11/1/2014

The top 23 free data recovery tools

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The top 23 free data recovery tools

Casper Manes on July 7, 2014
12 comments

Your fault, my fault, nobodys fault it doesnt matter. When a file you
need is gone, all you really want to do is get it back: as quickly and as
painlessly as possible. Deleted by accident? Formatted by mistake?
Drive corrupted by the latest attempt at quadruple-booting? Plugged
in the power to a non-hot swappable drive? Dragged a DVD across the
gravel parking lot? Ran the USB key through the wash? Weve heard,
seen, and even done most of them, and along the way we have found
a number of great tools to bring our data back from the dead.
These 23 free data recovery tools run the gamut. Theres bound to be a
tool in this list that can bring your dead data back too. As long as the
drive is not physically dead, there is a chance. Try one of these tools out.

1. Recuva
With both free and pay editions, Recuva is an incredibly powerful tool for recovering data from Linux and
Window partitions. With support for all Windows versions from XP through Windows 8.1, this is a great tool to
bring dead data back to life. It is one tool that has saved me multiple times over the years.

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2. Pandora Recovery
With a free version for recovering data from secondary drives, and a pay version you can put on a USB key to
recover an operating system drive, Pandora Recovery has a versatile offering that can bring back most data
without issue.

3. PC INSPECTOR File Recovery

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Completely free, PC INSPECTOR File Recovery is a great recovery tool for Windows systems. It can recognize data
types even when the header is missing, so you can recover from deletions, formatting, or even total volume loss.

4. PC INSPECTOR Smart Recovery

Also free, Smart Recovery is a tool focused on recovery files from external media, like flash drives and SD cards. Its
a bit older than File Recovery, but still works great and can handle proprietary file formats.

5. FreeUndelete
The name of this tool from OfficeRecovery says it all. Its free for personal use, and it undeletes files that you have
deleted, even if you SHIFT-DEL or empty the Recycle Bin. What it lacks in fancy features it more than makes up for
in efficiency and simplicity.

6. ADRC Data Recovery Software Tools

This suite of tools includes undelete, copy, raw copy, imaging, and boot sector repair.

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NTFS.com Data Recovery Software Tools include several standalone products that can handle almost any data
recovery scenario. In addition to the free versions, there are pay versions with even more features. You can
download a free trial of a bootable ISO with all of the tools on one image from http://www.boot-disk.com.
Make sure you look closely at each tools free version, as they include a lot when you get into the details. The set
includes

7. Active File Recovery

This is probably the first tool to try, as it can handle undeletes, deletes that bypass the Recycle Bin, formatted or
corrupted files, lost partitions, and more.

8. Active Partition Recovery

This tool can help you to recover a formatted or repartitioned drive in its entirety. It can also fix lost MBR and
GPTs and can read from VMware virtual disk images.

9. Active UNDELETE
This tool can run on Windows and recover data from non-Windows file systems including Linux Ext#, UFS, EFS,
and HFS+.

10. NTFS Data Recovery Toolkit

Built specifically for NTFS volumes, this toolkit includes a disk editor, partition manager, and recovery tools. It also
has great instructions on how to use each tool.
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11. Unformat
For all your external drive needs, Unformat can recover entire disks including external USB, thumb drives, and SD
cards that youve accidentally deleted.

12. Active UNERASER

This tool can be used to recover data lost due to damaged, formatted, or deleted partitions and includes several
other tools including a partition manager, a disk monitor, and more.

13. Active Boot Disk Lite

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Sometimes the data is not lost; it is just inaccessible because the operating system wont boot. This tool is a
bootable operating system image that can be used to gain access to the hard disk when the installed operating
system wont boot, so you can copy off data to external media before reinstalling.

14. WinHex
A multitasker that includes a disk editor, imaging software, encryption and checksumming, format converter, and
more. It is more targeted towards investigation and forensics than simple data recover, and has several different
levels of licensing, depending upon required features. It has an evaluation version that is free to try for as long as
you need.

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15. TestDisk
Software designed to recover lost partitions or repair drives that are no longer bootable. It can repair most file
systems (NTFS, FAT, EXT) and also recover data from deleted partitions. OpenSource, it can run under most
versions of Windows, Linux, BSD, and Mac operating systems. It also can be deployed as a bootable image to
recover from unbootable systems.

16. Wise Data Recovery

A freeware application to recover data from hard drives and removable media. It is simple to use and fast to find
data, making it an excellent choice when you need your files back quickly.

17. Data Recovery Wizard

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This tool can recover data that has been deleted, formatted, or from drives that have been corrupted. The free
version has a 2GB cap, but often the data you are trying to save is much smaller than that, so most users can do a
lot with a 2GB trial. It has both Windows and Mac versions.

18. EaseUS MobiSaver Free

This tool offers hope for mobile devices too, with a free data recovery tool for both iOS and Android platforms.
This app can recover specific data types from iOS devices and most files from Android devices.

19. SoftPerfect File Recovery

Also from EaseUS, this tool can restore deleted files from FAT and NTFS partitions on fixed and removable media.
It is a self-contained executable and runs on everything from XP through Windows 8.

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20. Puran Data Recovery

This tool can read files from damaged physical media, like corrupted flash or scratched optical drives. If your
operating system can show the files, then this tool will read them off, ignoring any bad sectors to recover as
much usable data as possible.

21. Puran File Recovery

Another tool that goes after deleted files and brings them back from the dead. There is a portable version that
can be put on a flashdrive or bootable disk like BartPE, and it supports both FAT and NTFS partitions.

22. CD Recovery Toolbox

Designed to recover data from damaged CDs and DVDs. If they are scratched or smudged or faded, but there is
still some readable data on the disk, this is a tool that can bring back as much salvageable data as possible.

23. UndeleteMyFiles Pro

It may sound like a pay-for edition, but it is absolutely free and comes with a collection of tools for data recovery,
Home
including File Rescue, Media Recover, Deleted File Search, Emergency Disk Image, and Mail Rescue. It also has a
secure file wipe utility, showing it plays both sides.
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While all of these are great and free tools for recovering data, there are many more out there. Do you have a
favorite we missed? Leave a comment and let us know which tools you like the best. Or if one ofContact
these has saved
the day for you, let us know!
Liked this post? Youll probably also like our First Aid Kit for Sys Admins eBook. Get it for free today!

About the Author: Casper Manes

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12 Comments

Kenny Lee July 8, 2014 at 3:56 pm

You may try this data recovery. I used to use it to recover my lost data after my system re-installed. It works pretty well, you
may give it a try.
http://www.recoverdatamac.com/data-recovery.html
Hope this help!
Reply

Martin Jacob July 9, 2014 at 6:46 pm

Remo Recover is also one of the best data recovery applications for both Windows and Mac users. Try this once
Reply

Philip Booth July 15, 2014 at 12:58 pm

Its a big chance to recover missed data, actually the tools are extremely helpful, but if the tools not success to recover data
obviously contact with an expert like http://www.datatrack-labs.co.uk
Reply

Samantha Williams July 18, 2014 at 4:18 pm

Thanks for the article. The tools and tips you provided were very relevant. However, sometimes when hard drives belly up
or are seriously damaged, its very difficult to recover your data. I found every thing I needed to restore my files at
http://www.gfi.com/blog/the-top-23-free-data-recovery-tools/

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The top 23 free data recovery tools

http://errortools.com/
Reply

Jerry_Lee July 19, 2014 at 12:14 pm

Thanks for providing free ways to recover deleted or lost data. But you may missing the best freeware Free Any Data
Recovery. http://amazing-share.com/free-any-data-recovery.html
Reply

Daniel Eaton July 25, 2014 at 1:48 pm

Here you explain about 23 free data recovery software, It is truly helpful to all. I wish you post this type of information in
furthermore.
Reply

Hen Wendell July 29, 2014 at 3:34 am

Good list! Any recommendation for paid versions if I want something more pro?
Reply

Newcastle Data Recovery August 19, 2014 at 8:19 am

I was in search of one or two External Hard Drive Data Recovery tools and this post shares such a huge variety of them
amasing, seems almost like a jackpot to me!!!
Reply
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Disgruntled. October 16, 2014 at 5:37 pm

None of these programs are FULLY functional as is. They are demos, trial wares, crippled ware. One of them, testdisk, is so
cryptic its unusable. They are a waste of time if one is looking for actually free FULL FEATURED UNLIMITED PROGRAMS!!! Not
one of them will get your files back in their entirety with names without asking you to upgrade or pay for a registration key.
Some limit the amount of data or number of files you can get without buying a Pro or some other BS. This article is titled
and comes up under FREE tools.
How about free tools that will do your job instead of these trials and demos.
I have a disk drive that needs recovery. Looking through all these bogus tools has been a total waste.
What ever happened to FREE that works without having to buy anything else instead of attempts at being tricked into
trying any of these???!!!
Reply

Casper Manes October 17, 2014 at 9:09 pm

Sorry to read youre in such a bad state, Disgruntled. Software authors have to make a living, and they do charge for the full
set of features. I personally used Recuva just a few days before writing this article to recover an entire drive of data, and paid
nothing for it, but if neither that nor any of the other tools are working for you, you may want to go to the next level and use
a Linux live boot CD with disk tools to see if you can recover more data. SystemRescueCD is purpose built for this
http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage and HowToGeek has a great article on using Ubuntu to do the
same thing at http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15761/recover-data-like-a-forensics-expert-using-an-ubuntu-livecd/. Hopefully one of these will get you where you need to be. Good luck!
Reply

Disgruntled. October 16, 2014 at 9:15 pm

Clarification:
Freeware is ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Not time limited, does not expire.
Not a DEMO partially disabled program until purchased.
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Not limited ware will only do part of the job unless purchased.
Not trial ware not limited in any way not free to try so much to buy
Actually free, full featured, unlimited usage, unlimited output, with NO constraints.
Anything less is not actually freeware.
Reply

Casper Manes October 17, 2014 at 9:14 pm

And youre right. Freeware is absolutely free and without restriction. I only called one of these apps Freeware-Wise Data
Recovery. All of these apps offer some functionality at no charge, and that is where the free in the title comes from. Some
of the titles are free with limitations, others have both limited free and pay-for editions. I tried to call that out in each
description. The Ubuntu distro is free as in beer and speech, which is still not freeware, but it should get you going if
anything outside of professional recovery services will. Check out the HowToGeek article and well hope for the best for you.
Again, good luck!
Reply

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