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Recovering deleted files. Utilities for recovering accidentally deleted and lost files

Losing data on a hard drive, flash drive or phone is a very serious problem that probably everyone has encountered. Therefore, data recovery afterward is a very pressing task, which, fortunately, has many solutions.

Why might data be lost?

Data is lost for the following main reasons:

  • Accidental deletion by the user himself or by any program launched by him.
  • Due to the impact of malware or, more simply, a virus.
  • Physical failure of the disk itself.
  • Incorrect shutdown, which also leads to damage to the file system on the disk.

The first two cases are normal data deletion, and there will be only one solution to the problem. If the disk itself is faulty, for example, its physical structure or logical table is damaged, then it will be more difficult to recover the data.

Physical disk failure is very easy to recognize. Usually it is expressed in the disappearance of an entire section. The flash drive may not be detected by the computer at all, and if the disk with the system is damaged, then as a result the machine will not boot, showing on a black screen the absence of a partition from which it could boot. In this case, restoring lost data will require the use of special programs and utilities, or even professional equipment.

What you are prohibited from doing if your data is missing

It may take some time before you start recovering your lost data. During this time, to avoid complete loss of data, you should not:

  • Record something on a hard drive or external storage device, or use it in any way.
  • If the disk with the system is damaged, then it is better not to restart the computer again or not try to turn it on at all.
  • Any system suggestions for formatting, error correction, or disk defragmentation should be rejected.
  • It is best to connect the disk or flash drive to a computer where it will not be used as the main one.

Where is deleted data stored on the computer?

Even after deleting and formatting, the data on the computer is not completely lost. In fact, they are physically present on the disk for a long time, they simply receive status 0 in the file table. They remain there even after emptying the recycle bin, exactly until something needs to be written to this place. This is why it is very important not to download anything onto your hard drive if you have lost any information. Only then will recovery of lost data be possible. Otherwise they will disappear forever.

When recovering lost or deleted data is impossible

There are also such unpleasant situations when it is no longer possible to recover lost data. These include:

  • Reinstalling the system on a computer with formatting the hard drives. Here the formatting is done completely.
  • Filling the hard drive with more data after the information has been deleted.
  • A serious physical breakdown that cannot be corrected either by software or, for example, such as a broken hard drive head.

Unfortunately, in this case, it will most likely not be possible to recover your lost data even in a service center.

Lost data recovery program

The easiest way to recover deleted or lost data is to use special programs at home. They are different, but mainly work in two directions - they eliminate physical and logical disk errors or restore data that was accidentally deleted or formatted. Programs differ in functionality, and it happens that different software should be used in different cases.

"Victoria"

This free program perfectly evaluates the performance of the hard drive, tests it, and also performs minor repairs. Its main feature is checking the disk directly, directly through the ports. Due to this, with the help of this program it is possible to bring back to life even absolutely seemingly hopeless HDDs. It has many advantages:

  • Distributed free of charge.
  • Effectively recovers lost or deleted data.
  • It works very quickly.
  • Runs without installation.
  • Has a small size.
  • It runs in AHCI mode, so there is no need to change BIOS settings.
  • Supports many different tests.

W.D.

This utility from Western Digital initially served only this company. Now it can be used to diagnose HDDs from other companies. The utility allows you to restore hard drives and even store information on a separate cloud server. Except that it works somewhat slowly with large-capacity hard drives.

Regenerator

This small, simple utility is very easy to use. It allows you to eliminate even a large number of bad sectors, that is, physical damage. Such a serious recovery is possible because the program uses a new algorithm for magnetization reversal and serial signals. What’s nice is that when working with a hard drive, this utility recovers lost data very accurately, without affecting other information on the computer in any way.

HDD Master

There is no special installation required for this small, free utility. It allows you to recover lost hard drive data, fix most hard drive problems, and carry out a lot of testing. Despite its small size, the program has many functions - for example, it can stop or start the HDD spindle.

Acronis

Acronis is a very large set of programs that allow you to perform various actions with hard drives. There are programs for partitioning disks and tools; however, we are interested in a utility that allows you to scan and restore hard drives. Acronis is easy to learn and affordable, which is why many users use it today.

Program from Seagate

If you use a Seagate hard drive, you can test and restore it using special programs. There are quite a few of them, but the best is Seagate File Recovey. It has a simple interface and supports many different memory tests. By the way, it also works with hard drives of other media, although it is still more effective with Seagate drives.

Using the Seagate File Recovey program, you can scan your hard drive, fix errors, and even recover information. In addition, the program supports working with memory cards and flash drives, and recovery data can be previewed. A significant advantage is the ability to read and restore even encrypted information.

The programs listed below do not deal with physical disk failures - they simply help restore data that you deleted accidentally or on purpose.

Recuva

This application recovers data after deletion and is very popular among users. You can download Recuva for free, and it weighs very little. The program easily works not only with HDDs, but also with flash cards, as well as memory cards. This program recovers data almost completely automatically, but the user is given the opportunity to choose which files to restore. For example, if you have lost photos, you can mark them specifically, and other previously deleted files will not be restored.

Recuva recovers data very quickly, but it also has several disadvantages. It usually does a good job if the media was no longer used after the files were lost. That is, if new data was written there after that, then there is a chance that you will lose your files forever. Recuva also does not recover data from formatted media.

UndeletePlus

UndeletePlus is a simple program that recovers lost data quickly and efficiently. It works with both HDD and external drives. For the convenience of users, the program has a special wizard that will allow you not to miss anything. It can also recover certain types of data, and can even recover information lost due to formatting.

R-studio

R-studio is a very effective program that allows you to quickly and efficiently recover lost data. The disadvantage is that it is paid, but the functionality of the program is very wide. She can:

  • Completely recover data from HDDs, flash drives and even DVDs and floppy disks.
  • Return RAID arrays, including RAID-6, to operation.
  • Bring back to life disks with damage and logical errors.
  • Recover partitions after formatting.
  • Work with Mac OS, Linux and Windows partitions, both FAT and NTFS.

R-studio is a program for real professionals, and it even copes with cases when the system displays the message “The disk is not formatted.” Also, restoring formatted data is not a problem for her. What’s good is that you can run it from a disk or bootable flash drive if your system itself suddenly doesn’t start. True, an inexperienced user may get confused in such a complex program.

Which program is better

  • For mild cases of data loss due to deletion, Recuva is suitable.
  • If any errors are detected in the hard drive and the disk is not readable at all, then Victoria would be a good option.
  • If you need professional data recovery and disk partitioning, then you should choose Acronis.
  • If you regularly restore data and work a lot with disks, or have lost some very important information, then you should resort to the help of R-studio.

Other programs in general are also very good and can help you out of seemingly hopeless situations.

Recovering Data Using Boot Disks

If you have any problems and the system does not boot, but there is data on the system disk, then there is a high probability that it is not damaged. However, you can only remove them if you insert the disc into another device. What if you don’t know how to do this or don’t want the extra fuss? You can try using boot disks or flash drives.

Bootable media is the one from which you can install the operating system. For some operating systems, for example, Linux Ubuntu, such media also allows you to boot an OS with limited functions, but with access to the hard drive. As a result, you will just need to copy all important data to another disk or flash drive.

Data recovery on Android devices

If you have lost data on a device running the Android operating system (and in the device’s memory, and not on a flash drive), then special programs will be required for recovery. The best ones:

  • Wondershare Dr. Fone, which also lets you get your notes and contacts back;
  • 7-Data Android Recovery, similar in interface to the Recuva program.

Both of them are intuitive - just install them on your computer and connect your phone via USB.

Physical recovery at home

Sometimes recovering lost flash drive data can be done at home, even if recovery programs did not help you.

Sometimes it happens that the computer or phone is simply because her contacts are dirty. In this case, it will be enough to carefully wipe them with alcohol or vodka. Sometimes this method turns out to be quite effective. The main thing is not to use alcohol tinctures, perfumes or other liquids with impurities for these purposes. Even cologne will not be the best option.

Visit to a professional

If all of the above programs and methods did not help you, then the only option is professional data recovery.

Special data recovery laboratories will help you recover lost files, even from heavily damaged media. Moreover, this is done not with the help of some special programs, but by physical means. For flash cards, for example, the memory chip is soldered off and the data is read directly from it. And for hard drives, they try to replace damaged parts, for example, read heads, or also extract information directly from magnetic tape.

Almost all of these methods involve a complete breakdown of the flash card or hard drive itself, but the data will be guaranteed to be returned to you, and sometimes it is much more important than any storage media.

How to avoid data loss

Instead of restoring data on your computer, it is much easier to try to avoid data loss. To do this, several actions can be taken:

  • Try not to suddenly turn off the computer's power - always turn it off through “Start”, by shutting down the work.
  • Handle your computer hard drive or flash drive carefully. They should not be subjected to physical stress or shock, as this can easily lead to failure.
  • On a computer connected to the Internet, be sure to use an antivirus.
  • Keep backup copies of your most important data on several media and in cloud storage - then even a hard drive failure will not be too scary for you.

Recover lost information on your hard drive.

Let's consider the entire process of recovering information deleted from a storage medium using the unique “EasyRecovery” program as an example. The good news is that this program has a fairly easy-to-use interface, so working with it will be convenient for you and there should be no problems during recovery.

Let's look at the cases in which the EasyRecovery program will help you recover information: this is if you accidentally deleted it, as a result of various virus attacks, the loss of your files due to power surges or simply a sudden power outage.

Also caused by errors of various programs, during the creation of various partitions, when you turned off your computer incorrectly. Further, in case of all kinds of violations of the general structure of the file system, the program will be able to help you even when you have formatted the hard drives on your computer.

First, let's take a look at the main menu of the program, which is located on the left. We will see that the program allows you to diagnose your hard drive, recover files, and recover e-mail messages.

Click on the “Data Recovery” menu item. The program will ask us what type of lost information we need to recover. Select the “Deleted Recovery” item.

The program will scan all partitions of your hard drive and prompt you to choose which one to search for the file in. To make it easier to find the file you need, and also save time, you can use a mask, that is, set the search only for files of a certain type.

After you complete all this, the program will begin searching for the erased information. At the end of the search, the program will give you all the files found, and all you have to do is tick the file you need and click on the “Next” button. The program will ask you to indicate where to save the recovered file. Click the “Next” button again and wait for our file to be restored.

That’s it, this completes the process of restoring information deleted from the storage medium.

Sometimes it happens that if a file is lost, the system simply refuses to start for you, in this case, the uniqueness of the EasyRecovery program also lies in the fact that it can create a boot floppy disk, by loading which you can also calmly and without fuss restore everything what you need by simply transferring the files to another hard drive on your computer. Undoubtedly, it is worth noting another feature of the program when it recovers files from DOS and Windows modes from version 9x to Vista.

If you want to see the program in Russian, then you need to do several steps:

After downloading the program to your computer, open the ZIP file and find readme.txt. Then follow the instructions.

After installing the program, copy the Language folder and two files (EasyRecovery.exe and diags.dll) to the program folder, replacing the originals.

After you launch the program, go to Properties and select the French language, run the program again and you have the Russian Version.

From now on, make sure that no one accidentally deletes your information, and be careful yourself.

You can also try the following programs:

Excellent at recovering deleted and overwritten Excel files, Word Data Recovery Wizard Pro will scan the entire disk to find the contents of the deleted worksheet in previously saved copies or backup files. If the contents of an Excel document have been overwritten, it will be restored from fragments of previously saved versions of the file.

To recover files from disk, follow these steps:

1.Click "AdvancedRecovery" on the main window of Data Recovery Wizard.

2.You can see a list of all logical volumes found on your computer.

3.Select one of them and click "Next" (if you know the details of the files, you can change the "OPTION" before clicking "Next").

4. Data Recovery Wizard will read from the file system on the selected volume.

5.This step may take some time depending on the size of your disk space. Wait a while for the scan to complete.

6. Otherwise, the recovered data wizard will not be able to find and recover lost Excel files.

7.After scanning is completed, you will see the files/folders tree.

8.You can click the "Search" or "Filter" button to see the search for Office documents and right-click to view the Excel file.

9. Select the file or folder you want to recover and click "Next".

Everything is successfully completed!

Note: You can also use "RAWRecovery" to recover lost files.

Attention: Do not save recovered files to the partition from which data was restored, this may lead to data overwriting and may lead to data loss!

GetDataBack 3.03

A product from Runtime Software designed to recover data as a result of its deletion, damage to the boot sector and file allocation table, system errors in the file system or disk formatting.

The utility can handle not only hard drives, but also other external drives (Flash cards, ZIP drives, etc.). GetDataBack is available in two versions - each file system has its own version.

The cost of a utility for working with FAT is ten dollars lower than for NTFS. Among the interesting features of the program, I would like to mention the ability to work with a damaged disk over a local network or through a COM port (for more information about this, see the developer’s website), in addition, the program can restore directories and files whose names contain Russian letters.

Ontrack EasyRecovery Professional v6.10.07

The EasyRecovery family of programs is a complete solution for recovering lost data, damaged files and diagnosing hard drives.

The EasyRecovery family includes products such as the basic EasyRecovery DataRecovery toolkit, the EasyRecovery EmailRepair local email recovery utility, the more complex and powerful EasyRecovery FileRepair tool, and the most advanced version of the EasyRecovery Professional program.

The latest product includes a unique diagnostic tool, Ontrack Data Advisor, as well as advanced features for hard drive data recovery.

Recover My Files 3.94.3514 rus

Yesterday I had to use this program - I foolishly erased an entire directory, more than a gigabyte in size, onto the screw. Of course, I deleted everything in addition to the trash bin, but this program found and restored everything. What’s especially nice is that not only the files themselves were restored, but also their main attributes - names, location folders, etc.

I would like to note a convenient system for filtering what is found - after all, on a large hard drive, with active use, many deleted files accumulate that can be restored (to the delight of spies, but usually only something specific needs to be restored... I was particularly pleased with the clear Russian interface - it’s a pity that there is no help translation.

R-Studio 3.0.123025 rus

This is one of the most feature-rich programs for recovering deleted data. The program is easy to use; it can recover lost data on hard drives not only with the FAT file system, but also with NTFS. R-Studio is a product that can be recommended to professionals, because the capabilities, as well as the principles of operation of this program, are somewhat different from the previous ones.

The advantage of this program is that it understands well the names of files and directories in Cyrillic, in most cases correctly saving not only long names, but also the structure of the directory tree. And besides this, using R-Studio you can also create disk image files and restore them in case of problems. R-Studio can also save and restore data from a disk image, and restore data over a local network.

During its work, R-Studio uses a unique, according to the developers, Intelligent Scan technology, which allows not only to revive deleted files, but also to recreate data on disks on which the file system has been changed (for example, instead of NTFS it has become FAT or vice versa). Moreover, R-Studio can restore both file systems. The program can also work over a network, which system administrators will especially appreciate.

Restorer2000 Pro 2.0.120114 rus

This product from the software company BitMart can handle formatted disks and other pains of life, including the recovery of files with alternative data streams (ADS - alternative data streams) or compressed using NTFS.

The program version is not the newest, but stable and Russified. In addition, the number of programs that can recover files after formatting a disk can be counted on the fingers of one hand...

All programs are designed for Recovering deleted files, but it’s up to you to choose which one to use.

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 up 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.

It is difficult to find a user who has never had to bite their elbows, for example, after accidentally deleting an important document from a disk or an interesting photo from a memory card - this can happen in the hustle and bustle, or simply due to banal absent-mindedness. Of course, bringing a file deleted from your hard drive in the usual way back to life using Windows is not a problem - you just need to restore it from the recycle bin. However, the Recycle Bin is more or less regularly emptied by special cleaning utilities, and data is often deleted bypassing the Recycle Bin using the Shift + Del key combination (in order to save time and space) - in this case, it will no longer be possible to restore an accidentally deleted file from the Recycle Bin using Windows tools. As for deleting files from USB drives and memory cards, they do not go into the recycle bin at all - which means that it is impossible to restore them using the built-in Windows tools. And finally, accidentally deleting files is not the only way to lose valuable information. You can lose important data in other ways: as a result of a system failure, incorrect operations of a particular program, exposure to viruses, formatting a disk, deleting a partition, etc. In all these cases, Windows tools will not be able to “revive” the files.

So, should you immediately rush to a data recovery specialist when you lose your files? It is not at all necessary if you have a reliable utility to recover accidentally deleted and lost files. As a rule, with its help you can restore at least part of the information without any problems. The main thing is not to waste time and follow certain rules of the game.

In a nutshell about file loss and recovery

You shouldn’t immediately give up on accidentally deleted files, although they, for example, are not displayed in the corresponding Explorer folder and are not in the Recycle Bin. In reality, deleted files still remain on the media, since deleting them using the operating system does not physically destroy the files. It is not the body of the file that is deleted, but only its header; while the clusters in which it was written are simply marked empty and can be read until they are overwritten by new data. That is why deleted documents, presentations, pictures, etc. can be recovered using specialized utilities.

Recovering lost files is also possible in a number of other situations. For example, after quickly formatting a hard drive - after all, with such a procedure, information about the initial recording of allocated files is reset (for example, in NTFS - in the MFT area), and all other areas of the disk remain unchanged. Some utilities can also recover data from disks that have a damaged file allocation table, a deleted data partition, etc.

However, it would be reckless to say unequivocally that any file (even just deleted from the recycle bin) can always be restored. Alas, this is not the case, and failure is largely due to incorrect user actions. The fact is that any computer activity on a disk from which data was accidentally deleted can lead to the fact that the clusters in which fragments of the corresponding files are located will be overwritten, because the operating system now perceives them as empty. After this, restoring the corresponding files will be more than problematic. Of course, with partial rewriting, a number of utilities restore such files, but it is not at all a fact that such files can then be used (the exception is text documents, individual saved fragments of which can be worked with in the future). As for pictures, music, videos and other things restored after partial re-recording, this is usually futile. That is why, first of all, it is necessary to prevent the possibility of overwriting clusters - that is, do not write anything to a hard drive partition, flash drive or memory card with lost data, otherwise the chances of returning lost information to life will become minimal.

In addition, the possibility of recovering lost data may be associated with a number of circumstances that are no longer dependent on the user at the time of recovery. Thus, the chances of success are higher when recovering files from media formatted in the NTFS file system rather than FAT. The success of restoring a particular file also largely depends on the degree of its fragmentation: if the file is highly fragmented, then you can only hope (and even then with reservations) for its recovery in the NTFS system, but on FAT media it is most likely pointless. Naturally, for this reason, it is especially difficult to recover very large, frequently overwritten files on a heavily filled disk, which, due to circumstances, as a rule, always turn out to be highly fragmented.

It is also worth adding that none of the programs will be able to recover data after guaranteed destruction of information using specialized solutions, as well as low-level formatting.

How to recover files

The most important thing is to start recovering accidentally deleted and lost files as quickly as possible (ideally, immediately after deleting the file), although in practice there are often cases of recovering even long-lost data. However, there is no guarantee that the document you need will be among these invisible “long-livers”, so you should not hesitate.

First, you need to stop any computer activity on the media of interest, since the operating system can write some other data in place of deleted or lost files (even if you yourself did not write anything down at all), run the utility installed on your computer to recover lost files and scan it carrier. The situation becomes more complicated when we are talking about restoring data on the system disk, to which the system is constantly writing something. In this case, it is optimal to remove the hard drive with deleted files and connect it to another computer as a secondary one, and only then begin the recovery process.

As a rule, the default tools in the corresponding tools are a quick scan, carried out by analyzing file records. If during such an analysis the required file cannot be found (this is possible if the disk has been formatted, the partition has been deleted, etc.), then it makes sense to resort to advanced analysis. With this analysis, a deep scan of the disk is carried out with a complete scan of all sectors - it takes more time, but can be more effective. In order to speed up the process, you can resort to limiting the search area by data type (images, documents, etc.), file name, etc.

Under no circumstances should you restore data to a scanned disk, although in a number of solutions this is possible (again, due to the danger of overwriting the sectors of interest). Therefore, usually the recovered data is saved to another hard drive, another hard drive partition, or a flash drive.

Before you begin any data recovery efforts, you should consider the possibility that the loss of files may also be caused by a physical malfunction of the device. Most of the solutions discussed in this article will not be able to help in this case, and the process of recovering information in such situations requires certain professional knowledge and experience. In addition, further work with a faulty device may make it completely impossible to recover important folders and files from it. Therefore, in case of loss of critical information, it is wiser to abandon independent experiments and immediately contact specialists.

Utilities for recovering lost files

Until recently, utilities for recovering lost files were among the few categories where the bulk were very expensive commercial products, the capabilities of which are completely incomparable to what affordable, let alone free, utilities can offer. Now the picture has changed noticeably, and today home users, if they wish, can easily find effective programs on the market with which they can not only easily recover accidentally deleted folders and files, but also bring back to life data lost as a result of quickly formatting a disk, deleting a partition, and etc. It is precisely these - affordable or even free solutions for recovering folders and files - that will be discussed in this article.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery 6.6

Developer: MiniTool Solution Ltd

Distribution size: 5.64 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/7

Distribution method: shareware (http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/download.html)

Price: Commercial license - $119; Personal license - $59; Free Edition - free (allows you to recover no more than 1 GB of data; only for personal or home use)

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a comprehensive solution for recovering data from hard drives (IDE, SATA, SCSI, USB), memory cards, flash drives, CD/DVD and Blue-ray drives, iPods and other storage media. The program supports FAT12/16/32, VFAT and NTFS file systems and can recover files deleted from the Windows Recycle Bin, find and restore lost data (due to a virus attack, power failure, accidental formatting, partition deletion, etc.). Additionally, you can use this tool to recover data from damaged hard drives, as well as damaged, scratched, or defective CD/DVDs.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery includes five built-in data recovery modules: Undelete Recovery, Damaged Partition Recovery, Lost Partition Recovery, Digital Media Recovery and CD & DVD Recovery (Fig. 1). Each one focuses on different data loss scenarios. The Undelete Recovery module is designed to recover files and folders deleted from the Recycle Bin or using the Shift+Del combination. Works with hard and flash drives, as well as memory cards. Damaged Partition Recovery tool allows you to recover lost data from existing but damaged or formatted partitions. Partitions with MBR and dynamic disks are supported: Simple Volume, Spanned Volume, Stripped Volume and RAID-5 Volume. The Lost Partition Recovery module is used to recover data from a deleted or lost (for example, as a result of disk repartition) partition. The Digital Media Recovery module recovers data from digital multimedia devices (flash drives, flash cards, memory cards, iPods, etc.) and is focused on recovering lost or deleted photos (including in RAW format), music (mp3 files, MP4 files) and video files. The CD & DVD Recovery module is used to recover lost and deleted files from damaged, scratched or defective CD/DVD discs. This module works with various types of CD/DVD (CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD-RW), supports multisession discs, some UDF discs (recorded using DirectCD, InCD , packetCD) and can recover data from RW disks formatted using quick format.

Rice. 1. MiniTool Power Data Recovery window
with five built-in modules

Despite the lack of Russian-language localization, it is not difficult to understand the nuances of recovering deleted and lost files in this utility, since all operations are performed under the control of a step-by-step wizard. For example, in the simplest case - when recovering accidentally deleted files - you just need to activate the Undelete Recovery module, specify the device to be scanned (Fig. 2) and click the button Recover, after which the program will immediately display a list of found folders and files. In most modules, scanning can be quick or full, the latter takes more time but is also more effective. Folders and files found during the analysis are marked with icons in the form of a cross, a question or an exclamation mark - the cross serves to indicate accidentally deleted files, and other icons indicate lost data and RAW files, respectively (Fig. 3). Images and text files can be viewed directly from the utility before recovery.

Rice. 2. Run disk analysis for deleted files

Rice. 3. Presentation of scan results
in MiniTool Power Data Recovery

Auslogics File Recovery 3.3

Developer: Auslogics Software Pty Ltd

Distribution size: 3.69 MB

Work under control: Windows XP(SP2 and above)/2003/Vista/7/2008

Distribution method: shareware (15-day demo version that allows you to recover no more than ten files no larger than 100 KB in size - http://www.auslogics.com/ru/software/file-recovery/download/)

Price:$49.95 (in the Allsoft.ru store - 990 rub.)

Auslogics File Recovery (formerly Auslogics Emergency Recovery) is a program for recovering accidentally deleted files, as well as files lost due to viruses or system failures. Using this utility, you can recover documents, music, photos and any other files from hard drives, floppy drives, USB drives and flash memory cards. In this case, you can recover not only files accidentally deleted in the usual way, but also files lost during deletion of a disk partition or quick formatting. As additional functionality, the utility includes tools for guaranteed data deletion and creating disk images.

Recovery in Auslogics File Recovery is carried out under the guidance of a wizard (Fig. 4) and does not require any effort from the user (it is enough to decide on the media, file types, analysis option and, if necessary, set restrictions on the search area). The program has two scanning options: normal and deep (it is very long) - with deep scanning, it is possible to recover files lost after a quick formatting of the disk. To speed up the scanning process, you can resort to limiting files by type, setting up an exception list that includes files and folders that will be ignored during scanning, etc. Files found during the search are displayed in the main program window, indicating the program’s “opinion” regarding their status ( Fig. 5). The structure and names of folders, as well as file names, are displayed unchanged even during a deep scan for lost data. You can preview files - pictures, photographs, videos, text and PDF documents.

Rice. 4. Configuring settings for searching for lost files
in Auslogics File Recovery

Rice. 5. Result of disk scanning by the program
Auslogics File Recovery

Handy Recovery 5.5

Developer: SoftLogica

Distribution size: 2 MB

Work under control: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/Me/XP/2003/Vista/7

Distribution method: shareware (30-day demo version that allows you to recover one file per day - http://www.handyrecovery.com/download.shtml)

Price: 49 dollars, in the Softkey store - 950 rubles. (we are talking about the latest Russian-language version of Handy Recovery 4.0)

Handy Recovery is a convenient utility for recovering lost files. The program supports FAT12/16/32/64(ExFAT) and NTFS/NTFS 5 file systems and can recover data from a hard drive or other storage media, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and SecureDigital memory cards. The range of recoverable files covers a variety of formats: MS Office documents, archive files, email databases (Outlook and Eudora), photos, music and video files, etc. At the same time, you can recover not only accidentally deleted files (deleted from the recycle bin, deleted bypassing the recycle bin) , but also files damaged as a result of virus attacks and crashes, and files from deleted or formatted volumes. In addition to this, the utility provides the ability to create exact disk images for delayed recovery.

In Handy Recovery, the developers have implemented two scanning modes: standard (produced by analyzing file records and helps to recover deleted files if these records were not damaged) and extended, which allows you to find even data when the information in file records has been partially overwritten or damaged. Scanning in standard mode starts automatically immediately after starting the utility (Fig. 6); at the end of the process, a list of identified folders and files will be displayed in the program window; For convenience, lost files and folders are marked with a red cross (Fig. 7). For each file, the probability of its successful recovery is indicated. The contents of a number of files (Word and Excel documents, graphic and text files, archives) can be viewed before recovery in the preview window. As for advanced scanning, it is resorted to in cases where, after analyzing the disk, the files of interest were not found. With such scanning, you can search for strictly defined types of files (for example, images), lost file records, and also conduct a more thorough analysis of data deleted from the recycle bin (with a standard search, some of such data may not be found). The structure of the found folders and file names based on the scan results are displayed unchanged.

Rice. 6. Run disk analysis in Handy Recovery

Rice. 7. Display of data found during analysis
in Handy Recovery

Recuva 1.43

Developer: Piriform Ltd

Distribution size: 2.44 MB

Work under control: Windows 98/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7

Distribution method: commercialware (http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download)

Price: Business - $34.95; Home - $24.95; Free - free

Recuva is a very easy-to-use file recovery utility from the developers of popular solutions such as CCleaner and Defraggler. This tool allows you to recover photos, documents, music files, videos, etc. in FAT (including ExFAT) and NTFS file systems from hard drives, as well as from any rewritable media (flash drives, external hard drives, memory cards, etc.). Using this utility, you can recover accidentally deleted files, return files that were deleted as a result of system errors, crashes or virus attacks, and also try to recover files from formatted or damaged disks. Additionally, the program can be used to ensure guaranteed data deletion. In addition to the standard edition, the utility has a portable edition, which can be installed on a flash drive or external hard drive.

By default, the file recovery process is carried out under the guidance of a wizard (if desired, it is easy to disable the automatic launch of the wizard) - fig. 8; using the wizard allows you to narrow the search area, limiting yourself to only searching for images, music, documents, etc. The scan can be quick or deep. Deep scanning allows you to identify a larger number of files “buried” on the analyzed disk, but it also takes much more time. If necessary, advanced users can switch to the advanced operating mode and fine-tune the search parameters - use a filter by file type to narrow the search area, enable folder structure restoration, etc. Upon completion of the scan, a list of deleted files is displayed in the main program window (Fig. 9 ); Each file found is marked in green, yellow or red (the color indicates the chances of recovery). In advanced mode, the program additionally shows details about the file, an image thumbnail, and an assessment of the quality of the restoration.

Rice. 8. Run disk analysis in Recuva

Rice. 9. Result of searching files via Recuva

Pandora Recovery 2.1.1

Developer: Pandora Corp.

Distribution size: 3.11 MB

Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista

Distribution method: freeware (http://www.pandorarecovery.com/download/)

Price: for free

Pandora Recovery is a simple utility for recovering files in a variety of formats: photos, music, videos, documents, etc. The program supports FAT16/32, NTFS, NTFS5 and NTFS/EFS file systems and allows you to recover data from local, network drives and flash drives. It is possible to recover accidentally deleted files, as well as lost ones (if the MFT record was repeatedly overwritten by the OS, the disk is formatted, the file allocation table is damaged or is missing). In addition to the free standard edition of the utility, there is a commercial portable edition of Pandora Mobile Recovery, distributed on 1 GB flash drives ($19.95 per disc). It does not require installation and can be launched directly from a USB drive.

File recovery, as a rule, is carried out under the guidance of a step-by-step wizard, and this process does not cause any difficulties, especially since the wizard starts automatically when the program is loaded. To start the search, you need to specify the disk and select the file search method (Fig. 10) - there are three options here: search for all deleted files, search for deleted files taking into account the file name, its size and date of creation/modification, or a full scan of the disk (Deep scan ). The latter option is used to search for data on disks with a corrupted file allocation table, recently formatted disks, etc. Unfortunately, with such a search, file names and paths are not restored, only certain types of files are detected (images of the most common formats, MS Office documents, MP3 files, PDF documents and ZIP archives), and the scanning itself takes much longer . Additionally, this method only works on unfragmented files. Found deleted and lost files are marked with red crosses, while the names of files with partially or completely overwritten clusters are displayed in red, the names of encrypted (EFS) files in green, and compressed files in blue (Fig. 11). In addition, the program provides an assessment of the success of recovery of detected data in the form of a percentage of overwrites: the higher the percentage, the less chance of successful recovery. Before recovery, you can view images of popular formats and text files.

Rice. 10. Run disk analysis in Pandora Recovery

Rice. 11. Result of searching files through Pandora Recovery

Testing utilities

It was very interesting to try in practice to evaluate various programs for recovering lost data in terms of scanning speed and the effectiveness of their identification of deleted and lost files, which is what we tried to do. To do this, all the utilities in question were installed on one of the hard drive partitions, and a 3.7 GB flash drive was allocated for the experiment. This flash drive was among the working ones, and therefore contained certain information - in particular, a lot of software distributions, drivers, etc. In one of the driver folders there was a Chipset folder, which included six subfolders with numerous subfolders and 914 files with a total volume of 176 MB. It was this folder that was selected as one of the test folders (of course, the contents of the folder for further analysis and comparison were copied to the hard drive in advance).

After that, the flash drive was formatted in the FAT32 file system using the built-in Windows tools so that nothing was left on it. Then the Delete_files folder, previously prepared on the hard drive, was copied to the flash drive, including 50 files with a total volume of 66.8 MB. The files were in a variety of formats, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files, ZIP, RAR and 7z archives, images (JPEG, TIFF, RAW, etc.), applications, music (MP3, WAV, MID) , ISO images, SWF files, AVI videos, etc. Then all files from the Delete_files folder were deleted, bypassing the trash (Shift + Del). After that, we conducted the first experiment on information recovery using each of the software solutions. The results are presented in the table.

At the next stage, in order to complicate the task, five new files with a total volume of 78.4 MB were written to the root directory of the flash drive. Obviously, the last operation should have significantly worsened the recovery results (compare the volumes of deleted and newly written files - 66.8 and 78.4 MB), since there is a high probability that a considerable part of the clusters in which the deleted files were originally located ended up partially overwritten when copied with other data. Then we subjected the experimental media to analysis by each of the utilities discussed in the article to search for accidentally deleted files (the Delete_files folder), and then, to the extent possible, we tried to recover the deleted files. Finally, we conducted an experiment to identify lost files and folders (Chipset folder).

Based on the testing results, it is clear that any of the utilities discussed can be successfully used to recover newly deleted data. And it is equally obvious that the result of restoring such files after writing new information to disk with an impressive volume (that is, when some sectors were overwritten) is disappointing. All this only confirms the most important recovery rule: do not write anything to the media and generally stop any work with it immediately after an emergency.

As for recovering files and folders lost after formatting, the results are mixed. The MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition and Handy Recovery programs coped with the task best, but using Recuva utilities for these purposes, and even more so Pandora Recovery, turned out to be problematic due to the lack of folder structure and file names in their scanning reports. In addition, in Pandora Recovery the situation is further aggravated by the fact that the list of formats supported during Deep scanning is quite limited. Although you shouldn’t discount these programs anyway - these are some of the best free software products in their class, which are very easy to use and do an excellent job of restoring “freshly deleted” files.

Conclusion

Gone are the days when you always had to turn to professionals to recover lost files and this undertaking cost a very large sum. Today, there are many fairly easy-to-use utilities on the market that allow you to return files that were accidentally deleted or lost as a result of a computer failure, virus attack, or other computer disaster. Some solutions are offered at affordable prices for home users or are free for non-commercial use. Therefore, in simple situations when it comes to accidental deletion or loss of files, for example, as a result of quick formatting, it makes sense to restore the data yourself. But if the cause of file loss is damage to the hard drive at a mechanical or electronic level, then you should not experiment - it is better to entrust the data recovery operation to professionals.

When restoring on your own, you should act wisely and take care in advance that such a cataclysm does not take you by surprise. In other words, you should keep at hand (that is, on the disk in installed form) a couple of suitable utilities and, if possible, resort to data recovery as soon as possible in compliance with all mandatory rules (exclude the possibility of writing other data to the storage medium, save recovered files to another carrier, etc.). In addition, if you fail with one utility, be sure to give another a chance - their media scanning algorithms differ, so it is possible that the second utility will be more successful. And finally, do not forget that not a single solution, even the most expensive and powerful one, guarantees absolute success, and therefore no one has canceled the backup of valuable data.

Data recovery

While working with a computer, you can often encounter various kinds of serious problems. One of these problems is precisely data recovery.
Let's say you work at the computer, listen to music and delete those songs that you don't like. So you delete and delete, and then you accidentally deleted the song that you just need. Panic immediately seizes you and you instantly try to remember whether you recorded this song on a disk or flash drive. True, you can still somehow live without your favorite song, but if you deleted, for example, a thesis that you had in a single copy, and the thesis defense is the day after tomorrow, then this is a very serious problem. Let's look at the entire recovery procedure step by step so that everyone can recover important data.

Start

Let's say we accidentally deleted a file. To make the events more realistic, I will delete a file from my computer that I really need. I selected a movie on my computer that I have never seen but really want to watch. And so I select it and press the key combination Shift+DEL (deleting a file without first placing it in the trash). And now my film is gone.

Important: When you have deleted a file that you want to restore, do not, under any circumstances, perform other operations with the files after deleting it: copying, moving, deleting.

Selecting a data recovery program

There are a lot of data recovery programs. I won’t tell you how to work with everyone, but I’ll just give an example using the program that I use myself.

The program is called . You can download it from It looks like this:

The program consists of three windows. The left one is your computer where your local, virtual and physical disks are located. The top window is the window in which we will search for our movie after scanning the computer. And the bottom one is the information window. Let's get started.

We restore

So, let’s remember where our file was on the computer before we deleted it, that is, deleted it. My movie was located at: “D:\movies\2\Other” The file itself had the name “2012.(2009).DVDRip.Rus.avi”. Go to the program and in the left window click on the item " Local Disk(D:)"A window will appear:

In this window we are given the options of scanning full (Advanced) or simple (Simple). To begin with, we choose a simple one, that is Simple. After launch, a scanning progress bar will appear at the bottom right:

After scanning is completed, go in the program to the address of the file we deleted “D:\movies\2\Other”:

We see that the program has found our movie, the program sees that it has been deleted, since our movie has a dark icon compared to other files. In order to restore a file, you need to select it by clicking on it with the mouse and clicking the “Recover” button, then select the location to restore the file and click “OK”.

If the program does not find your file, then you need to return to the scanning options and instead of the “Simple scan” item, select the “Advanced scan” item.

Good luck in recovering your lost data..
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