A recovery laboratory where you’ll learn when not to pay a laboratory: Answer the four questions truthfully, then you will have an idea about if a free download is the way to start working on your lost files or the last thing you need to finish them off.
Is the hard drive silent and functioning properly? Are you done using it? Will you be able to install the program in another location? Will you be able to save your recovered data somewhere else? If you answered yes to all four, the chances are good that the program is a safe bet. However, if you answered no to even one of them, then the program isn’t.
Learning this single piece of information explains both the promise of recovering data and its limitations.
When a file has been deleted or a memory card has been quick-formatted, the drive does not delete the contents (it simply removes the index entry and makes the space available again). The content remains until some other piece of data writes over those bytes. Therefore, recovery software reads under the index and finds the content, which is exactly why it works so well with healthy drives; and each time a drive is written to (e.g., downloading files, accessing websites), it causes additional damage to the lost files.
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Photos off a camera card → PhotoRec. It’s open source, unlimited, and will carve out image and video directly from raw flash. The interface looks like it was pulled from another decade but the results aren’t. A vanished partition → TestDisk. PhotoRec’s cousin, and most people consider it to be their go-to solution for ‘my D: drive has gone missing’. A deleted file on a healthy Windows PC → Recuva. Easy to use, quick results on recent deletions.
You’ll find that all the polished commercial versions (Disk Drill, EaseUS, Recoverit) will do a competent job too. Before you spend an entire night on recovering your files, be aware of one very important item regarding the free version of each: they give you a full preview in terms of finding every file and showing them to you, but only allow you to recover a small portion of those files (typically a few hundred megabytes to a couple of gigabytes) as a paid licence is required. Read the cap first; there’s nothing wrong with this model, only with finding out about it at midnight.
After using software to start with, three common patterns appear on our bench.
The noisy drive that got scanned anyway. Any clicking or buzzing noise generally indicates the disk has suffered some form of mechanical failure, therefore performing a long term deep scan would likely result in damaging the drive further than it already is. Drives arrive frequently in good enough shape for us to perform initial recovery efforts; however, after three determined scans on the same damaged drive, the amount of recoverable data dramatically decreases. The SSD that deleted for real. When an internal SSD deletes information, it utilises a feature called TRIM. This causes the drive to delete the block of space that contained the deleted file within moments. Therefore, unless something has happened to prevent TRIM from functioning correctly, there should be little to no deleted data left to locate via a recovery program. Conversely, when a solid state drive is truly dead due to controller failure with the data behind the failed controller intact, this is considered lab work. The recovery saved onto itself. The recovery application worked right up until the time it completed, then wrote the results of the recovery back over the top of the remaining lost files. The rule of thumb for all recovery efforts is never to write anything back to the original piece of hardware being recovered.
To further compare where using your own software stops and the bench starts, continue reading on to our software-versus-professional guide.
Yes absolutely for the purpose they were built for (files you have deleted or a drive has been formatted but hardware functions properly): PhotoRec and TestDisk are serious tools without any catch. However what cannot be done by downloading software is fix your hardware; clicking, dropping or disappearing drives are physical issues. Scanning these causes partial losses to turn into total losses.
During a scan, no data is written to the disk being read. Therefore, no (if the following three requirements apply). If the recovery application is installed on the same storage unit as the one containing the lost data (the “patient”), then overwriting will occur when attempting to recover the lost data. Similarly, if the recovery application writes to the same storage unit where the lost data resides, then the data may be overwritten while trying to locate it. If the “patient” storage unit has failed mechanically, each subsequent scan will continue to cause additional mechanical failure.
Select the appropriate tool based upon the type of loss that occurred. Lost photos off a camera memory card? Use PhotoRec. Vanished partition? Use TestDisk. Recently deleted file on a good Windows system? Use Recuva. Does your hard drive make some kind of noise? Do not use any of these. Turn it off.
Tell us what the device is doing and an engineer will tell you exactly whether software is safe for your particular situation before you risk a single scan.