Free Data Recovery Software Tools
Many free data recovery programs exist that can help recover your accidentally deleted files. These file recovery programs can help you recover, or "undelete" files on your computer.
Files you have deleted are often still present on your hard drive (or USB drive, or media card, smartphone, etc.) and can be recovered using free data recovery software.
Important: Data recovery software is just one way to go. See How to Recover Deleted Files for a complete tutorial, including how to avoid common pitfalls during the file recovery process.
Undelete files you thought were gone forever with any one of these freeware data recovery tools:
1. Recuva
Recuva is the very best free data recovery software tool available, hands down. It's very easy to use but has many optional advanced features as well.
Recuva can recover files from hard drives, external drives (USB drives, etc.), BD/DVD/CD discs, and memory cards. Recuva can even undelete files from your iPod!
Recuva will undelete files in Windows 8 & 8.1, 7, Vista, XP, Server 2008/2003, and older Windows versions like 2000, NT, ME and 98. 64-bit Windows versions are also supported. There is also a 64-bit version Recuva available.
Undeleting a file with Recuva is as easy as deleting one! I highly recommend that you try Recuva first if you need to recover a file.
2. Puran File Recovery
Puran File Recovery is one of the better free data recovery programs I've seen. It's very easy to use, will scan any drive that Windows sees, and has a lot of advanced options if you need them.
One particular thing to note - Puran File Recovery identified more files on my test machine than most other tools so be sure to give this one a shot in addition to Recuva if it didn't find what you were looking for.
Puran File Recovery will even recover lost partitions if they haven't been overwritten yet.
Puran File Recovery works with Windows 8, 7, Vista, and XP. It's also available in portable form for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows so it doesn't require installation. More »
3. Disk Drill
Disk Drill is an excellent free data recovery program not only because of its features but also due to the very simple design, making it almost impossible to get confused.
The Disk Drill website says it can recover data from "virtually any storage device," such as internal and external hard drives, USB devices, memory cards, and iPods.
Disk Drill can also preview image files before recovering them, pause scans and resume them later, perform partition recovery, back up an entire drive, filter files by date or size, run a quick scan versus a full scan for faster results, and save scan results so you can easily import them again to recovery deleted files at a later time.
5. Pandora Recovery
Pandora Recovery is another excellent free file recovery software program. It's super easy to use and has the best wizard to help you undelete files that I've seen in any file recovery app.
A more advanced "Surface Scan" is available in Pandora Recovery that should recover more files than the standard search as long as they are of a popular format.
Pandora Recovery will undelete files from hard drives, memory cards, etc. Nearly anything that stores files that you can also connect to your PC should be supported.
You will need to install Pandora Recovery to your hard drive which is a major reason I haven't ranked it higher than some other file recovery tools.
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