of music and movies in their place, the probability of successful recovery approaches zero.

Data recovery mechanism using programs

• media scanning;
• Based on the scanning results, a map of the location of pieces of information is compiled, based on the detected service records, and a directory tree is built;
• the map contains data about which file belongs to which cluster, the name, size and other parameters of the file system elements;
• if the information received is not enough, then certain extrapolation methods are used;
• folders and files that need to be recovered are selected in accordance with the compiled map and transferred to another medium.

This article will review a variety of programs, both paid and free, and analyze their strengths and weaknesses so that the reader can quickly choose the most suitable software for his request.

5 Best Data Recovery Software

Recuva

Recuva is one of the most common programs for recovering lost data or formatted disks. The high demand for this program can be explained by its simple and intuitive interface. Recuva does not require experience or special knowledge in the field of data recovery, it is very convenient and easy to use. You can download it from here

The program scans the selected hard drive in detail (various hard drives and flash drives are supported). Information can be recovered even if the drive has suffered any physical damage or was formatted using a standard system command.

It is recommended to perform recovery using the program without changing the standard settings, unless, of course, you are an expert in the field of data recovery. This utility has a simple interface and will provide effective information recovery, even if the user does not have the necessary knowledge.

The program will prompt you to select the type of file to be restored. When searching for a specific file (music, picture, document), it is worth specifying the category to save time necessary for the recovery operation. But, if you do not know the file type or want to find data from different categories, specify “Other” and the program will search for all deleted information.

Choosing WHAT to look for

Next, you need to select the location where the file was located before deletion. You can select not only a separate folder, but also more extensive areas, for example: “My Documents” or “On a memory card”, and the program will check the selected area for the presence of the necessary data. If the exact location is unknown (the file was deleted using special programs or simply disappeared), you should leave “Exactly unknown” by default so that the utility scans the entire surface of the media.

We choose WHERE we will look

A window appears when you are ready to perform the restore operation. It is recommended to conduct an in-depth analysis: it takes longer, but its efficiency will be many times higher.

It is worth waiting a while while the program searches for files. If you did not choose in-depth analysis, the operation will take very little time.

Selecting information to restore

A window will open indicating the deleted data found. From this list, you should select the information that needs to be restored, after which the program will prompt you to select a folder for recovery.

It is important to correctly select the folder where our files will be restored, because this will affect the efficiency of their recovery. Restoration should be carried out to a drive other than the one from which the recovery is being carried out. This is especially true when returning a large number of files. You can connect an additional hard drive or flash drive to return data to them. The space should be slightly larger than the size of the files being restored.

The recovery procedure will not take much time and depends on the number and size of files.

R-Studio

R-Studio is a convenient and functional program for recovering information from various drives that was deleted by mistake. With its help, you can scan various media and recover lost data not only from hard drives, but also from flash drives. You can download the utility from the website http://www.r-studio.com/ru/Data_Recovery_Download

Initially, you should decide on the choice of version: demo or full. If you do not perform data recovery on a regular basis, it is better to choose the demo version. A 20-day period is more than enough to restore all information.

If you are not a pro, it is better to use the demo version

In addition to recovery, the utility can also perform a preliminary scan. This operation will speed up and increase the efficiency of the recovery procedure. It is worth noting that you can scan the device with third-party programs, and upload a file with a report on the work done to R-Studio. The utility always conducts a detailed scan by sector. This may take some time, depending on the size of the partition being scanned.

We scan the selected partition

After the scan is completed, it will be possible to view all the files that it was able to detect and then select those that can be restored. In order to restore a file, you need to right-click on it and select the “Recover” command.

R-Studio is convenient and multifunctional

If you don’t know exactly what was deleted from the device, and you are going to recover all lost files, in this case, right-click on the desired media and select “Recover all files.”

At the end, simply select the partition where to restore

At the end, you will need to select a folder where the seized information will be restored. Important! It is imperative to take into account that the folder should not be located on the hard drive from which the information will be returned, because during the recovery of some files, others may be completely overwritten by them.

After selecting a folder, you need to wait while the program diagnoses the drive and restores lost information.

Easy Recovery

Easy Recovery can safely be called a high-quality program for professionals, which can be mastered by an ordinary user. It has gained popularity due to its excellent efficiency and, at the same time, ease of use in comparison with similar utilities. The advantage of this program is that it can also perform preliminary diagnostics of the media. Download the program

Click on “Disc Diagnostic” and select the required command. If the utility was downloaded in order to recover data, then we conduct a deep scan “SmartTests”. In addition to scanning, the program will perform diagnostics and determine whether the hard drive has problems, for example, unreadable sectors or any others, in order to prevent troubles.

Diagnostic menu

After selecting the command, the type and number of media that are currently running on the device are determined. We choose which one we will work with and where to restore the information.

For the most accurate and complete diagnostics, select “Run extended SMART test”. First of all, you should be patient: the verification will take a lot of time.

Be patient and choose scanning

To restore files, go to the “Data Recovery” section and select the mode that is interesting to us. In this program, modes are selected depending on the specific situation.

For example, if you accidentally formatted your hard drive, select the “Format Recovery” category. Next, select the file system of the drive and the partition that was formatted.

If there is a need to recover deleted files, then select the “Deleted Recovery” function - the disk selection menu opens and the formats of the recovered files are determined.

Recovering lost files

If the data is lost as a result of a software failure or the reason for the loss is unknown, select the “Advanced Recovery” option. After scanning, the program will find information that was deleted within a certain period of time.

We choose what we need to restore. Typically, the diagnostic and recovery procedure does not take much time. This will depend on the amount of data that needs to be returned.

PhotoRescue Pro

PhotoRescue Pro is a utility that will help you recover deleted photos or videos. Today's digital devices provide ample opportunities for recording, dubbing and optimizing media files. If you accidentally deleted the necessary files from a digital gadget, this utility will solve this problem.

With this program you can recover data from any type of flash drive, hard drive or mobile phone. It is possible to recover data even from damaged and formatted media.

Working with PhotoRescue Pro is very convenient and accessible. You can download it from here. The program supports many languages, including Russian. After selecting the language, a window appears in which we click the “Next” button and the registration window appears. If you just want to recover a few photos, there is no point in registering the program, but if you constantly work with your camera and this problem occurs to you quite often, it is worth purchasing the full version.

First, we select the drive from which we will return information. The utility works with several file systems at once, which is very beneficial. Click “Next”.

Analyzing the content

After selecting the drive we need, click “Next”, wait a couple of seconds - the utility will check the partition we have selected. A list of folders is displayed; we need to select the one that interests us. If the location of the file is unknown, click on the checkmark at the very top to highlight all the data found. "Next"

Select the desired folder

We select the formats of the files that interest us. To avoid mistakes, it is better not to uncheck individual formats so that the utility can find as much information as possible. Next, select the required files. Click “Next”.

Select the desired folder

Once you have completed selecting formats, the scanning operation will begin. The verification time will depend on the volume of data and will take from a few minutes to a couple of hours.

Scan duration depends on data size

The advantage of the program over analogues is that it simultaneously checks the drive for the presence of unreadable sectors. Thanks to this, you can not only restore lost information, but also carry out diagnostics and troubleshooting.

All that remains is to restore the data

After scanning is completed, a list of files opens. It is possible to search for files by categories (video, photo, audio) and formats, and not by sections and various folders.

The program shows how much data was found and what was deleted. Thanks to this, you will quickly find out which files were found and which were irretrievably lost.

GetDataBack

GetDataBack is one of the most effective and most powerful. With its help, you can recover data in almost any situation. The developer divided the program into two subtypes: the first for the NTFS file system, and the second for FAT. Download it from here: https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

We recover all deleted files for effective results

This utility must be installed on a foreign hard drive. You cannot restore to the media from which files will be restored, since the necessary information will be overwritten.

After opening the program, a menu of four items appears. For maximum efficiency, it is recommended to select the fourth option – “I want to recover deleted files” (I want to recover deleted data).

Select the required section

In the list of local drives that opens, which the utility will find while scanning the hard drive, you need to find the partition where the deleted files were located. The program provides many possibilities in the field of data recovery, but if you just want to return information from the drive and do not know where it was, you should select the “Physical drives” category.

A file system window opens and you need to select the one that is supported by this version of the program (in our case, NTFS). Modern computers use different file systems simultaneously, so check the box next to “Show recommended”.

Select the file system we are interested in

After a detailed scan, the utility will open a folder explorer, simple and easy to understand. The contents of the selected folder will be displayed on the right; if the information was deleted, after recovery GetDataBack will show the files in strikethrough font for ease of classification. Each file is equipped with a special marking, which can be used to determine the type of information found.

Data recovery is easy and convenient

As a result, we select the data we need and start the recovery. Once finished, the recovered file will be available in the editor

Restoring files using this program in the FAT file system is carried out in the same way.

Conclusion

This article discussed, in my opinion, the most popular and effective programs for recovering deleted data from a hard drive and various media. For beginners, the popular Recuva with a simple interface is suitable; if you lose media files, you should choose PhotoRescue Pro, it can recover data from almost any modern gadget; for constant work with returning information, GetDataBack is ideal - it has powerful functionality, is efficient and at the same time has an ergonomic main menu.

If for some reason you were unable to recover your data, but the information is valuable, it makes sense to contact specialists. They have more powerful software and can help where these utilities are powerless.

Hello!

Almost every computer user has at least once grabbed his head and regretted that he deleted a necessary file or document from the disk (or, for example, accidentally formatted the media through his actions). But in many cases, it is possible to partially or even completely restore information - the main thing is to do everything correctly, so to speak, without fuss and haste!

To restore data, you need special utilities and programs. There are a lot of them now, and most of them are quite expensive (and, having paid for the software, it is unknown whether it will justify itself, whether it will be able to help restore data).

Therefore, in this article I will give the best free programs that will help scan your disk and find files that can be recovered (even after deleting them from the recycle bin or formatting the disk).

For reference: you've probably noticed that copying a file takes a long time - but deleting it takes a couple of seconds! The fact is that after you delete a file and empty the trash, it does not physically disappear anywhere from the disk. The file system simply excludes certain areas of the disk - it believes that there is no longer a deleted file on them, they are free, and any other information can be written to them.

Therefore, the less you work with the disk after deleting a file, the higher the likelihood of recovering information from it (since the likelihood that something will be written to the same areas of the disk is minimal!).

A couple of important rules:

1. As soon as you notice the file is missing, try not to use this disk/flash drive. It’s better to disconnect it from the PC altogether (especially not to agree to format it, fix errors, etc., which Windows recommends).
2. do not restore data to the same media you scanned: i.e. if you are trying to recover photos from a flash drive, restore them to disk! The fact is that copying new information to the media from which you are restoring files can erase the remnants of the information that you are restoring (I wrote it chaotically, but I think the meaning is clear ☻).
3. If one of the programs couldn’t find and restore anything, don’t despair, try another (or better yet, 3-4)!

10 best programs for file recovery

Recuva

This is probably one of the best free file recovery utilities! Despite its relatively small size, the utility is very effective in recovering data that was accidentally deleted from a hard drive or flash drive. The program is designed taking into account that it will be used by novice users, so it is very easy and simple to use - it has a step-by-step wizard that will help you set all the necessary settings.

The algorithm for working with the program is quite simple: after setting the parameters and selecting a disk, it scans it and gives you all the files that can be recovered. By the way, if we are talking about pictures or photos, then you can generally view them before restoring them (example in the screenshot above).

You will also be able to find out the name of the file, where it was previously saved, and its current state (the program marks files with different colors: green - excellent (high probability of normal recovery), yellow - average, red - bad (recovery unlikely)) . All you have to do is check the boxes that you need and start restoring.

Main advantages:

1. there is a step-by-step wizard for unprepared users;
2. 2 disk scanning modes (simple and advanced. Advanced takes longer, but allows you to find more deleted files);
3. recovery of not only accidentally deleted data, but also the ability to work after unsuccessful disk formatting, search for unsaved documents, mailbox messages and much more;
4. Convenient file sorting (name, path, size, status, etc.);
5. the ability to permanently delete files;
6. The utility is free and supports the Russian language;
7. Compatible with all versions of Windows: XP/Vista/7/8/10.

R.Saver

A very simple program for recovering files from various media (hard drives, flash drives, external drives, etc.). Supports a variety of file systems: NTFS, FAT and ExFAT. It is based on the algorithms of professional versions of the UFS Explorer program. By the way, the R.saver program is free only for non-commercial use in the following countries: Ukraine, Russia, Belarus (and a number of others).

Main advantages:

1. the ability to restore data after: formatting, file system failure, deletion;
2. professional algorithms for scanning and recovering files;
3. good community and support on the official website (asking a question in time is sometimes worth a lot!);
4. there is support for automatic assembly of a RAID array (provided all devices are connected);
5. support for many file systems of different OS: ExFAT, FAT/FAT32, NTFS, Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, ReiserFS, JFS, XFS, UFS/UFS2, Adaptec UFS, Open ZFS, etc.;
6. simple and user-friendly interface in a minimalist style;
7. Russian language support.

Disk Drill (Pandora Recovery)

Pandora Recovery - https://www.pandorarecovery.com/(became Disk Drill)

Note: Free data recovery up to 500 MB!

Disk Drill is a free program for recovering deleted files (supports recovery of pictures, photos, documents, music, etc.). The program can work with almost any media: memory cards, flash drives, hard drives, external drives, iPod, etc.

The application can recover data not only after deleting it from the recycle bin, but also after formatting the disk, changing partitions, virus infection, or file system failure.

Main advantages:

1. 2 types of scanning: fast and deep;
2. unique data recovery algorithms;
3. the ability to enable a data protection algorithm (you can restore any deleted data in a few clicks);
4. you can recover lost files on system drives and external devices, memory cards, USB flash drives, laptops and other devices;
5. support for multiple file systems: NTFS, FAT32, EXT, HFS+, etc.;
6. simple intuitive interface, designed in a minimalist style;
7. The program supports Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10 (32/64 bits).

Transcend RecoveRx

A practical and very convenient program for restoring any documents and files after accidental deletion (including after formatting the hard drive). Transcend RecoveRx can work with different types of drives and different file systems (HDD, SSD, USB flash drives, memory cards, etc.).

Separately, we can note the interface: everything is done simply, consistently, there are no difficult-to-customize parameters. There is a step-by-step wizard that will help you recover data even for a completely inexperienced user.

Main advantages:

1. a fairly powerful algorithm for scanning and recovering deleted files;
2. aimed at novice users: there is a step-by-step recovery wizard;
3. there is a function to protect data from SD and CompactFlash memory cards;
4. you can search for files by a specific type: photos, documents, audio and video files;
5. All major types of storage devices are supported: memory cards, MP3 players, USB flash drives, hard drives (HDD) and SSD drives;
6. Works in all modern versions of Windows.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery

Note: the free version of the program has a limit (1024 MB) for saving recovered information.

Power Data Recovery is a very powerful and effective program that can recover information from drives even in the most dire cases (when other utilities “refuse” to do this).

Such cases include: virus attacks, formatting the media, using the FDISK program, damage to the MBR boot sector, problems when creating partitions (and working with them), incorrect shutdown of the PC (for example, during power surges), etc.

Main advantages:

1. very powerful algorithms allow you to recover files when other utilities are powerless;
2. convenient list of displaying recoverable files;
3. support for all popular file systems: FAT 12/16/32, NTFS (including NTFS5), etc.;
4. support for RAID arrays;
5. there is a virtual assistant available (for novice users);
6. support for different types of storage devices: HDDs, SSDs, memory cards, flash drives, etc.;
7. Works with all popular Windows OS: 7/8/10.

Of the shortcomings, I would highlight the most important one - there is no official support for the Russian language (I hope that only for now ☻).

PC INSPECTOR File Recovery

PC INSPECTOR File Recovery is a free program designed to recover deleted information.

The program supports Windows file systems: FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS. The hard drive is visible even in cases where the boot sector and file allocation table have been damaged or deleted.

It is possible to search for a specific file format (the program supports all the most popular ones, the list is given below).

Main features:

1. good algorithm for searching for deleted information;
2. can restore files to their original creation/copy date;
3. it is possible to work with network drives;
4. file system support: FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS;
5. simple and concise interface;
6. support for many file formats: ARJ, AVI, BMP, CDR, DOC, DXF, DBF, XLS, EXE, GIF, HLP, HTML, HTM, JPG, LZH, MID, MOV, MP3, PDF, PNG, RTF, TAR, TIF , WAV and ZIP;
7. works on Windows XP/7/8/10.

Wise Data Recovery

Wise Data Recovery is a free program for recovering deleted photos, documents, videos, music, and email messages. The program sees not only local hard drives, but also all connected external drives, flash drives, memory cards, and other devices.

The program has a special function that allows you to evaluate the chances of being able to recover a particular file: in front of each file a special indicator will light up (green, yellow, red). The most likely successful recovery is for green files...

Main features:

1. quick scanning of any drives connected to the system;
2. convenient and simple interface;
3. compact size - only a few MB;
4. support for Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP;
5. Russian language support.

CD Recovery Toolbox

CD Recovery Toolbox - this utility is designed to recover data from CD/DVD discs (a variety of types are supported: CD, DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.). The program scans and finds files of various formats: music, movies, pictures, photos, documents. During the scanning process, the program applies several algorithms, which greatly increases its efficiency!

In general, it is quite an indispensable utility when working with CDs.

Main features:

1. several algorithms for scanning and detecting files;
2. after work - the program provides a detailed report;
3. can recover files larger than 4 GB;
4. detailed settings on where to save recovered files, what to save and what not, detailed information about the files is displayed;
5. works on Windows 7/8/10.

Glary Undelete

This utility is part of a package of programs from Glary Soft (which it would be nice for every user to have on their PC - after all, everything they need is there: optimization and fine-tuning of Windows, working with disks, files, the registry and much more).

As for directly Glary Undelete- then it is a free and quite high-quality utility for recovering deleted information. The utility supports all the most popular file systems: FAT, NTFS, NTFS + EFS. Allows you to recover, among other things, compressed and encrypted files in the NTFS file system.

There are filters by name, date, size, and recovery capabilities (very convenient when you have found thousands of files on a disk, and you only need to select something specific).

The interface is very simple: drives, folders, etc. are displayed on the left, files on the right. At the top of the program: filters and search bar. All modern Windows 7/8/10 systems are supported.

Undelete 360

Undelete 360 ​​is a very good program for recovering deleted information from various storage devices (supported: hard drive, flash drive, memory card, digital camera, etc.).

The program works directly with the drive (bypassing Windows OS), allowing you to find and restore files in the event of a variety of problems: from simple careless deletion of a file, to formatting and a virus attack.

What's also captivating about this utility is that it can filter found files by their type and by the folder from which they were deleted. There is a file preview, which is very important for photos and pictures.

Undelete 360 ​​supports and works with the following file types:

1. documents: DOC, XLS, RTF, PDF, PPT, MDB, HTML, CSV, TXT, PAS, CPP, EML;
2. audio and video files: AVI, MP3, WAV, WMA, MPG, MOV, ASF, etc.;
3. photos and pictures: JPEG, JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF, TIF, TGA, EML, RAW, etc.

Additions on the topic are welcome ☻

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, bringing a file deleted from your hard drive in the usual way back to life using Windows is not a problem - you just need to restore it from the recycle bin. 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 the only way to 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 to recover accidentally deleted and lost files. As a rule, with its help you can restore at least part of the information without any problems. 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 quickly formatting a hard drive - 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 the 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 lost information to life 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 the NTFS file system rather than 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 when we are talking about restoring data on the system disk, to which the system is constantly writing something. In this case, it is optimal to remove the hard drive with deleted files and connect it to another computer as a secondary one, and only then begin the recovery process.

As a rule, the default tools in the corresponding tools are a 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 carried out with a complete scan of all sectors - it takes more time, but can 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 a faulty device may make it completely impossible to recover 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; only for personal or home use)

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a comprehensive solution for recovering data 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 the Windows Recycle Bin, find and restore lost data (due to a virus attack, power failure, accidental formatting, partition deletion, 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 of CD/DVD (CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD-RW), supports multisession discs, some UDF discs (recorded using DirectCD, InCD , packetCD) and can recover 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 of a step-by-step wizard. For example, in the simplest case - when recovering accidentally deleted files - you just need to 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 an exclamation mark - the 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 are talking about the latest Russian-language version of 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 recovery in the preview window. As for advanced scanning, it is resorted to in cases where, after analyzing the disk, the files of interest were not found. With such scanning, you can search for strictly defined types of files (for example, images), lost file records, and also conduct a more thorough analysis of data deleted from the recycle bin (with a 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 drives, memory cards, etc.). Using this utility, you can recover accidentally deleted files, return files that were deleted as a result of system errors, crashes 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 drive.

By default, the file recovery process is carried out under the guidance of a wizard (if desired, it is easy to disable the automatic launch of the wizard) - 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 fine-tune the 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. Before recovery, you can view images of 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 in practice to evaluate various programs for recovering lost data in terms of scanning speed and the effectiveness of their identification of 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 working ones, and therefore contained certain information - in particular, a lot of software distributions, 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 in a variety of 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 recovery rule: do not write anything to the media and generally stop any work with it immediately after an 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 a couple of suitable utilities on hand (that is, on the disk in installed form) 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 storage medium, save recovered files to another carrier, 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.