Recover Deleted Files - Free
There is almost nothing worse than losing important files when you experience a finger fumble, brain freeze, or computer crash. But never fear, there are tools that can help you recover those lost files, and some of the best ones are free... |
How To Recover Deleted Files - For Free
So you lost an important file. Ouch. If you simply deleted the wrong file, you can usually get it back by opening the Recycle Bin and restoring it. But if that doesn't do the trick, try one of these free tools to do the heavy lifting. Read on and you'll find a crop of Windows-based tools to recover deleted files.
Recover Files 2.1 is a free professional software tool that allows you to recover data removed from your hard drive, recycle bin, portable devices or even a compact flash drive. This Windows-based utility is compatible with 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista and will recover lost files from all NTFS and FAT partitions with a simple interface. The award winning software has recently been updated to repair some bugs and added 11 languages. Register on their site before downloading
Piriform's Recuva (pronounced like "recover" with a Brooklyn accent) will help you to find files and images on your computer that were deleted by human error, including those deleted from your digital camera memory card or MP3 player. Recuva can also restore files deleted from the recycle bin or those that were deleted by a bug, virus or crash. This is a free Windows application that includes a support forum and because it is a freebie, Piriform would appreciate a small donation if you like their software. Recuva comes from the same people that developed the popular CCleaner, so the reputation is rock solid.
One of the most popular free file recovery tools for Windows is Restoration. This program will find just about everything you've ever deleted from your PC, including files deleted from the DOS prompt. When the program starts, choose a source drive, then click the "Search Deleted Files" button. If you have a file on your hard drive with the same name, restore the file to a different folder, or flash disk so that your existing file is not wiped out. Restoration can also permanently delete files, making it almost impossible to restore or undelete them. Restoration has a no-frills user interface, but it's easy to use and does a good job.
FreeUndelete has no charge for personal usage, although they charge for businesses. The program is spyware and adware free, works on Windows XP, 2000, NT4 , Windows 2003 Server, and can restore files from your Recycle Bin or NTFS, FAT32 or FAT16 hard drives. Once recovered, they will be saved in a new user-selected location to prevent overwriting files.
There are also free tools for other PC catastrophes. Advanced PSD Repair (APSR) is handy for recovering Photoshop PSD and PDD files and works with all versions.
And if you work with external media, Recovery Toolbox for CD Free can recover data from damaged or corrupted CD, DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs. The same company also makes a variety of other data recovery tools, including Recovery Toolbox for Outlook, Outlook Express, Word, Excel, Zip and other applications to recover damaged or deleted data. They're not free, but you can get a free trial to see if it'll do the job.
Do it Now...
Obviously, all of these tools are most useful if you install before you lose the data, because downloading a file can possibly overwrite the very file(s) you want to recover. I recommend that you check out a few and download them, so you'll be ready in case you do need to recover lost files.
Do you have a favorite file recovery tool? Have you tried any of the above? Post a comment below and let us know...
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Posted by Bob Rankin on 11 May 2009
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Article information: AskBobRankin -- Recover Deleted Files - Free (Posted: 11 May 2009)
Source: http://askbobrankin.com/recover_deleted_files_free.html
Copyright © 2005 - Bob Rankin - All Rights Reserved
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Most recent comments on "Recover Deleted Files - Free"
(See all 14 comments for this article.)Posted by:
Sheryl
18 Jun 2009
Paul, I don't know if those messages can be recovered but I do know that you should not do anything to interfere with the mail compacting process. It may slow the computer down but it only takes a few minutes and it's worth it to just wait and let it do its thing. I think that one thing it does during compacting is make back-ups of your messages, so hopefully, the third time will be a charm for you and you will not make this mistake again.
Posted by:
ken
23 Jun 2009
Bob, this past weekend, I used your archives to find a way to recover the partition on my external hard drive. Your post from June 11, 2007 did the trick so I'm posting to say 'thank you for being there for me,' and to give credit to the people who developed TestDisk; it did the trick.
Do you remember the old commercial, "How do you spell relief?" Well, your post was a source of great relief for me so I've taken the liberty of nicknaming you, Bob R-O-L-A-I-D-S Rankin! Thanks again! (I know, it's a little corny. But ask my kids and they'll confirm I am often quite corny!)
Posted by:
Paul Tassell
24 Jun 2009
Paul Danielson: Go to the Microsoft support site and search for the issue with compacting errors with outlook express. There is a patch you can download that automatically sends the dbx files (that hold your email) to recycle bin in case of error.
You could also undelete the dbx files from the store folder and get the emails back that way. (Undelete them, then copy them over existing ones).
Bob: One tip that should also be mentioned is that you should stop using the drive as the OS will overwrite files marked as deleted. The more use your drive has, the more likely corrupted the files will be. Run the recovery program off an USB drive, and save the files to the USB drive or different drive. You don’t want to be undeleting files to the drive with the deleted files
Posted by:
Carlaily
21 Jul 2009
I recently had a large and important text file "disappear." Neither of the these programs listed here helped.
What finally did work was using Advanced File Recovery on http://www.advanced-file-recovery.com/. From my experience, it is a brilliant and reliable recovery software.
Posted by:
ghds
25 Aug 2009
applexsoft file recovery is supposed to be very good, but not free
applexsoft file recovery
Posted by:
joeyjuviyani
22 Jan 2010
Just because you delete data that they disappear completely from your hard drive! If you click "Remove" or even if you reformat your hard disk, your data is still in your PC. Read more from the guide here:
http://forums.techarena.in/reviews/1292574.htm
Posted by:
Shawn
06 Mar 2010
Bob Rankin is the best!
Posted by:
krishnarao
27 Mar 2010
how find the shift+deleted files?
Posted by:
Yippie
16 Dec 2010
Thank you very much for the review!
I would have to recommend Recuva over Recover Files, as it did not recover media files when Recuva did. Also Recover Files is a 30 day trial, whereas Recuva is fully free!
Posted by:
Sam
01 Apr 2011
I accidentally deleted 586 songs from one of my hard drives. (2TB, internal, non "C" drive -- it was a data-only drive) I'm usually very meticulous about backing up, generally on multiple drives. But I got lazy with this one particular drive, and it was a huge mistake.
At first I figured all was lost, and started adding new songs to that folder (4 songs, to be exact). Then I remembered the Recuva freeware program. (I had it installed on my laptop, but not my desktop.) So I downloaded, installed, and ran the latest version (1.40.525). I was kind of shocked at first when I saw it would take 6 hours (patience is not my forte), but since it had taken me a month to get all those songs in the first place, I figured 6 hours was a small price to pay to try to get them back.
I ran Recuva (with the wizard option), specified that I was searching for music files, pointed the program to the exact folder from which all the songs had gotten deleted (and to which 4 new songs had just been added), then waited 6 hours for Recuva to do its "deep scan" thing. I didn't use the computer at all during that time.
Using the "Tree View" mode, and the "Restore Folder Structure" box, I was able to organize and recover/restore 549 out of 586 songs, all in excellent condition. Not 100% recovery, but a heck of a lot better than zero %. A heck of a lot better. Thanks, Recuva!!! And thanks, Bob!!!(System: Windows XP SP3)