Programs for data recovery from a flash drive. Best software to recover deleted files
Hello friends! Today we have a small incident, because of which I urgently had to use free program to recover deleted files under the name R.saver, of course I tell you all the details, so the information may be useful to one of the readers.
I have long decided to make a review on our website with you all free programs for recovering deleted files and I was planning such an article, but here an ideal opportunity turned up to test another similar program R.saver in combat conditions.
R.saver program is based on professional versions of very serious data recovery products UFS Explorer, site http://www.sysdevlabs.com/. The program can reconstruct damaged file systems, recover deleted files even after full formatting. The search and recovery of deleted files can be performed even if the required partition of the hard disk is completely deleted and represents unallocated space.
Free program to recover deleted files
A friend of mine has been collecting a "personal archive" for several years, consisting of his favorite films, photographs, music and e-books. All these files were located on an additional section (F :) of the laptop, this section also contained photographs of friends, an operating system archive, working documents, and so on.My friend knew that it was unreliable to store what he had collected over the years only on a laptop, and he specially bought a USB portable hard drive for his collection, connecting it to a laptop, he was going to copy the entire collection to a portable screw, went to the disk (F :), selected with the mouse all the necessary for copying folders and accidentally clicked "Cut" instead of "Copy"!
What to do next, my friend did not know, since he had never used this "Cut" function in his life, he called me in a panic and said that all his files, collected by long and overwhelming work, had become translucent. I answered - you need to enter the USB portable hard drive, right-click on an empty space and select the "Insert" function from the menu. What happened next, my friend could not remember exactly, except for the fact that in the process of transferring files, for some reason he turned off the computer and decided to wait for me.
Having come to him in the evening, I turned on the laptop. Even if you turn off the computer during such a transfer, then some of the cut files should remain where they were, and the other part should be transferred to another specified location, but the result was completely different.
The laptop was missing almost all the files my friend needed, which is about 100 GB! Most importantly, a folder called "Personal Archive" with all the archive files disappeared, only the "Home Videos" folder remained. I only managed to find 5 GB of video files on the USB portable hard drive.
So, we work, we save the collection with a free program for recovering deleted files R.saver. We go to r.saver official website and download it.
Note: Friends, if you want to temporarily retrain as a data recovery specialist from various media, you must follow the safety rules. What are the rules?
The first rule is not to restore deleted files to the same hard drive where they were located. In our case, you can connect a USB portable hard drive to your laptop and restore files there. Or you can connect a simple hard drive to your laptop using. Or, if the case is very serious, you can dismantle the hard drive of the laptop and connect it to a simple computer and restore the deleted files with a special program, but this method is, of course, primarily for repair specialists. We launch our program R.saver.
The program is simple and in the course of work we will figure it out, in the main window you need to select from the list of sections the one on which the files were deleted. You can ask a question: - And if suddenly the hard disk partitions are completely deleted, what then to choose and how to restore the deleted information. We will also analyze such a case at the end of the article. I will delete all existing partitions from the hard disk and try to recover the deleted files on them.
But first of all, we will select the partition (F :) of the laptop from which my friend's files have disappeared for recovery. "Managing our laptop disks", here is our section (F :),
On which there is only one folder "Home Videos" remaining from the entire collection.
In the main window of the R.saver program, right-click on the F: drive and select "Search for lost data". Attentive users may notice that there is another option "Recover after formatting, later (if appropriate) we will apply it as well.
We answer "Yes", as we want to perform a full scan of the section (F :) for the presence of deleted files.
Performed file system reconstruction by signatures using the IntelliRAW algorithm.
We are waiting for a little over an hour and we see that the program has not restored all the files, but oh well, more than half of the necessary files have been restored, most importantly, the very necessary "Personal archive" folder has been restored. I did not understand one moment in the program, why the size of all files is 0 KB.
So, we restore the found folders with files. I wonder if the files will be readable, it happens that the information recovery program will restore the files, but they are not working.
Right-click on the folder we need to restore and select (you can click "View" before restoring and see all the files in the restored folder). Select "Copy to ...",
The explorer opens, select the folder into which we want to copy the files claiming to be restored, then click "Select",
The file recovery process begins.
In the main window, right-click on the formatted partition and select "Recover after formatting"
The file system is reconstructed for an hour, then a search (20 minutes) for file systems on the formatted partition (50 GB) is performed.
In the window that appears with a list of found file systems, you need to select a file system of the type we need with a minimum positive offset, in our case, the first.
This hard drive belongs to another friend of mine who accidentally formatted his hard drive. So, the R.saver Program found a bunch of century-old files and only two necessary folders on it.
Restoration occurs in the same way as in the previous case, select "Copy to ...", the explorer opens, select the folder into which we want to copy the files applying for recovery and press "Select", the file recovery process begins.
Recovering files from a hard drive on which all partitions have been completely deleted
And now friends, let's completely delete all partitions from the Samsung 120 GB hard drive (which we have already mocked in our articles) and see if we can recover deleted files in this case. We delete all partitions from our hard disk and run the R.saver program.
In the main window of the program, you can see that our entire 120 GB Samsung hard drive is "Unknown Partition". Right-click on it and select "Find Lost Partition"
Click on the "Find Now" button
Our 120GB hard drive was scanned for 40 minutes. Save your search results just in case. Among the found partitions there are two partitions suitable for the size of the previously existing on this hard disk, this is a disk (C :) with a volume of 55, 24GB and a disk (G :) with a volume of 56, 43GB, mark them with checkmarks and click on the "Use selected" button.
The main program window opens,
Right-click on the found first 55, 24GB partition and select "View file system" (if you select "Search for lost data", the search will be repeated, but personally, it gave me nothing and the files found were gone).
In the window that appears, we see all the files located in the root of the drive (C :), let's try to go to the desktop C: \\ Users \\ users \\ Desktop and restore the files located there.
Please, all deleted files on the desktop are available for recovery. Right-click on the desired folder and select "Copy to ...,
In the explorer that appears, select a location on the hard disk and click "Select"
The files are being restored.
But with the disk (G :), everything turned out not so smoothly, the program did not find the deleted files I needed.
But as I said, in general it worked well for a free program.
Friends, in the process of working with the R.saver program I could have missed something, I will be grateful for any help in the comments.
Programs for recovering deleted or lost files are quite popular. With their help, you can get back your lost important files or folders.
For recovery, you do not have to seek the services of professionals in this field. With the help of these programs, you can independently carry out recovery operations.
Our selection of programs in Russian will allow you to recover this data without any problems.
D-Soft Flash Doctor is a powerful software product designed to resume operation of flash memory cards and monitor the status of drives. In addition, the software is capable of backing up user data. The D-Soft Flash Doctor (Rus) utility can be downloaded for free on this site. It fits all USB sticks. Free download D-Soft Flash Doctor 1.4.1 Rus Password for all archives: 1progs Key features of the utility: backup and disk imaging; work with different media (like ...
Often novice users delete from a laptop or accidentally lose the necessary data without knowing whether it is possible to recover deleted files, including on the desktop, and how to do it. Quite simple situations can occur here, when lost documents are literally a couple of clicks away, there can be more serious problems, for which you have to use special applications.
Recycle Bin recovery
All files after deletion, while maintaining the standard computer settings, fall into the so-called. Recycle Bin is a special folder on the desktop, opening which you can easily recover any deleted information by highlighting the desired object and selecting the appropriate item in the menu. But files can be deleted and irretrievably without placing them in the trash.
Inexperienced users often accidentally delete application shortcuts and documents from the desktop, believing that if they disappeared, then the rest of the program was also completely uninstalled. In this case, many do not know how to recover deleted files. It is very easy to do this, even if the basket is empty. There are two options:
- Roll back the system to the nearest restore point;
- Find the program in the main menu of the "Start" button and drag the necessary shortcuts to the desktop.
The second option is preferable, but if the lost programs and documents 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 one.
If you are deciding how to recover a deleted folder from your desktop, and the erroneous action was committed recently, then you probably won't even have to go to the trash can. Deletion can be undone by pressing Ctrl and Z simultaneously.
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, you can only return the erased shortcuts on the desktop to their place. Here's how to do it using the example of Windows 8:
A window will open in which, by default, it will be offered to restore to the most recent checkpoint. If necessary, you can set any other existing restore point.
We use third-party applications
If data and documents are completely deleted from the laptop hard drive 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 a successful data return - do not make any write to the partition of the disk with which you will further work.
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 on which there is no recoverable data. The principle of operation of Recuva and other similar utilities is approximately the same:
After the scan is complete, the Recovery Wizard will display on the desktop a list of all lost documents that it has found. Those of them that are marked with a green circle, the utility will be able to recover without any loss... If the color of the icon is red, then this file most likely cannot be returned - it has already been overwritten and most of the data and information about the file has disappeared completely.
All that remains is to select the files (to search for specific photos and documents, you can use the corresponding function), select the directory for saving and click "Restore".
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 in the absence of the need for installation is 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 USB flash drive and work with it.
The scheme for returning long-lost information is as follows:
- After launching PhotoRec, the main window immediately opens, in which the drive is selected in the upper drop-down menu - you will have to work with it during the recovery of information. The program also works with their img format images created in other applications.
- Below in the window there is a list in which you can select a full scan of the disk or its individual partitions.
- Below you can set the file type to scan by clicking File Format. If you skip this step, the program will try to recover any accidentally deleted data that it can detect.
- You can specify the folder for saving 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 using Windows, check the second item. Ext 2-4 is the Linux standard.
Let's compare the reviewed applications
For novice users, PhotoRec is no less suitable than the above-described Recuva. It is more powerful - data retrieves files from the computer is often better, but there is still one unpleasant feature. Free PhotoRec does not allow you to view the found files after scanning and select something specific from them. This should be taken into account when working with large hard disks - if you do not specify in advance which files are to be restored, everything will be saved.
Above, we have considered 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, that is, it can work in any operating environment.
Did you accidentally format your USB stick? The memory card of your camera stopped reading? Have you deleted important files on your hard drive and emptied your trash? What to do? How to recover important photos and documents? For these purposes, special programs have been developed that allow you to recover deleted files even after formatting the media or emptying the recycle bin. Attention
If you have deleted important files from your hard disk or FLASH drive by mistake, never write new files to this medium. If new files are written to the sectors in which the deleted files were, the old data will be irrevocably overwritten by the new! If you have 2 hard drives C and D on your computer. On drive D you accidentally deleted a folder with photos or important documents. In this case, downloading and installing programs should be carried out on the C drive.
File recovery softwareA program for recovering deleted files and folders from hard drives and USB Flash drives. Supports all major file systems. Works at a low level, reading data directly from the structure of the storage medium. It often helps where other similar utilities are powerless.
Free set of tools for recovering deleted or damaged data on any type of media in Windows. Have you lost photos, formatted a USB flash drive or hard drive, can't read CD / DVD? This program will help you.
A small free utility for recovering deleted data from hard drives and USB flash drives. Allows you to step by step recover files from formatted partitions, as well as delete data beyond recovery.
One of the best programs for recovering deleted and lost data from Flash drives, memory cards and hard drives. Occurred as a result of software errors and damage to the storage medium. Working at a low level, the program allows you to recover data after a complete formatting of the storage medium. Minus - the interface is in German.
Active File Recovery recovers data lost when deleted from media or formatted. The program includes a utility for recovering partitions.
A small specialized utility for finding and recovering accidentally deleted photos and videos from memory cards of your phone, camera and any other device. Supported work with USB flash drives (flash drives)
Free convenient tool for recovering hidden data on flash drives, as well as removing flash viruses. The program will easily restore the operability of the flash drive after the virus has worked.
Have you accidentally deleted your photos on your hard drive, flash drive or camera memory card? Formatted your device or your hard drive stopped opening as a result of a system failure? This program will find, restore and save your favorite photos.
Recover deleted information from working, damaged, formatted or inaccessible NTFS partitions! The program recovers data from any device and supports any version of the NTFS file system.
FFRestorer is a program for recovering deleted files from a USB FLASH drive / memory card, or any other removable disk with the FAT16 or FAT32 file system. The program is free, easy to use and does not require installation.
It is difficult to find a user who has never had to bite his elbows, for example, after accidentally deleting an important document from a disk or an interesting picture from a memory card - this can happen in the hustle and bustle, and simply out of banal distraction. Of course, it is not a problem to restore a file deleted from the hard disk in the usual way using Windows - you just need to restore it from the trash. However, the recycle bin is cleared more and less regularly 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 not 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 end up in the trash at all - which means that they cannot be restored using the built-in Windows tools. Finally, accidentally deleting files is not the only way to lose valuable information. You can also lose important data in another way: as a result of a system failure, incorrect operations of a program, the effects of viruses, disk formatting, partition deletion, etc. In all these cases, Windows toolkit will not be able to "revive" the files.
So, should you rush to a data recovery specialist if you lose your files? Not necessary if you have a reliable utility for recovering accidentally deleted and lost files. As a rule, with its help, you can recover at least some of the information without any problems. The main thing is not to waste time and follow certain rules of the game.
File loss and recovery in a nutshell
You should not immediately put an end to accidentally deleted files, although they, for example, are not displayed in the corresponding folder of the explorer and are absent in the trash. In reality, the deleted files are still on the media, because deleting them using the operating system does not physically destroy the files. Not the body of the file is deleted, but only its header; while the clusters in which it was written are simply marked empty and can be read as long as they are not overwritten with new data. That is why deleted documents, presentations, snapshots, etc. can be recovered using specialized utilities.
Recovery of lost files is possible in a number of other situations. For example, after a quick formatting of the hard disk - after all, with such a procedure, the information about the initial recording of the 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 with damaged file allocation table, deleted partition with data, etc.
However, it would be rash 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 in no small part 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 the fragments of the corresponding files are located will be overwritten, because the operating system now perceives them as empty. After that, restoring the corresponding files will already 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, with individual saved fragments of which it will be possible to work in the future). As for the pictures, music, videos and other things recovered after partial rewriting, this, as a rule, is futile. That is why, first of all, it is necessary to prevent the possibility of overwriting the clusters - that is, do not write anything on a hard disk partition, flash drive or memory card with lost data, otherwise the chances of returning the lost information to life will be minimal.
In addition, the possibility of recovering lost data may be associated with a number of circumstances that do not depend 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 in FAT. The success of recovering a specific file also largely depends on the degree of its fragmentation: if the file is highly fragmented, then it is possible to hope (and even then with reservations) to recover it only in NTFS, 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 very full disk, which, due to circumstances, as a rule, are always highly fragmented.
It is also worth adding that none of the programs will be able to recover data after guaranteed destruction of information by means of 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 such invisible "centenarians", so there is no need to hesitate.
First, you need to stop any computer activity on the media of interest, since the operating system can overwrite deleted or lost files with some other data (even if you yourself did not write anything at all), run the utility installed on the computer to restore lost files and scan it carrier. The situation becomes more complicated when it comes to recovering data on the system disk, to which the system writes something all the time. In this case, it is optimal to remove the hard drive with the deleted files and connect it to another computer as a secondary one, and only then start the recovery process.
As a rule, in the corresponding tools a quick scan is performed by default by analyzing file records. If during this analysis the file you are looking for cannot be found (this is possible if the disk has been formatted, the partition has been deleted, etc.), then it makes sense to resort to advanced analysis. With this analysis, a deep scan of the disk is performed with a full scan of all sectors - it takes more time, but it can be more efficient. In order to speed up the process, you can resort to limiting the search area by data type (images, documents, etc.), file name, etc.
In no case should you restore data to a scanned disk, although in some 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 disk, another hard disk partition or a flash drive.
Before starting any data recovery actions, consider the possibility that the loss of files could also be caused by a physical malfunction of the device. Most of the solutions considered 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 lead to the complete impossibility of recovering important folders and files from it. Therefore, in the event of a 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 figured among the few categories, where the main part is made up of very expensive commercial products, the capabilities of which are completely incomparable with what affordable, let alone free, utilities can offer. Now the picture has changed markedly, and today, home users, if they wish, may well find effective programs on the market with which you can not only easily recover accidentally deleted folders and files, but also restore data lost as a result of quick disk formatting, partition deletion, etc. etc. It is about these - affordable or even free solutions for recovering folders and files - and 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 up to 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 disks, iPods and other storage media. The program supports file systems FAT12 / 16/32, VFAT and NTFS and is able to recover files deleted from the Windows recycle bin, find and recover lost data (due to a virus attack, power failure, accidental formatting, deleting a partition, etc.). In addition, this tool can 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 of them focuses on different data loss scenarios. The Undelete Recovery module is designed to recover files and folders deleted from the recycle bin or by 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. Supported partitions with MBR and dynamic disks: Simple Volume, Spanned Volume, Stripped Volume and RAID-5 Volume. Lost Partition Recovery module is used to recover data from a deleted or lost (for example, as a result of disk repartitioning) partition. 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. CD & DVD Recovery module is used to recover lost and deleted files from damaged, scratched or defective CD / DVD disks. 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 by quick format.
Figure: 1. MiniTool Power Data Recovery window
with five built-in modules
Despite the lack of Russian-language localization, it is not difficult to deal with 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 press the button Recover, after which the program will immediately display a list of found folders and files. In most modules, scanning can be fast or complete, the latter taking more time, but also more effective. The folders and files found during the analysis are marked with icons in the form of a cross, question, or exclamation mark - the cross is used 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 restoring.
Figure: 2. Run disk analysis for deleted files
Figure: 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 or higher) / 2003 / Vista / 7/2008
Distribution method: shareware (15-day demo version that allows you to recover no more than ten files no more than 100 KB in size - http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/file-recovery/download/)
Price:USD 49.95 (in the Allsoft.ru store - RUB 990)
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. With this utility, you can recover documents, music, photos and any other files from hard drives, floppy disks, 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 the deletion of a disk partition or quick formatting. As an additional functionality, the utility includes tools for guaranteed data deletion and disk imaging.
Recovery in Auslogics File Recovery is performed 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 zone). The program has two options for scanning: normal and deep (it is very long) - with deep scanning it is possible to recover files lost after a quick disk formatting. To speed up the scanning process, you can resort to limiting files by type, configure an exclusion 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 with an indication of the program's "opinion" regarding their state ( fig. 5). Folder structure and names, as well as file names are displayed unchanged even when deep scanned for lost data. You can preview files - pictures, photos, videos, text and PDF documents.
Figure: 4. Configuring search parameters for lost files
in Auslogics File Recovery
Figure: 5. Result of the disk scan 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, in the softkey store - 950 rubles. (we are talking about the latest Russian version of Handy Recovery 4.0)
Handy Recovery is a handy utility for recovering lost files. The program supports file systems FAT12 / 16/32/64 (ExFAT) and NTFS / NTFS 5 and can recover data from a hard disk 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, mail 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 without going through the recycle bin) , but also files corrupted by virus attacks and crashes, and files from deleted or formatted volumes. In addition to this, the utility provides the ability to create accurate disk images for delayed recovery.
In Handy Recovery, 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 advanced, which allows you to find even data when information in file records has been partially overwritten or damaged. Scanning in standard mode starts automatically immediately after launching the utility (Fig. 6), at the end of the process a list of detected folders and files will be displayed in the program window; for convenience, lost files and folders are marked with a red cross (Fig. 7). The probability of successful recovery is indicated for each file. 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 the extended scan, then they resort to it in cases when after analyzing the disk the files of interest were not found. With such a scan, you can search for strictly defined types of files (for example, images), lost file records, as well as conduct a more thorough analysis of data deleted from the dumpster (with a standard search, some of this data may not be found). The structure of the found folders and file names are displayed unchanged from the scan results.
Figure: 6. Running disk analysis in Handy Recovery
Figure: 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 and more in FAT file systems (including ExFAT) and NTFS from hard drives, as well as from any rewritable media (flash drives, external hard drives, memory cards, etc.). With this utility, you can recover accidentally deleted files, get back 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 for guaranteed data deletion. In addition to the standard edition, the utility has a portable edition that can be installed on a flash drive or external hard drive.
By default, the file recovery process is carried out under the guidance of the wizard (if desired, the automatic launch of the wizard can be easily disabled) - fig. 8; using the wizard allows you to narrow your search, limiting yourself to only searching for images, music, documents, etc. Scanning can be fast or deep. A deep scan allows you to identify a larger number of "buried" files on the analyzed disk, but it also takes much more time. If necessary, advanced users can switch to the advanced mode of operation and fine-tune the search parameters - use the filter by file type to narrow the search area, enable restoring the folder structure, etc. Upon completion of the scan, the list of deleted files is displayed in the main program window (Fig. 9 ); each file found is marked with green, yellow or red (the color indicates the chances of recovery). In advanced mode, the program additionally shows details about the file, a thumbnail image, and an estimate of the recovery quality.
Figure: 8. Run disk analysis in Recuva
Figure: 9. Result of file search through 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: is free
Pandora Recovery is a simple utility for recovering files in a wide 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 rewritten by the OS, the disk is formatted, the file allocation table is damaged or the file allocation table is missing). In addition to the free standard edition of the utility, there is a commercial portable edition of Pandora Mobile Recovery available on 1GB flash drives ($ 19.95 per disk). It does not require installation and can be run directly from a USB stick.
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 is launched 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: search for all deleted files, search for deleted files taking into account the file name, its size and creation / modification date, or a full disk scan (Deep scan ). The latter option is used to search for data on disks with corrupted file allocation tables, recently formatted disks, etc. Unfortunately, this search does not restore file names and paths to them, only certain types of files are found (images of the most common formats, MS Office documents, MP3 files, PDF documents and ZIP archives), and the scan itself takes much longer ... Also, this method only works with 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 ones in blue (Fig. 11). In addition, the program gives an estimate of the success of the recovery of the detected data as a percentage of overwriting: the higher the percentage, the less chances of successful recovery. Before restoring, you can view images of popular formats and text files.
Figure: 10. Run disk analysis in Pandora Recovery
Figure: 11. The result of searching for 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 efficiency of detecting deleted and lost files by them, which we tried to do. To do this, all the utilities under consideration were installed on one of the hard disk partitions, and a 3.7 GB flash drive was allocated for the experiment. This flash drive figured among the workers, and therefore, contained certain information - in particular, a lot of software distributions, drivers, etc. One of the driver folders contained a Chipset folder that included six subfolders with multiple subfolders and 914 files for a total of 176 MB. It was this folder that was selected as one of the test ones (of course, the contents of the folder were copied to the hard disk in advance for further analysis and comparison).
After that, the flash drive was formatted in the FAT32 file system with built-in Windows tools so that nothing was left on it. Then the Delete_files folder, which was previously prepared on the hard disk, was copied to the flash drive, which included 50 files with a total volume of 66.8 MB. The files were in a wide variety of formats, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, 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 to restore information with 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 drastically worsened the results of recovery (compare the volumes of deleted and newly written files - 66.8 and 78.4 MB), since it is highly likely that a large part of the clusters, in which the deleted files were originally located, ended up partially overwritten when copied by other data. Then we subjected the test media to the analysis of each of the utilities considered in the article in order to find accidentally deleted files (the Delete_files folder), after which, as far as possible, we tried to recover the deleted files. Finally, we conducted an experiment to identify lost files and folders (Chipset folder).
The test results show that any of the utilities considered can be successfully applied to recover newly deleted data. And it is just as obvious that the result of restoring such files after writing new information with an impressive volume to the disk (that is, when some of the sectors have been overwritten) is disappointing. All this only confirms the most important rule of recovery: do not write anything to the medium and generally stop any work with it immediately after the emergency.
As for recovering files and folders lost after formatting, the results are ambiguous. The MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition and Handy Recovery programs coped with the task best of all, but using the Recuva utilities for these purposes, and even more so Pandora Recovery, turned out to be problematic due to the lack of scanning the folder structure and file names in their reports. In addition, in Pandora Recovery, the situation is further aggravated by the fact that the list of formats supported by Deep Scanning is rather limited. Although these programs should not be disregarded anyway, they are one of the best free software products in their class, which are very easy to use and do an excellent job of recovering "freshly deleted" files.
Conclusion
Gone are the days when you always had to turn to professionals to restore lost files and this event cost a very round sum. Today, there are quite a few simple-to-use utilities on the market that allow you to recover files accidentally deleted or lost as a result of a computer failure, virus attack or other computer cataclysm. Some solutions are offered at a reasonable price 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 recover the data yourself. But if the reason for the loss of files is damage to the hard disk 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 competently and take care in advance so that such a cataclysm does not catch you by surprise. In other words, it is worth keeping at hand (that is, on the disk in the installed form) a couple of suitable utilities and, if possible, resort to information recovery as soon as possible, observing all the mandatory rules (exclude the possibility of writing other data to the medium, save the recovered files to another carrier, etc.). In addition, if you have failed with one utility, be sure to give another a chance - they have different media scanning algorithms, so it is possible that the second utility will be more successful. And finally, do not forget that no one, even the most expensive and powerful solution guarantees absolute success, and therefore no one canceled the backup of valuable data.
