Tips for dummies, or how to recover lost files in Windows. How to recover deleted files from a hard drive or flash drive

A USB flash drive is not the most suitable device for permanently storing files, but anything can happen in life. And situations when valuable data located only on it were accidentally erased happen regularly. However, in about half of the cases, grief can be helped by recovering deleted files from a flash drive. Under what circumstances is this possible and how to do it, read on.

I won’t get my hopes up in vain: the chances of successful data recovery from USB flash drives are lower than from stationary drives - hard drives of PCs and laptops and permanent memory of mobile devices. The reason is that flash drives are usually used to transfer files from one device to another. And accidentally deleted data most often ends up being simply overwritten, sometimes even more than once. And overwriting, unfortunately, destroys the information irrevocably.

Full or partial file recovery on your own is possible in the following cases:

  • The user deleted them manually.
  • The drive was formatted using the operating system.
  • The files became inaccessible after a virus attack.
  • The files disappeared after splitting the flash drive into partitions.
  • A logical failure of the file system has occurred: it has become defined as RAW - unknown, or Windows and programs consider the entire space of the device to be unallocated.

The chances of recovery are extremely low or zero if:

  • The flash drive is physically faulty - it is not detected by the computer at all or is recognized as an unknown device, access to its memory is either completely absent, or the size of the latter is several KB instead of tens of GB. The exception is relatively simple breakdowns that do not affect the controller and device memory.
  • The files were deleted using a shredder program.
  • The flash drive was low-level formatted (essentially repartitioned and rewritten) or reflashed (the controller microcode was rewritten).
  • The files are encrypted, but there is no decryption key. It may be the result of an attack by a ransomware virus or user actions (encrypted, but lost the key). In the first case, it is sometimes possible to recover files if you have a suitable decryptor.

In case of physical and complex logical faults, data recovery from flash drives is sometimes possible, but often costs the owner very much - up to several tens of thousands of rubles (not even the result, but the attempt at recovery, can cost that much). Therefore, in such situations, many people prefer to say goodbye to files forever.

How to increase your likelihood of success

Even if your case falls into the simple category, in order to increase the chances of a successful recovery, adhere to the following rules:

  • The fewer operations were performed on the drive's file system, the better the result. Therefore, start recovery immediately as soon as you notice missing files.
  • Save the recovered data only to another physical medium (computer hard drive, second flash drive, etc.).
  • Try to restore everything in one session. Don't interrupt unless absolutely necessary.
  • If one recovery program does not help, use others. Sometimes simple free utilities are more effective than expensive paid ones. It is impossible to know in advance what will help in your case, so try everything that is available.
  • If the recovery program is capable of creating and saving images of drive file systems, be sure to use this feature. In case of unexpected failure of the flash drive or accidental overwriting before the end of reading, you can restore the data from the image.

7 best programs for data recovery from flash drives

You may already be familiar with some of the storage device data recovery programs. Our site talked about them in an article about. Today our collection will be replenished with seven more applications of the same purpose. Maybe one of them will be life-saving for you.

R.saver

Wise Data Recovery

Wise Data Recovery is another worthy tool for recovering information from desktop and portable drives. Available only in Windows version. Like its predecessors, it works without installation on a hard drive. It has a high scanning speed and displays the possibility of restoring each found object.

If next to the file there is:

  • Red circle—data has been completely overwritten and cannot be restored.
  • Yellow circle—overwriting is partial, success is not guaranteed.
  • Green circle—the file has not been overwritten and is recoverable.

When you click on “green” files, if it is a picture or document, the program shows their thumbnails (if saved). It also has a function to search for certain types of data using keywords: pictures (imagies), audio (audios), videos (videos), documents (documents), archives (compressed files) and mail (emails).

Wise Data Recovery is a completely free application and, by the way, supports the Russian language.

How to use Wise Data Recovery:

  • Unpack the archive with the program to any folder and run the executable file WiseDataRecovery.exe.
  • Select the desired media from the list and click “Scan”.
  • Select the files you want to recover from the list. Click the "Recover" button.
  • Specify the location to save the files on your hard drive.

Disk Drill

The Disk Drill utility, well known to many Mac OS X users, appeared in the Windows version some time ago. More precisely, in two: free - free, and paid - pro. The free one allows you to recover up to 1 GB of information, the paid one - without restrictions.

Unlike the three previous applications, Disk Drill requires mandatory installation on the computer (for which it receives a minus, since this simple operation can lead to overwriting the data that the user was just about to restore). But it has a number of benefits that others do not have.

With constant use, Disk Drill keeps track of deleted files and also creates backup copies of them, which increases the chances of their recovery even after a while. In addition, it supports any type of storage device and almost all file systems (it knows more than 300 unique file signatures).

Disk Drill does not have a Russian localization, but it is quite easy to use.

How to recover deleted files using Disk Drill:

  • Install the application on your PC and run it with administrator rights.
  • Select a USB flash drive with deleted data from the list of media.
  • Open the drop-down list next to the Recover button, which is located opposite the flash drive, and click the desired scan type: “Run all recovery methods” (use all search and recovery methods), “Quick scan” (quick scan), “Deep scan” (deep scan) ) or “Load last scanning session” (load the result of the last scan). Click the "Recover" button (or "Continue" if you have already started working with the media).
  • In the next window that opens after scanning, select the desired files from the list, specify the location to save them and click “Recover” again.

RS File Recovery

RS File Recovery is a paid Russian-language application. In addition to the main thing - restoring information from physical drives, it is able to save and subsequently work with their images. After creating the image, the physical device with the data can be disconnected, since the program has already “remembered” all its contents. In addition, the application has a built-in HEX editor for manual byte-by-byte correction of files, as well as an FTP client for uploading the recovered file to network resources.

After analyzing the storage device, RS File Recovery displays information about the data on it - when it was created, when it was changed, and whether it can be restored. This information appears in the bottom pane of the window.

Unfortunately, in the free demo version of the utility, the recovery function does not work, only viewing is available. The cost of a license starts from 999 rubles.

Like Disk Drill, RS File Recovery requires installation on your computer.

How to use RS File Recovery:

  • Launch the application. Select a flash drive from the list of media by simply clicking on it. All its contents, including deleted files, will be displayed in the middle part of the window.
  • Click on the item you want to restore. Information about it, including the forecast, will be shown in the panel below.
  • Drag the required files to the recovery list on the right side of the window and click the “Recover” button.
  • Select the saving method: to hard drive, to CD/DVD, to the Internet via FTP, or to convert to a virtual ISO image.

  • Specify the destination folder on your hard drive. When choosing other saving methods, follow the assistant's instructions.

Ontrack EasyRecovery

Ontrack EasyRecovery is one of the most functional and effective data recovery programs, the main competitor of industry leader R-Studio. It successfully extracts data even from heavily damaged media, supports all types of file systems and more than 250 file formats, creates virtual images of physical storage devices, can boot from DVDs and USB flash drives, and also has a lot of other useful features.

EasyRecovery is available in several paid editions with different sets of functions. The most inexpensive is home-based, which will cost the user $79 per year. Professional, enterprise and specialized (for servers) cost from $299 to $3000 for an annual license.

Despite the enormous possibilities, even a novice user can use this program, since each stage of the work is accompanied by a built-in assistant. It is also impossible to make a mistake because it is completely translated into Russian.

How to use Ontrack EasyRecovery:

  • Launch the application (it is available in installation, portable and, as already mentioned, boot versions). Specify the type of media on which the deleted data is located.
  • Select the volume to scan (if it is a flash drive, then, as a rule, there is only one volume on it).
  • Select a recovery scenario. Restoring objects after deletion and formatting are different scenarios. First, try using the first one - it works faster, and if that doesn’t help, try the second one.
  • If the data was affected by a logical failure, identify one or more types of file systems that may be on the media.

  • Check again that the conditions are correct and confirm your selection. After this, the program will begin scanning the flash drive.
  • After scanning is completed, select the desired objects in the list (to select several, press and hold the Ctrl key). Click the “Save” button in the top panel of the main window and specify the destination folder on your hard drive.

To create an image of a storage device and work with it in the future, after starting the program, select the device in the list of media, open the “File” menu and click “Create image file”.

Active UNDELETE

Active UNDELETE is another paid utility that successfully copes with the recovery of individual deleted objects and entire disk partitions. Supports all types of media, all file systems and over 200 different file formats. In addition to the main tasks, it allows you to solve related problems - correct errors in partition tables and boot records, create, format and delete disk volumes, etc. Like the majority of paid analogues, Active UNDELETE supports the creation of virtual images of drives.

The demo version of the program, available for free download, has a full range of functions, but does not allow you to recover files larger than 1 Mb.

The Active UNDELETE interface is exclusively in English, but the utility is easy to use, since each action is accompanied by a wizard.

Unfortunately, it does not have a portable version. Installation only.

How to work with Active UNDELETE:

  • Launch the program. Click “Recover deleted files” in the first window that opens. This will launch the recovery wizard.
  • The first window of the wizard is a brief summary of how the program works in English. To proceed to the next step, click “Next”.
  • Next, select one or more devices on which the desired files are located. Click "Next" and in the next window - "Scan".
  • After scanning, mark the items you want to recover and proceed to the next step.
  • Set the saving options - folder, file names, renaming in case of matches, etc. You can leave everything as default.

  • The last step is the actual recovery. To launch it, click the “Recover files and folders” button.

If you want to create a virtual image of a flash drive, open the “Disk image management” section in the main window and run the “Create disk image” wizard.

Accidentally deleting files from your computer is quite easy. But restoring them can be problematic. Especially if you don't know where to start. Below you will find a selection of programs for recovering deleted files for Windows. You can safely use any of them to recover lost data.

It is best to keep one of these programs installed on your computer so that, if necessary, you can simply launch and recover lost files without any problems. This is extremely important, since the success of the procedure depends on the number of file operations (disk writes) that occurred after the files were deleted.

06/20/2016, Anton Maksimov

There are a great variety of different programs on the Internet. Every day, users install and uninstall different programs. In some cases, due to a variety of reasons, a system failure occurs and some data can easily go missing. The most important data on our computers are documents, photos, audio and video archives. To prevent yourself from losing important data, it is highly recommended to create backup copies regularly. Well, if it happens that the data is lost and there is no backup copy, then Recuva comes to the rescue. This is a free program for easily recovering deleted files (whether due to a crash or mistakenly deleted by the user).

12/26/2014, Anton Maksimov

A lot has been said about creating backup copies, but situations are still different. Sometimes a disk may fail, or it may be accidentally formatted, forgetting to write off important data from it. As a result, restoration is urgently required. In this case, the Hetman Partition Recovery software package comes to the rescue.

According to the developers, this product will help recover data from hard drives, USB drives and even memory cards as a result of accidental deletion, formatting, deletion “bypass the Recycle Bin” via Shift + Del, blocking by a virus, system failure or damage to the media.

02/27/2012, Marcel Ilyasov

Undelete 360 ​​is a file recovery program. Undelete 360 ​​is completely free (for home use) and has a high-quality translation into Russian. To scan and recover data, unlike any other similar programs, the application uses a more efficient search algorithm, which can significantly reduce the time spent on preliminary scanning of hard drives. The application can work with flash media, memory cards, CD\DVD, ZIP, external HDD, etc.

02/10/2012, Marcel Ilyasov

Information is valuable, and losing such value is very, very unpleasant. And in some cases, information is so valuable that its cost can reach tens, hundreds and even millions of rubles/dollars. Hard drives, flash cards and memory cards that store our data allow us to achieve a very high degree of storage reliability, but they also have failures. In addition to device failures, human absent-mindedness also leads to information loss - any user can easily “by inertia” delete important documents, and only then realize that he did something wrong. In any of the options there is a chance to recover information. If this is not a hardware failure, then you can try to perform the recovery yourself using specialized utilities. One of the tools for recovering files from media is EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free.

Storing information in digital form has many advantages, among which the most significant is the amount of data that can be recorded in the minimum unit of memory of a digital device. But this storage method also has its drawbacks. If the storage device fails, the operating system crashes, or user errors occur, data may be lost. Fortunately, in most cases, unintentional file deletion is not permanent and with the right and timely approach, they can be recovered.

Recovering deleted files is possible thanks to the very algorithm for recording information on the hard drive. New files are not written to empty sectors or cells, but over previously deleted ones, physically stored on the disk until they are completely overwritten. That is, when deleting, files are not destroyed immediately. Instead, the system erases the first character of the file name and marks the space it occupies as free, while the file itself remains on the disk. The exception is SSD drives with the TRIM function enabled; the cells of such media are completely erased, so restoring accidentally deleted files becomes an almost impossible task.

So, is it possible to recover files deleted from your computer? Yes, quite, unless they were overwritten by other data. For these purposes, it is best to use special programs, since Windows itself does not have any intelligible tools. You can restore files using standard tools only if they have been moved to the Recycle Bin, and also if the system has the shadow copy function and/or file history enabled. First, let's look at an example of recovering files deleted from a hard drive without using third-party programs.

Recovering deleted files using Windows

In Windows 7 and 10, if you open the properties of any folder or file, you can see the “Previous Versions” tab, and in it - a list of backup copies of objects. Even if the files were deleted past the Recycle Bin, just select the desired backup version and click the “Restore” or “Open” button.

But it's not that simple. The fact is that your “Previous Versions” tab will most likely be empty, at least in the properties of directories on the user disk. In order for copies to be created, protection must be enabled in the system properties for the corresponding partition, that is.

Note: You can return deleted files using the “Previous Versions” function only if they were located in folders and not in the root of the disk.

It is highly desirable that the system also enable the “File History” function, which provides periodic backup of the contents of user libraries and the desktop.

This primarily applies to Windows 8 and 8.1 systems, in which there is no “Previous Versions” tab in object properties. It is difficult to say for sure what prompted Microsoft developers to remove it from the eighth version and then return it in the tenth, however, the shadow copy technology itself was untouched.

How to recover files deleted from a computer by gaining direct access to shadow copies will be discussed below, but for now let’s say a few words about “File History”. This option appeared in Windows 8 as an alternative to the “Previous Versions” function, which were tied to the creation of system restore points. The “File History” function is independent, but in order to use it, an additional physical disk or flash drive must be connected to the computer, or, alternatively, a network drive.

Recovering deleted data with its help is very simple. To do this, click on the “Recover personal files” link, select a folder or a file located in it in the window that opens, and click the button with a rounded arrow.

Now regarding the recovery of files from shadow copies in Windows 8 and 8.1. As already mentioned, the “Previous Versions” tab is missing in these versions of the system. So what if you need to restore a specific file, do you really need to roll back to the previous restore point? Not at all necessary.

Open a command prompt as administrator and run the command vssadmin list shadows.

As a result, you will receive a list of all restore points. Pay attention to the “Source volume” parameter; it will indicate the drive letter from which you are going to recover data. Then, having determined the backup copy number (it is indicated at the end of the Shadow Copy Volume parameter value), run the following command:

mklink /d %SystemDrive%/shadow //?/GLOBALROOT/Device/HarddiskVolumeShadowCopy7/

In this example, the recovery point is number 7, your value will be different. As a result of executing the command, a symbolic link will appear in the root of drive C shadow.

By following it, you will find yourself exactly in the shadow copy!

This method works equally well in Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, but again you need to remember that it makes sense to resort to it only if the system has the function of creating system restore points enabled.

Recovering files using special programs

Above, we examined in detail how to restore files deleted from the Recycle Bin when emptying it or lost for other reasons, using the system itself. As shown above, all these methods have significant limitations. To be able to recover data directly from a disk, and not from backup copies, you should use special programs, including both paid and free ones.

R-Studio

R-Studio is a powerful professional program for recovering deleted files from a wide variety of digital devices, from hard drives to CD/DVDs and memory cards. The application supports working with all popular file systems, RAID arrays, and can create images of physical disks and individual volumes. Despite the fact that R-Studio is aimed at experienced users, the data recovery procedure in it is not complicated.

After launching the program, select the target disk or partition in the left column and click the “Show disk contents” icon on the toolbar.

In this case, a list of deleted directories will be displayed on the left, and their contents, marked with red crosses, will be displayed on the right.

Check the boxes for the objects you would like to restore and select the “Restore marked” option in the main menu. Next, in the window that opens, you will need to specify the folder to save the files, set additional recovery options if necessary, and click “OK.”

If files have been lost due to file system damage or formatting, it is advisable to scan the disk by selecting the appropriate option in the main menu.

Preliminary scanning of the media allows you to perform a more holistic and in-depth analysis, which means increasing the chance of recovering lost data.

Upon completion of the procedure, a new item “Found by signatures” will appear in the list of disks.

Select it with the mouse, click in the right column on the link “Files found by information about the typical features of their data structure”, mark the necessary elements in the next window and restore them.

Ontrack EasyRecovery

Another professional commercial product that allows you to quickly and effectively recover deleted files. Ontrack EasyRecovery has a convenient interface in the form of a step-by-step wizard, which greatly facilitates working with the program. The application supports data recovery from hard drives, ZIP and CD/DVD drives, flash drives, memory cards, RAID arrays, as well as various devices with flash memory.

The recovery procedure in Ontrack EasyRecovery consists of several stages. At the first stage you will be asked to select the media type, at the second you need to specify a specific disk or partition, at the third you will need to select an operation (in this example it is recovery).

To do this, select the directory with the deleted files in the tree list (it will be marked in green), right-click on it and select the “Save as” option from the menu.

You can also restore individual files by doing the same in the right column of the program window. If you switch to the “Previews” tab, you can view thumbnails of the files being restored, although such viewing is only available for images.

Recuva

Among the free programs for recovering deleted files, we can recommend Recuva. This simple yet effective tool allows you to recover any type of data from various digital media, supports viewing previews of images and hexadecimal code of files of different formats.

Recuva is very easy to use. After starting the program, you need to select a volume in the drop-down list and click the “Analyze” button. The program will scan the media and display a list of deleted files.

Check the boxes for the items you need, click the “Recover” button and specify the directory to save them.

You can also use the context menu by selecting the “Restore selected” option.

The program has a simple search by file name and format, and you can view basic information - status, date of creation and modification, size and full path.

You need to know about this

So, we looked in detail at what to do if you deleted the file you needed. Using third-party programs in this case has its advantages, as it allows you to recover files even if the partition is deleted and the file system is damaged, but there are some things to keep in mind. If you accidentally delete or lose files, never write any data to the partition in which they were located, as there is a risk of overwriting the sectors containing them.

For this reason, the recovery program should be installed on a “free” partition, different from the one from which you are going to restore. Ideally, you need to remove the hard drive, connect it to another computer and start scanning from it. You also cannot save recovered files to the same partition; in this case, you risk losing them completely. That is, if you are restoring files from drive D, you should save them to drive C or a flash drive.

Often, novice users delete necessary data from a laptop or accidentally lose it without knowing whether it is possible to recover deleted files, including those on the desktop, and how to do it. There may be quite simple situations where lost documents are literally a couple of clicks away, but there may also be more serious problems that require the use of special applications to solve.

Recovering from the Recycle Bin

All files after deletion while maintaining the standard computer settings fall into the so-called. Recycle Bin is a special folder on the desktop, by opening which you can easily restore any deleted information by highlighting the desired object and selecting the appropriate item in the menu. But files can be deleted permanently without being placed in the trash.

Inexperienced users often accidentally delete application shortcuts and documents from the desktop, believing that if they are gone, then the rest of the program has also been deleted entirely. In this case, many people do not know how to recover deleted files. This is very easy to do, even if the basket is empty. There are two options:

  1. Roll back the system to the nearest restore point;
  2. Find the program in the main menu of the Start button and drag the desired shortcuts to the desktop.

The second option is preferable, but if lost programs and documents have disappeared from the list of the main menu on the computer and you do not remember the directory in which they were installed, you will have to use the first.

If you are deciding how to recover a deleted folder from your desktop, and the erroneous action was performed recently, then you probably won’t even have to go to the Recycle Bin. Deletion can be canceled by simultaneously pressing hot Ctrl and Z.

Using a restore point

It is important to understand that rolling back to a previous restore point will not return the program, documents and files if they were deleted. In this way, only erased shortcuts on the desktop can be returned to their place. Here's how it's done using Windows 8 as an example:


A window will open in which, by default, you will be asked to restore to the most recent checkpoint. If necessary, you can specify any other existing restore point.

We use third-party applications

If data and documents from the laptop’s hard drive are completely deleted and cannot be returned using standard OS tools, you will have to use special utilities to recover deleted files. It is important to remember the main rule that increases the chances of successful data recovery - do not write anything to the disk partition that you will be working with later.

Recuva is a simple free utility

The most famous and simple application with which you can recover deleted files is . When installing, select the partition of the disk on which there is no data to be recovered. The principle of operation of Recuva and other similar utilities is approximately the same:


After the scan is completed, the recovery wizard will display on your desktop a list of all the lost documents that it was able to detect. Those that are marked with a green circle can be restored by the utility without any loss.. If the icon color is red, then this file most likely cannot be returned - a recording has already been made over it and most of the data and information about the file are completely lost.

All that remains is to select the files (you can use the corresponding function to search for specific photos and documents), select the directory to save and click “Recover”.

PhotoRec is another functional free utility

The name of the program should not be misleading. The utility recovers not only photos, but also most other types of files. Its advantage is that there is no need for installation - it can be downloaded from the office. site in the form of an archive, unpacked, after which you can work with it. This is an important property for such applications - the program can be immediately downloaded to a flash drive and worked with it.

The scheme for returning long-lost information is as follows:

  1. After launching PhotoRec, the main window immediately opens, in which the drive is selected in the top drop-down menu - you will have to work with it during data recovery. The program also works with img format images created in other applications.
  2. Below in the window there is a list in which you can select a full disk scan or individual sections.
  3. Below, you can set the file type to scan by clicking File Format. If you skip this step, the program will try to recover all accidentally deleted data that it can detect.
  4. You can specify a folder to save the recovered information by clicking the Browse button. In addition, in the File System type menu you will need to select a file system. If you are working in a Windows environment, check the second box. Ext 2-4 system is the standard for Linux.

Let's compare the considered applications

For novice users, the PhotoRec program is no less suitable than the above-described Recuva. It is more powerful - it often extracts data from the computer better, but it still has one unpleasant feature. Free PhotoRec does not allow you to view the found files after scanning and select something specific from them. This must be taken into account when working with large hard drives - if you do not specify in advance which files are to be restored, everything will be saved.

Above we discussed the simplest free applications for retrieving accidentally deleted information on the desktop or lost documents after formatting flash drives, hard drives and other media.

It is important that PhotoRec, unlike Recuva, is also a cross-platform utility, i.e., it can work in any operating environment.

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 to 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.