Top 5 Best Free Data Recovery Software

Data recovery can be a tedious task, and although data recovery software can make our job easier in the face of these problems, it is not a substitute for regularly backing up your important documents, photos and other data. However, unintentional deletion of data, wrong format, corruption of formats, virus etc. Dangers can happen to those who regularly back up their files, even those who are controlled.

Whether it’s a virus, hardware malfunction, or human error, it’s easy to lose vital files. It is important that you stop using the affected drive immediately when you become aware of data loss. Regardless of the failure of the drive or you may have deleted a file by mistake, it is very important to take action as soon as possible so that your data can be restored in the best possible way.

We’ve listed five of the best free data recovery tools you can find on the internet. Choose the one that best suits your needs and give it a shot (and no small measure of the app’s help), and you can save your files.

Best Free Data Recovery Programs

Recuva lets you recover your lost files as simple as possible

1. Recuva

Recuva is essential in emergencies, with a simple recovery and deep scans among Data Recovery Programs.

Recuva makes things as easy and stress-free as possible. By default, advanced users will be opened to a data recovery wizard that they can skip later: From there, select the type of file you want to recover (image, documents, compressed, emails and all files are among those offered) and I’ll concentrate their search accordingly.

You can target your search to a specific location or search all your drives and choose a quick or deep scan. The latter takes longer, but produces more results. Then click ‘Start’ and wait for the scan to complete.

After the processes are complete, your results are presented, ranked based on the status of each recovered file. You can recover files directly from here or switch to Advanced Mode to get a clearly better view by providing file preview, info, and a view of the file header.

2. DMDE Free Edition

DMDE Free Edition can recover lost data from multiple drives…

Recover deleted files and revive data from dead hard drives!

My second favorite free data recovery tool is often overlooked. DMDE Free Edition earns significant marks because it is capable of recovering data from a wide array of drives, including 2TB+ drives recovered from a fried external disk enclosure with proprietary formatting.

Using DMDE may not be the simplest data recovery program, but it is one of the most effective, and our step-by-step data recovery guide will help you with the basics.

DMDE works by letting you choose a drive and identifies all machinable partitions with the most obvious options highlighted. If successful, a File Explorer-like view is displayed to browse the drive and recover what data you need.

Using the free version, your data recovery method is limited, but there is no limit to how much you can improve. If you want a simpler and faster recovery, upgrade to Express or Standard.

3. PhotoRec

PhotoRec is an effective tool among data recovery programs if you don’t mind the text-based interface.

Recover files from any storage media in hundreds of file formats…

Don’t be fooled by its name – PhotoRec saves more than just photos. It works with a wide range of file systems and media, from hard drives to CD/DVD, USB flash drives and memory cards, and there are provisioning for Mac and Linux providing the flexibility to recover data from a different computer if needed.

It also has deep knowledge of over 200 file formats that helps to reconstruct lost files and comes with TestDisk which can be used to recover partitions.

The main issue is the UI – a command line thing with no mouse support. At first glance, this seems complicated, but the program guides you through the process through a series of menu screens, and because it connects the target drive to read-only mode, there’s no danger of data being lost if you make the wrong turn – you can’t write data to the drive you’re trying to recover, for example.

4. MiniTool Partition Recovery Free

Restore a completely lost partition with MiniTool Partition Recovery Free and see why we’re among data recovery programs.

Lost an entire episode? MiniTool’s excellent recovery software can help with this.

One of the scariest data loss experiences happens when an entire drive or partition is lost. Usually this happens when an accidentally deleted section or section title gets corrupted. If the problem is that simple, partition recovery can be done quickly and easily without having to unmount Windows without using MiniTool Partition Recovery Free.

Just boot it up, select the drive containing your lost partition, then choose whether to scan the entire disk or just a part of it (say the partition where your missing partition should be). Choose between full and quick scans, then sit back and let the program do its work.

Don’t panic if it’s getting insensitive, be patient and as a result list all detected partitions on the drive. Select all of them – including your missing partition – and click ‘Finish’ to restore it.

5. Paragon Rescue Kit Free Edition

If you can’t boot into Windows, Paragon Rescue Kit Free Edition is the tool for you. That’s why it has been included among Data Recovery programs.

Can’t boot into Windows? Not everything is lost with the excellent Paragon Rescue Kit.

All the recovery tools we’ve covered so far assume you can boot into Windows to use them. So what if Windows doesn’t boot at all? This is where Paragon Rescue Kit Free Edition comes into play.

This is the best time to install while your PC is running, otherwise you will have to do it on a running Windows PC. Once the process is finished you will need a blank CD/DVD or flash drive (512MB or larger – if you plan to recover data to this drive, go to the largest possible drive) – the setup wizard will do the hard work.

Now insert the disk or flash media into your non-booting computer and reboot by selecting the media in question from the boot menu. You’ll find yourself a menu that offers a wide variety of options to recover lost partitions, troubleshoot boot problems, and – a file transfer wizard for retrieving data from a target drive. If all else fails, this program can be a lifesaver for you.