Repair and restoration of hdd programs. The best programs for hard drive recovery

Key Features

• HDD surface check;
• Restoring or replacing failed sectors with functional ones;
• Unwinding the hard drive spindle;
• Reading SMART attributes;
• Stopping the hard drive spindle.

Advantages and disadvantages

• Runs under Microsoft Windows XP/2000;
• Small software size;
• High speed and high efficiency;
• Russian-language interface;
• Possibility to download software for free.

• Not detected.

Analogs

Victoria HDD is a program for a comprehensive analysis of the operation of a computer’s hard drive. Suitable for both home use and professional work. Considering some of the difficulties that an ordinary user may encounter while working with the program, it has a built-in hint system. When using this software, it is advisable to have additional hard drive cooling and a high-quality power supply.

HDDRegenerator is a unique program for recovering physically damaged disks. Eliminates bad sectors from the surface of the hard drive, does not hide them, but actually restores them. About 60% of hard drives can be regenerated using the program. As a result, unreadable and damaged information will be restored without affecting existing data.

MHDD is a multifunctional program for accurate diagnostics and repair of hard drives. The program is absolutely free and is very practical and reliable scanning. Performs a quality check of the disk for damage. The basic advantage of the software is that it works with the hard drive at a low level through the IDE controller ports.

Installation and use principles

Launch it;

The program is in progress;

HDD Master is a free program for testing and repairing hard drives. It has many advantages among analogues, so it should be in the arsenal of all PC users.

In case of accidental deletion of files, formatting of a disk, or errors in the operation of the hard drive, you need to remember:

• It is not possible to recover data using the OS itself, so we use third-party hard drive recovery programs;
• We try, if possible, not to use the disk from which we need to restore data.

Deleting files and emptying the Recycle Bin does not directly delete data on the hard drive. The reason for this is the rather lengthy process of complete removal. Therefore, in order to speed up the deletion of files, they came up with such “invisible storage” of documents. If you write another document in place of a deleted document, it will be irretrievably deleted. Therefore, if possible, of course, we do not perform any operations of copying, deleting or moving data.

• We are looking for a program that will suit our requirements.

Now we will deal with the third point.

It should also be noted that disk recovery is a rather lengthy operation. Therefore, it is worth being patient. During recovery, it is not recommended to perform any actions with files on the disk (copying, deleting, moving). Such actions can only ruin everything. If your OS is installed on a disk that needs to be restored, then the best option would be to write the program onto a flash drive or disk and boot through it, rather than through Windows.

In this article I would like to provide a list of programs for recovering data from a hard drive. These programs can be said to be universal and suitable for recovering data not only from hard drives, but also from SSDs, SD memory cards and USB flash drives.

Supported file systems: FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, HPFS, Linux Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, Linux Swap

Description:

Acronis Recovery Expert utility is included in the software package
Acronis Disk Director 11 Advanced Workstation. Provides high-quality recovery of deleted or damaged hard drive partitions. If you want to be ready to perform recovery in case of unexpected data loss, then Acronis Recovery Expert is a must-have.

The program is paid, but ordinary users have the opportunity to use a trial version. Download the program from the link below.

Main features of the program:

1. Supports a large number of file system formats;
2. The ability to launch the utility from boot disks and flash drives if the operating system cannot be loaded;
3. Simple and intuitive interface in Windows XP style;
4. Supports hard drives larger than 180 GB.

Active Partition Recovery Pro

Supported file systems: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5

Description:

A convenient program for recovering partitions of your disk. Supports a large number of file systems. Allows you not only to perform recovery, but you can even say extend the life of your disk. The program can be launched both from Windows and from DOS, by recording the program to a disk or flash drive.

The program also allows you to recover individual files, but it is mainly used to recover entire disk partitions. If the data on the disk was damaged by a virus, Active Partition Recovery Pro will allow you to restore it.
Screenshot:

HDD Regenerator

Supported OS: Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10

Description:

The program specializes in restoring damaged sectors of the hard drive. The program's working window is the command line. Quite not modern, but this utility can help in situations where the use of other programs did not help.

The program is quite easy to use, but before using it it would be a good idea to study the specifics of its operation and the functions of the program.

Screenshot:

Hetman Partition Recovery

Supported file systems: FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS

Description:

A program for recovering hard disk partitions and individual files. The program will help with accidental data deletion or formatting; it works with existing partitions, damaged and inaccessible disk partitions, allowing you to restore them.

The advantage is support for various storage devices: SD memory cards, flash drives and hard drives. Working in the program is quite convenient, it is carried out both in manual mode and in wizard mode, with which you can set up data recovery step by step.

The trial version can be downloaded from the official website of the developer.

Screenshot:

R-Studio

Supported OS: Windows 2000, XP, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1/10

Description:

A program for recovering data from flash drives, hard drives, and USB drives. Supports almost all Windows operating systems and can work with a large number of file systems.

Features of R-Studio

• File system support: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, NTFS5, HFS/HFS+, UFS1/UFS2, Ext2/Ext3/Ext4 FS;
• Creating an image of the entire recovered disk for further work with it;
• Data recovery after disk formatting or accidental deletion of files;
• Ability to save data to a network drive or other storage device.

Screenshot:

Zero Assumption Recovery

Supported OS: Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1/10

Description:

An excellent data recovery program. Recovers FAT and NTFS partitions.

ZAR works in read-only mode and does not make any changes to the recovered disk. This avoids the risk of further damage to the partition.

Screenshot:

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.

The problem of recovering a hard drive and the information stored on it is one of the most pressing problems at the moment. Due to the seriousness of the issue, it is advisable to always have on hand a tool that could troubleshoot the operation of the railway. This can be either a comprehensive program for HDD recovery or a utility capable of diagnosing specific functionality of the disk.

HDD Regenerator is a program for recovering bad sectors of a hard drive and creating recovery bootable disks. Its main advantages include a simple interface without unnecessary hassles, the ability to monitor the status of the HDD, and support for different file systems. The disadvantages are that the official version of the product costs almost $90 and that using this program you cannot recover information after formatting the hard drive. It only eliminates bad sectors and then only at the logical level.

R-Studio is a universal program that is perfect for both restoring a hard drive after formatting and restoring its damaged partitions. It works with a huge number of file systems and is one of the most effective programs for recovering lost data. Its advantages also include an intuitive interface. Well, the main disadvantage of R-Studio, just like HDD Regenerator, is the paid product license.

The program compares favorably with other analogues due to its Windows Explorer-style interface, which allows its users to easily and quickly deal with the problem. Starus Partition Recovery also has the ability to view files before restoring them and has a built-in Hex editor, which will come in handy for experienced users. The price of such convenience is 2,399 rubles - which is the main disadvantage of the program.

Acronis Disk Director

Another paid, but very convenient and effective program for restoring a hard drive after damage. It has extensive functionality and allows the user to do whatever he wants with the hard drive, from restoring damaged information to optimization. Fast, powerful, paid.

Free program for diagnosing and restoring hard drive partitions. Its main task is low-level testing of the HDD and assessment of its performance. Its main disadvantages are that the program is no longer supported by the developer and has a complex interface that will be difficult for an inexperienced user to navigate.

Conclusion

Using most of the programs reviewed, you can easily manage hard drive partitions, recover lost and deleted data, and also diagnose HDD operation. Unfortunately, almost all of them are paid, but have trial versions or demo modes. Therefore, you can try and evaluate the performance of all programs and choose the one that you like the most.

Naturally, accidental and intentional deletion of files destroys previously recorded information, which can be restored using special utilities. But you can also find cases of quick or complete formatting of hard drives, when data is believed to be deleted irrevocably, not to mention damage to the hard drives themselves. What to do in this case? This is where hard drive recovery programs come to the rescue. You can download mostly simple utilities for free. However, even they help, as they say, to bring the disk to life. Let's look at the most popular ones, including both free and paid utilities.

How does the process of deleting files from a hard drive work?

Before considering the main topic, let’s make a short digression into the theoretical part and see how information is deleted. In Windows systems, there are two ways: deleting to the Recycle Bin and without it. In the first case, the files are simply moved to a reserved area on the hard drive, so restoring them from the Recycle Bin is as easy as shelling pears.

In the second case, the first character in the name changes to unreadable ($). If during work in the clusters where such a file is located, no overwriting was performed, the information can also be restored.

The situation is worse with quick or complete formatting of disks and partitions, as well as with situations when the hard drive begins to “crumble” or is simply subject to physical damage. Many users mistakenly believe that it is impossible to recover files in this case, saying that only professional experts can do this. Nothing like this! If you use, for example, the same programs to restore Seagate Barracuda hard drives, which at one time had many problems, anyone, even an untrained user, can carry out this process. And it’s completely elementary.

Programs for restoring hard drives after formatting: can it be done?

In the case of a quick format of the hard drive, the partition tables are overwritten, and with a full format, the disk surface is also checked and bad sectors are then corrected. In this case, we are not talking about factory low-level formatting at all.

This is precisely what allows many developers to create programs for restoring hard drives, which seem to perform the reverse process. This gives the same recovery effect. But first things first.

The best hard drive recovery programs

As for the most famous utilities today, a sample list might look like this:

• Victoria HDD;
• R.Saver and R-Studio;
• HDD Regenerator;
• Acronis Recovery Expert and Active Partition Recovery Pro;
• Hetman Partition Recovery;
• Zero Assumption Recovery.

Naturally, it is impossible to provide a complete list, since today you can find hundreds of such software products. But let’s look at the above utilities in a little more detail.

Victoria HDD

If we consider the most popular programs for recovering hard drives and disk partitions, the leadership certainly belongs to one of the most powerful utilities of our time called Victoria HDD, developed by Sergey Kazansky.

The program has five levels of hard drive testing, is capable of identifying and displaying faulty areas, eliminating errors, plotting surface condition graphs, measuring performance, etc. The operating modes also look interesting. The application can be run in a regular graphical shell, or you can use a somewhat unusual DOS mode. By the way, it is with such a test that the most powerful effect is achieved.

R.Saver and R-Studio

These two programs for recovering hard drives from flash drives work just fine and are very similar to each other. They can even be used as portable versions.

The main advantage of these utilities is that they support almost all file systems known today and are capable of recovering data on any type of media, including even formatted or damaged memory cards.

HDD Regenerator

This utility is relatively new among all programs. It is designed specifically for restoring bad sectors and, as the developers themselves say, even for resuscitating the surface of the hard drive.

The latest technology of so-called magnetization reversal is used here, which allows you to completely restore the hard drive and the information that was previously recorded on it. It works, however, only in DOS mode, which causes some confusion among many. In addition, the technology itself looks almost unrealistic, because some people cannot imagine how a surface can be remagnetized using software. Nevertheless, everyone who has encountered it expresses only admiration - the application is able to revive even completely “dead” disks.

Acronis Recovery Expert and Active Partition Recovery Pro

Here are two representatives of the family of HDD recovery utilities. The peculiarity of these applications is that they support a large number of file systems and hard drives.

In addition, they provide a mode for creating bootable media, with which you can fix many problems if starting the operating system from a problematic hard drive is impossible.

True, the first utility is paid, the second is not. But the second application is also interesting because it can be launched from both DOS and Windows.

Hetman Partition Recovery

Another USB device or memory card and the information stored on it is interesting because it can work with all types of virtual partitions. It goes without saying that data can be recovered even after full formatting.

But the most important thing is that the program can work both in manual mode and in “Wizard” mode, which allows any user to automate the entire recovery process.

Zero Assumption Recovery

Finally, one more small and fairly simple application, abbreviated as ZAR. This program is designed primarily for restoring FAT and NTFS file systems, although it can also be used for Linux. For Windows system users, it is perfect.

But here it is worth considering that in this case we are talking exclusively about recovering information (even from bad sectors). In this case, the program does not make any corrections on the hard drive itself after analysis.

Conclusion

Of course, only the most basic programs were considered here. When choosing a program, you should be guided by the situation itself, that is, choose which operation should be used (recovering information or eliminating failures on the hard drive itself), and only then make a decision about using one or another utility.