Hard Drive Recovery Free Download [Updated 2024]

Overview of Hard Drive Recovery

Did you accidentally delete a file from your hard drive and then realize you needed it back? Losing data can be a frustrating experience. Data loss is easily caused by deleting, formatting, or a crash of your hard drive. Fortunately, lost files can often be recovered with the help of a hard drive recovery software, even if you don't have a backup.

There are many hard drive recovery programs available, and we've listed 11 of the best based on their features, performance, pricing, and our experience using them. If these disk recovery tools can't get your data back, you may need to turn to a professional hard drive data recovery service for help.

Best HDD Recovery Software or Tools:

• Tool: Data Recovery Wizard
• Tool: Hard Drive Recovery Services
• Recuva
• Disk Drill
• Wise Data Recovery
• Ontrack EasyRecovery Software
• Recover My Files
• PhotoRec
• TestDisk
• Orion File Recovery
• Windows File Recovery

We tested the hard drive recovery software on several fronts, including compatibility with operating systems, performance, supported file types and storage devices, pricing, and more. Here are the results of our evaluation:

Tool Data Recovery Wizard (for Windows and Mac)

Data Recovery Wizard is a top-notch tool that has helped millions of users recover precious data. Whether you've lost data due to a missing disk, formatted drive, lost partitions, or a disk that has become RAW/unaccessible/unknown, this hard drive recovery software can help you retrieve your data.

It's a popular and free data recovery software. The free version allows you to recover up to 2 GB of data. Here are its main features:

• Recover Data from Hard Drive, including data loss due to deletion, formatting, hard drive failure, and damage.
• Retrieve data from various hard drive brands, such as Seagate, WD, Toshiba, Sony, SanDisk, and Samsung.
• Recover deleted photos and other files like audio, documents, videos, and emails with remarkable effectiveness from hard drives.

Steps to perform HDD data recovery using a hard drive recovery tool: 1. Choose a reliable recovery software: First, download and install a reputable and professional hard drive recovery tool such as tools Data Recovery Wizard, Recuva, or Disk Drill. 2. Install and launch the software: Install the chosen recovery tool on your computer and run the program. It should typically open its user interface directly. 3. Select the drive to scan: In the software's interface, you'll see a list of all hard disk drives connected to your computer. Choose the one you want to recover data from, then click "Scan" or a similar button to initiate a preliminary check. 4. Scanning process: The software will start scanning the hard drive thoroughly to find deleted, lost, or damaged files. This may take anywhere from a few minutes to hours, depending on the size of the hard drive and the number of files. 5. Preview and select files: After the scan is complete, the software will display all found files. You can preview certain file types (like images, documents, etc.) to confirm if they're the ones you need to recover. Select the files you want to restore. 6. Recover the files: Click "Recover" or "Save," and choose a safe location to save the recovered files. Avoid saving them back to the original hard drive to prevent overwriting other lost data. 7. Verify recovered files: Once the recovery process is done, immediately check the integrity of the files. If they're still inaccessible or corrupted, you might consider professional data recovery services. Keep in mind that data recovery isn't always successful, especially when the hard drive has physical damage. Thus, regularly backing up important data is the best strategy to prevent data loss.

Step 1: Download and install the Data Recovery Wizard on your Windows PC or laptop. Launch the program, and select "PC Recovery" on the left side. Choose the hard drive from which you want to recover data, then click the "Scan" button to start scanning the selected drive.

Select the hard drive to scan

Step 2: The tool will perform a quick scan to find the deleted files. Once the quick scan is finished, you can search for recoverable files and select the ones you want. If you can't find your file, wait patiently for the deep scan to finish so it can locate all lost data.

Step 3: Once you have selected the target file, you can preview them before restoration. Then, hit the “Recover” button. Select a target folder to save your recovered files and make sure it's different from the drive you're recovering.

Note: If the hard drive containing the data you want to recover is malfunctioning, stop using it immediately to prevent overwriting the data. This increases the likelihood of successful data recovery.

Advantages

• Straightforward 3-step recovery process.
• Repair corrupted JPEG, PNG, BMP, and other files from your hard drive.
• Virus-free and no plugins required.
• Fast scanning speed and high-quality data recovery.
• Supports all major hard drive brands.

Disadvantages

A free trial with a 2GB recovery limit is available. The Pro version costs $69.95 and has no recovery limit.

Free version limitations: It offers 2 GB of free recovery space. With Data Recovery Wizard Free, users can recover up to 500 MB of data immediately. Sharing the software on Facebook or Twitter raises the limit to 2 GB.

Overall Experience

This data recovery software works with Windows 10, 8, 8.1, 7, Vista, XP, and even earlier versions of Windows. It also has a Mac version for macOS 10.15~10.9. Though the free version only lets you recover up to 2GB of data, its success rate for recovery on both Windows and Mac is among the highest in the industry. It's easy to use and has great capabilities for restoring files and fixing damaged photo and video files.

Hard Drive Recovery Services

If you've lost your data due to hard drive failure, corruption, formatting, or RAW status, you can seek assistance from a Hard Drive Recovery Service. With 20 years of experience in data recovery, experts can effectively examine, recover, and repair your hard drive. They cater to all brands, including Samsung, Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and Hitachi.

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Hard Drive Recovery Tools

Contact our experts for a free consultation.

Consult with Tools Data Recovery specialists for personalized manual recovery services. After a free diagnosis, we offer the following services:

• Repair damaged RAID structures and virtual disk files
• Recover/repair lost partitions and repartitioned drives
• Unformat hard drives and fix RAW drives (Bitlocker encrypted drives)
• Rectify disks protected by GPT

Overall experience

Hard drive recovery services can help you retrieve data from disks in various situations, including permanent deletion, disk damage, virus infections, formatting, and lost partitions. We can recover data from laptops, desktops, RAID, and NAS systems.

Recuva - A hard drive recovery tool for Windows

Piriform Recuva is a popular file recovery tool, particularly useful when files have been accidentally deleted. What sets Recuva apart from other hard drive recovery software is its more interactive approach. It guides you through the file recovery process by asking a few questions, making it more user-friendly.

Advantages

• Standard version offers unlimited free data recovery
• Deep scan mode for hard-to-find files
• Also available in a portable version
• 100% free data recovery software

Disadvantages

- The interface looks a bit outdated. - No preview of the results is available during the scan.

Free version limitations: Unlimited free recovery.

The Whole Experience

Recuva is reasonably priced and easy to use, though it doesn't dig as deep as more expensive data-recovery apps. It's fine for basic needs like retrieving lost photos, deleted music, documents, videos, and e-mail. We've used it to recover lost Excel files. The program is free for personal use.

Disk Drill (for both Windows and Mac)

Cleverfiles Disk Drill is also a well-known player in the field of hard drive recovery software. It facilitates the retrieval of deleted, erased, or lost data from hard drives. In addition to data recovery, Disk Drill offers extra features for data protection and disk backup.

Advantages

- Features like data protection and drive backup. - Organize found files by category. - Filter search results by size and date. - Supports multiple file systems.

The downside is that…

- The Windows version can't recover data from iOS and Android - The installation process is somewhat complicated, and you might miss the option to choose a custom installation path

The free version is limited to recovering 500MB; the pro version, which removes all limits, costs $89.

Overall experience

With its intuitive interface, Disk Drill allows users to quickly recover lost data, and its recovery capabilities also appeal to more experienced computer users. The app also offers some extra free data protection tools that can help you quickly retrieve recently lost files. The Recovery Vault feature lets you specify folders and files for enhanced protection. You can create a sector-by-sector backup of your drive to restore it in case of a storage device failure. However, you can only recover up to 500MB for free. If you need to retrieve more data, you'll have to pay a fee starting from $89, which is quite expensive. Additionally, scanning times are longer than with previous equivalents, and fewer files are found.

Sharing is caring! If you find this hard drive recovery software useful, please share it with your fans on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Windows Intelligent Disk Recovery Software

Wise Data Recovery is a free data recovery tool that helps you retrieve lost photos, videos, audio files, documents, and more from your local hard drive and mobile devices like external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, digital cameras, phones, and MP3 players. Equipped with advanced algorithms, Wise Data Recovery excels in retrieving lost data from supported devices.

Advantages

• Free to use
• Lightweight and space-efficient
• Fast scanning speed
• Available in portable version
• File filtering by categories

Disadvantage

• Supports only FAT, exFAT, and NTFS file systems
• Unsupported formats display as garbled text in the preview pane

LIMITATIONS OF THE FREE VERSION: Unlimited free recovery. The free version doesn't run RAW recovery or deep scans. The Pro version is $44.96 with no recovery limits.

Overall Experience

Wise Data Recovery is a data recovery software for Windows, both 64-bit and 32-bit systems. It's designed to be compatible with Windows 10 and other Windows operating systems, starting from Windows XP. The free version lets you quickly scan and recover recently deleted files. However, if you want to recover permanently deleted files from Windows 10, this free software might not perform as well. The user interface of Wise Data Recovery is intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy for even inexperienced users to get started. We appreciate the ability to preview deleted files before recovery and the display of detailed information, including file headers.

Ontrack Data Recovery Software (for Windows and Mac)

Ontrack EasyRecovery is one of the top choices for disk data recovery. It can restore files from HDDs, SSDs, memory cards, USB, and optical storage after deletion, formatting, or damage. In addition to basic data recovery, EasyRecovery also allows users to perform advanced RAID recovery.

Advantages

• Restore photos, videos, documents, etc.
• Support for various storage devices
• Preview the recovery results before restoring
• Recover files after deletion, formatting, hard drive failure, and corruption

The downside

You have to give your personal information to download software.

The free version is limited to 1GB of recovered data. The Pro version costs $87.81 and has fewer recovery limitations.

Overall experience

Ontrack is a user-friendly file recovery software designed to restore lost or deleted photos, videos, and more from various types of computer storage devices. It offers both quick scanning and deep scanning features to optimize the recovery process. Additionally, it provides expert manual data recovery and repair services. The cost for these services varies depending on the volume of your data and the complexity of the recovery process. Downloading the software might be slightly challenging as you are required to provide your email and personal information prior to downloading.

Restore My Files (Windows)

Recover My Files is a reliable data recovery software designed specifically for Windows. It enables users to retrieve files from hard drives, SD cards, USB Zip drives, floppy disks, iPods, and more. It excels in recovering files from the Recycle Bin, formatted data recovery, after a system reinstallation, and RAW partition recovery. It can restore various types of files, including documents, photos, videos, audio files, and emails.

Advantages

• Support for traditional storage devices like hard drives, SD cards, USB devices, and iPods and other iDevices
• Permits scanning of partition backups (image files)
• Files sorted by date
• Item layout adjustable

Disadvantages

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Limitations of the free version: Unlimited free recovery. The Pro version, at $69.95, has fewer restrictions.

Overall experience

"Recover My Files" is a data recovery software that employs file carving techniques to extract lost files from unallocated clusters. The recovery process relies on interpreting the content of files, often through the reverse engineering of file types. However, the recovery process is not as straightforward as explained. Its outdated interface makes it challenging for average users to navigate. Unfortunately, the last version available is Version 6, indicating that its original developers have seemingly abandoned it. You won't receive any updates.

PhotoRec (for Windows, Mac, and Linux)

PhotoRec can recover images from various digital devices, such as computers, digital cameras, smartphones, tablets, memory cards, external hard drives, and more. It boasts powerful file recovery capabilities and supports multiple platforms. This open-source data recovery software can restore over 480 file extensions.

Advantages

- Supports data recovery across platforms, such as Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and more. - It can recover data from most devices. - The software supports various file formats, not just images.

Disadvantage

• Not suitable for beginners
• All files are automatically restored during scanning
• Unable to restore file names and folder structure

LIMITATIONS OF THE FREE VERSION: Unlimited free recovery.

Overall Experience

PhotoRec is free and open source. It uses a text-based approach to recover lost files from your system. It's designed for experienced users, as it only has a text interface. The good news is that the software doesn't cost a dime. PhotoRec can rival many paid data recovery tools. You don't have to worry about pricing and limitations.

TestDisk (Windows, Mac, and Linux)

TestDisk is another open-source application used for partition recovery. It can recover deleted partitions on hard disks, fix the partition table, and recover boot sectors, among other things. Since TestDisk is open-source software, you can check, modify, and even improve it if you know how to.

Advantages

• Open-source software
• Recover lost partitions
• Fix unbootable disks
• Recover data from various file types

The downside is that…

• Lacks a graphical user interface, operating only through command lines
• Can repair damaged partitions and file systems but not individual files

Limits of the free version: Unlimited free recovery.

Overall experience

This free solution is only for partition recovery. It's a command-line utility that supports multiple operating systems and file systems. The app is still supported by its developer and comes with a bootable version. Run this software if you've lost your partitions. Otherwise, try other free data recovery software.

HDD Recovery - Stellar File Recovery (Windows)

< a href="https://www.nchsoftware.com/data-recovery/index.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Orion File Recovery Software can recover deleted files from Windows computers and compatible storage devices. In addition to its data recovery capabilities, Orion File Recovery Software also features unique functions that allow for the permanent deletion of data on hard drives, ensuring your privacy.

Advantages

• Offers a File Recovery Wizard to guide you through the hard drive recovery process
• Filters search results by folder, file type, name, etc.
• Allows you to specify scan locations
• Includes additional features such as "Wipe File" for permanent data deletion

Disadvantages

• The scanning process may be a bit slow
• You might accidentally install additional utilities when installing the software

LIMITATIONS OF THE FREE VERSION: Unlimited data recovery.

Overall experience

One of the upsides of Orion File Recovery Software's user-friendly interface is that it launches a recovery wizard every time you open the program. Specifying the conditions for the app to search for your files couldn't be simpler – for instance, Orion File Recovery Software will look for videos, music, images, documents, and other file types whether or not you remember their names. The bad news is that there are too many configurable options. The scanning results and recovery rate aren't that reliable.

Windows File Recovery (for Windows 10 2004 and later)

The Windows File Recovery tool is a command-line file recovery utility from Microsoft. It's available for free from the Microsoft Store and works on Windows 10 version 2004 (May 2020 Update) and later. It can recover most file types, including JPEG, PDF, PNG, MPEG, Office files, MP3, MP4, and ZIP files, from your hard drive or other devices.

Advantages

- Supports recovery of JPEG, PDF, PNG, MPEG, Office files, MP3, MP4, ZIP files, and more. - Offers completely free recovery of deleted files from HDD, SSD, USB, and memory cards.

The downside is that…

• It only works on Windows 10 version 2004 or later.
• You have to use the command line to restore files by file type.

LIMITATIONS OF THE FREE VERSION: Limited file type recovery.

Overall Experience

To run it, you need to know the name of the file, keyword, path, or extension you want to recover. It can only restore JPEG, PDF, PNG, MPEG, Office files, MP3, MP4, and ZIP files. Different file recoveries require different commands, which can be hard for regular users to find. The tool is entirely free and clean, with no extra software or add-ons attached.

Reasons for Data Loss from Hard Drive

Data loss from both internal and external hard drives is more common than you'd think, usually due to one or more of the following:

• You accidentally deleted a file or folder. • You formatted some or all of your partitions (using Fdisk, for example). • The system displays the message "NTLDR is missing. Press any key to restart." • The partition table is damaged or corrupted. • A file or folder on the hard drive becomes inaccessible due to a virus attack or infection.

These days, most people are aware of the importance of backing up their data. However, data loss often occurs when people fail to do so, which makes hard drive recovery software an essential tool for users.

Factors to Consider When Recovering Hard Disk Data

Many software developers claim that their hard drive recovery software is the best on the market. But what makes a great data retrieval tool? Is it the highest price tag? Or is free software always the best choice, regardless of quality? When choosing a hard drive data recovery software, consider the following factors:

First, it should serve you well.

By "need," we mean the circumstances under which you require data recovery. A good software tool should be able to handle hard drive data recovery in various scenarios of data loss, such as accidental deletion, formatting, lost partitions, RAW partition/disk, or inaccessibility due to virus attacks, and so on. Make sure the software you choose supports data recovery from your specific situation.

Second, it must be reliable.

A hard drive recovery software should be free from viruses and add-ons, and it should not cause any further damage to the lost/deleted/formatted data. Also, it should not crash during the data recovery process.

Equally important, software vendors need to offer both presales and after-sales technical support, standing by to help you out.

Third, it must be both fast and have a high success rate.

Depending on the size of the hard drive and the amount of data stored on the storage medium, scanning it for lost files can take hours. So speed matters.

Also, make sure the hard drive recovery software has a successful track record of retrieving data. You can gauge its effectiveness by reading real user reviews and ratings on authoritative websites like Trustpilot.

Last but not least, it should be user-friendly.

An excellent disk recovery tool should provide a clear and user-friendly interface, making it easy for users to navigate. The data recovery process should be as straightforward as possible. Additionally, the software must incorporate advanced features that aid in quickly locating lost files. These features might include filters, search bars, and preview panes, among others.

Of course, you might care about other factors as well, but you can use the list above to pick the best hard drive recovery software for your needs.

Conclusions

Did you find the hard drive recovery software you need from the list above? As long as your lost files have not been overwritten, you can try to recover data with one of the above software, though success rates will vary. The higher up an option is on the list, the more likely it is to restore your files. If your hard drive has physical damage, unfortunately, none of these software solutions will work for you. In this case, you should send your hard drive to a professional data recovery service.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Hard Drive Recovery

Updated by the Tools team

What is the best hard drive recovery software?

Here's a list of the top 10 hard drive recovery software programs:

• Data Recovery Wizard Tool
• Recuva
• Disk Drill Data Recovery
• Wise Data Recovery
• Ontrack EasyRecovery
• Recover My Files
• PhotoRec
• TestDisk
• Orion File Recovery
• Windows File Recovery

How can I recover a damaged hard drive for free?

Steps to recover data from a corrupted hard drive for free:

Step 1: Download and install the free tools Data Recovery Wizard.

Step 2: Run the Data Recovery Utility and select the damaged hard drive to scan.

Step 3: Preview and recover files from the damaged hard drive.

Can a damaged hard drive be recovered?

Yes, you can use professional data recovery software like Data Recovery Wizard to retrieve data from a damaged hard drive. Download and install the hard drive recovery program on your computer, launch it, and select the damaged hard drive where you want to scan for lost files.

How to recover data from a 1TB hard drive?

Step 1: Download, install and run tools Data Recovery Wizard.

Step 2: Select the 1TB hard drive from the disk list to scan for lost data.

Step 3: Preview the found files and recover the files you want.