Recover deleted files from hard drive. How to recover data from a hard drive yourself

Many times you have faced the problem of losing valuable data on your computer or portable device. This can happen due to accidental deletion, virus infection, formatting, volume resizing, and many other reasons.

At the time, you probably regretted, “If only I had backed up all those important files that I really need.” Well, now there is no point in thinking about missed opportunities. We need quick solution problems. You will need data recovery software.

Below we will look at how to recover files not only from hard drives, but also USB flash drives, portable and other devices such as music players and mobile phones using a couple of simple utilities.

When files are deleted and you are going to recover them, do not do anything to the hard drive or other device from which you want to retrieve the data.

information on hard drives(solid drives) is in a magnetic and non-volatile state, which means that no power is required for its storage;
each magnet has a plus (+) and a minus (-) pole, which is equal to two values and thus represents binary code;
The storage unit on the hard drive contains a ferromagnetic surface, which is divided into small areas called magnetic domains;
HDDs store data in the direction of magnetization of magnetic domains. Each magnetic domain can be magnetized in one direction and represents one of two values: 0 or 1.

There are two technologies for recording data to a hard drive.

Until 2005, the recording layer was oriented parallel to the surface of the disk (horizontally), which means that the binary code was represented by directional left and right magnetization (longitudinal recording).
Around 2005, new technology was introduced and data began to be recorded by magnetizing segments vertically, that is, up and down (perpendicular recording).

This made it possible to expand the distance between the magnetic domains and increase the storage capacity.

What happens when information is deleted

When computer systems When they delete files, they do not erase them, but simply free up space for new ones. Let's imagine that your hard drive is a block of apartments. Deleted files are not evicted, but their apartments can be occupied by others.

This means that you have a chance to return the files, but you need to do this as quickly as possible. Use your computer to a minimum, thereby minimizing the likelihood that any other files will take the place of old ones. This most widely applies to old-school hard drives with moving parts. On solid state drives (SSDs), things are a little more complicated - you can get the data back, but not all of it.

Before you do anything else, check the Recycle Bin (Windows) for files. Then restore them by right-clicking.

If the files are nowhere to be seen, check other places where they may have been copied, such as an online photo library. You can recover files without much difficulty with using Microsoft OneDrive and Apple iCloud, if you use these built-in services.

And by the way, we recommend setting up the above or similar services such as Dropbox or Google Drive, since they will automatically create backups your most important files on the Internet. If you lose your laptop or something happens to your home, you can recover your files using the web interface of these platforms.

Recovering files using Recuva

Let's try to use portable version Recuva- a simple program to recover files. Run it from a CD or USB drive.

Note! note that physical hard disk or must be different from the place where we are restoring the data.

Additional options and checking file integrity using Md5 checksums

Recuva also has advanced options.

Option I. One option is that when checking deleted files we can enable deep scanning.

Option II. The second is the advanced mode, which you can switch to when displaying a list of files. Here you will see some of them, such as images as shown in the screenshot below.

Verify file integrity using Md5 checksums. To do this you must have checksums md5 source files. For testing purposes, copies of the source files were saved in the folder hard drive before copying and then deleted from the USB storage device.

When the recovered file is an exact copy original, Md5 checksums match (good)

Other utilities

Apart from Recuva there is other software like PC Inspector.

It also supports data recovery from formatted hard drives (where a quick format has been performed). PC Inspector allows you to recover data from disks with a damaged partition table or deleted partitions.

Other file recovery software is Pandora. Well proven DMDE And EaseUS Data Recovery . Users with installed macOS can try Disk Drill or MiniTool Mac Data Recovery.

Advice! In fact, it's a good idea to run scans on multiple programs if possible, since they all use different methods recovery.

The bad news is that none of these utilities, even premium or paid ones, can guarantee the recovery of all deleted files. There are too many variables in this matter.

Video - How to recover deleted files from your hard drive

Modern hard drives year after year they increase in capacity, speed, become more compact, technologically advanced, but... less reliable. Manufacturers do not care about quality: they strive to flood the market with their products and leave competitors “in the dust.” It is more profitable for them to exchange defective drives for new ones than to work on increasing their resistance to failures.

“What about the data? - you ask. “After all, they die along with the disk!” Data, friends, is our problem. We must think about how not to lose them. And if this happens, be able to save them. Today we’ll talk about how to recover data from a hard drive without resorting to the help of experts. And also about situations when you should not try to get them yourself, but it is better to immediately take the disk to a specialized service.

The easiest to restore are:

Files and folders, deleted by user past the trash can (by pressing Shift + Delete).

Information corrupted due to a file system failure.
Files erased by viruses.
Data in formatted partitions (with the exception of “low-level” formatting, in which all information on the disk is overwritten with zeros).

However, there cannot be a 100% guarantee of success in this matter. The files and folders that have been recently deleted have the greatest chance of salvation, that is, the areas of the disk where they were stored were not overwritten. In the latter case, the chances of recovering information after quick formatting, since in this case only the file allocation table in the partition is erased, and the files themselves remain in place.

IN following cases It is impossible to recover data or the probability of this is very low:

If disk drive was formatted at a low level (essentially overwritten).
If the information was deleted using a file shredder application.
When another information was written on top of the deleted information. For example, if the user accidentally formatted, say, drive C to reinstall Windows, but remembered that there were important files, only after installing the new system.
In case of physical damage to the magnetic layer on which information is stored.
When files are damaged by encryption viruses, if there is no decryption key or effective decryptor. Searching for a key using the brute force method (brute force search) is, with rare exceptions, ineffective. The reason is that today there are more and more viruses that use strong 128- or 256-bit encryption. It is impossible to find a key for it with the current level of technology (and for 256 bits it is impossible in principle).

In the event of a hardware failure of the drive, if the electronics board has fallen or mechanical parts have failed, the probability of successful data recovery is about 50%. More precisely, it all depends on the type of breakdown and the qualifications of the technician. Recover information from physical damaged disk Unfortunately, it won’t work with the help of programs. Quite the contrary: attempts to turn on a disk that has broken down are fraught with irretrievable loss of data.

In what cases is it better to do nothing and take the device to a specialized service:

When the disk is not detected by the computer or periodically disappears (except for the case described below). Moreover, if it does not work at all: when connected, it does not show any signs of “life”, does not spin up, and does not get warm. External drive To check, you need to connect it to the computer as a regular internal one (via a SATA or IDE port, if available), since if only the interface fails USB data usually not damaged.
When the hard drive has been hit or dropped. In this case, you should not even try to turn it on.
If, when accessing the disk, messages appear about serious problems with it or the operating system crashes into BSoD (blue screen of death).
If there is a suspicion that the hard drive housing is leaking. By the way, under no circumstances should you open it yourself. A speck of dust that gets inside can damage the magnetic layer and irreversibly destroy the information on it the first time it is turned on.
In case of visible defects in the connection interfaces and the disk electronics board.
If there is a suspicion that liquid has entered the drive housing. This happens when removable hard The disk is placed in the bag next to the wet umbrella.

Data recovery services at service centers are not a cheap pleasure. “Treatment” of the mildest cases costs about half the cost of the drive (this is if the drive itself can be brought back to life without losing data). In difficult situations, the cost is 2 or more than the price of a new disk. It depends on the amount of information and the complexity of the restoration work.

What to do if the hard drive is not detected by the computer, freezes or works with errors

This life hack only applies to hard drives that have been in use for at least six months.

On the bottom side of the hard drive electronics board there are contact pads that are connected to the block of magnetic heads (BGM, a device for reading and writing information to the magnetic layer) with a flexible cable that goes inside the hermetic zone (disk case).

Over time, especially if the disk has been used in conditions of high humidity and significant heating, these areas are covered with a non-conducting layer of oxides - they become dull and dark, sometimes to the point of blackness. The oxide layer disrupts the contact between the HDM and the controller, which has an extremely negative impact on the operation of the disk: read/write errors, recognition problems, lags and other unpleasant things occur.

The solution to the problem is very simple: just remove the electronics board (for this you most often need a T6 screwdriver - a six-pointed star), clean the pads until they shine with a school eraser and wipe with alcohol. After such a simple procedure, many drives begin to work like new.

Programs for data recovery at home

- one of the most popular free utilities to recover data on a PC under Windows control. It is especially effective at restoring objects that have been removed past the recycle bin. It supports almost all types of files: graphics, music, videos, archives, documents, email messages and much more.

Recuva is capable of reading information not only from healthy, but also from logically damaged devices, as well as from formatted disk partitions. It recognizes any type of media - hard and optical discs, SSD, flash drives, memory cards, drives mobile devices etc. Works with NTFS, FAT16-32 and ExFat file systems.

How to use the program:

Download the installation or portable version of Recuva. Install or unpack it into a separate folder and run it with administrator rights.
If the program interface opens on English, you can switch to Russian for convenience: click the “Options” button and select “Russian” from the “Language” list on the “General” tab.

While in the main window, open the list of disk partitions and connected drives. Select the area from which you want to recover information.
In the search bar (marked with a magnifying glass icon), enter the path to the object you are looking for, or click on the arrow and select the type of file you want to restore. In our example, this is graphics. By the way, text documents can be searched by keywords. To do this, open the "Analysis" menu and select "View Content." The “File Mask” field should indicate the type of document (doc, pdf, etc.), and in the “Search Line” you should indicate the word or phrase that the program should search for. After filling out both fields, click the “Analyze” button.

A list of found documents (or files of another type, depending on what you specified in the settings) will be displayed in the main Recuva window. In some cases, you can see the contents before restoring text documents and pictures in the “View” field (to the right of the list). The “Summary” contains information about the file: name, size, status and number of overwritten clusters. In the “Header”, accordingly, there are header service data.
Each list item has a colored circle next to it. Green points to good opportunity recover deleted files. Yellow indicates a questionable one, and red indicates its absence (since a significant part of the file has been overwritten).
Select the objects you want to return from the list and click the “Restore” button. Select the folder where the program should save them. It is important that this is a different logical partition of the same disk or a different physical device.

DMDE

DMDE is a cross-platform recovery utility, backup and editing the contents of drives. Works on Windows, Linux and DOS. Supports the following file systems: FAT12-16-32, ExFAT, NTFS, NTFS5, Ext2-3-4, HFSX, HFS+, and RAW (unspecified). Capable of extracting data from healthy and damaged hard drives, solid state media and RAID arrays, as well as their sector-by-sector copies created in the program itself. Recovers not only deleted files, but also entire partitions that are no longer detectable due to corrupted service information. Has RAID reconstruction functions.

DMDE comes in free and two paid versions- home and commercial. The difference between the free version and the paid home edition is the absence of a group file recovery function and a quantitative limitation - the program allows you to restore up to 4000 objects from the current panel.

All versions of DMDE work without installation - just unpack the archive into a separate folder and run the Dmde.exe file.

How to use the utility:

After the main DMDE window appears on the screen, click the “Select Disk” top menu button. Select the device or logical partition from which you want to recover information. Confirm your choice.

Next, select the desired partition again and click “Open Volume”.

In the left panel of the next window, select the “All found + reconstruction” option. Specify the file system reconstruction method and search objects: all files, including deleted files, only deleted files, or all files excluding deleted files. If you want to get a list of only missing files, select “only deleted”, otherwise it may become too large.

After the program displays a list of everything found, right-click on the object of interest and select “Restore Object” from the menu.

On the first tab of the recovery options window, specify the location to save the object.

On the “Filters” tab, you can set a mask of file names, their sizes (from and to) and exclude empty folders from processing.

As a rule, you don’t need to change anything in the settings. After clicking “OK”, the program will immediately begin the recovery process.

If the recovered files cannot be opened or the utility did not find what you wanted, the developers recommend performing a full scan of the volume and repeating the operation.

Or return to the disk selection section and try to read other volumes.

— a powerful software package of recovery tools for rescuing data from all types of media, including deeply damaged ones. This utility is often used in cases where nothing else has helped.

Features of R-Studio include support for all types of drives and file systems, including undefined (RAW). And also - an improved algorithm for searching and restoring damaged and partially overwritten files. Additionally, the program contains functions for RAID reconstruction and creating virtual disk images from which information can be read as from physical ones.

How to use R-studio:

Install and run the utility with administrator rights. The main window will display a list of connected drives.
Specify the media or partition from which you want to recover data and click the “Scan” button.

In the scanning settings window, define the types of files that need to be found (the “Known file types” button), the rest can be left as default. To continue, click "Scan".

After the scan is completed, go to the “Disk” menu and click the “Recover all files” option.

Specify the location to save what you found and, if necessary, other recovery options (shown in the screenshot below). Click “Yes” to confirm. Wait until the operation is completed.

R-studio is an effective, but paid and very expensive program. However, there are “corrected” versions of it on the Internet.

How to properly recover information

The location where restored objects are saved should never be the same logical partition from which they were read.
It is better not to postpone the data recovery procedure until later. The fewer disk operations, the higher the chances of success.
If the program's capabilities allow, create virtual image partition or device on which the objects of interest are located, and restore from it. This will protect you from irretrievable data loss due to accidental overwriting or sudden drive failure.
If you are restoring from physical media, try to complete everything in one session. Repeated attempts may be less successful.

The loss of information stored on a hard drive (HDD) is a sad event, but most often not fatal. Accidentally deleted documents, folders, and even entire sections can be restored if nothing happened that could prevent this.

I’ll tell you further how to recover data from a hard drive, in which cases you can do it yourself, and when it’s better not to take risks and turn to specialists.

How to recover data from a hard drive

When can missing files be recovered?

The main condition for successful data recovery is the physical health of the hard drive.

Most likely, you will be able to return data that:

were deleted without going to the Recycle Bin;
destroyed by a virus;
disappeared due to a file system failure (with such problems, entire directories and partitions are usually lost);
were in a partition that was formatted (formatting erases some of the information about the location of the files on the hard drive, but they themselves remain in place).

But in some cases it will not be possible to restore information:

if the area of the hard drive where the data was stored was overwritten (for example, when reinstalling the operating system and formatting the volume, all objects of the old OS are destroyed forever);
if objects were deleted using a shredder program (shredders also overwrite the storage areas of deleted objects, many times);
if the magnetic surface of the hard drive “pancakes” is damaged.

When you shouldn’t do recovery yourself

If you are not confident in the serviceability of the drive, but the information is very valuable, it is better to refrain from experiments and contact a specialized service for restoration. The service is not cheap, and the specialists working there are not omnipotent, so the less you torment the “sick” disk, the lower the price will be and the higher the chances of success.

The following signs indicate a hard drive malfunction:

Unnatural noise during operation (clanging, clicking, clanging, whistling, etc.).
The HDD from time to time ceases to be detected by the computer - it either disappears or appears.
The operating system is very slow, the hard drive is always loaded at 100% without high load to RAM.
Various errors occur when writing and reading files.
The operating system or programs that monitor the status of the HDD in real time (if installed) inform about a drive malfunction.
The computer stops booting from the hard drive (provided that it boots normally from other media).
Often there are " blue screens death" indicating errors typical of disk problems (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE, NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM, KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED).

Four most important rules for data recovery

I will tell you how and with what help data is recovered on hard drives a little later, but now a few words about what needs to be done before this and how to correctly perform the recovery procedure.

The recovered data can be reset to another partition of the same hard drive or to another physical media, but not to the same place from where they were read. Therefore, if your HDD is not partitioned, prepare a flash drive or another hard drive of suitable capacity.
As soon as you notice the loss of important data, stop all operations with the HDD and immediately begin recovery. This will prevent accidental overwriting.
Try to restore everything you need in one session without stopping the program. Moreover, without restarting the computer.
If one program does not help, use others until all the information is recreated.

Three popular HDD data recovery programs

R-Studio

R-studio from the Canadian company R-Tools Technology is the most powerful software package for data recovery from media different types. It is aimed at professional service engineers, but can also be used by non-specialists, as it is easy to operate and intuitive. Translated into many languages of the world, including Russian.

Main features of R-studio

Supports all major file systems: FAT12-FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, ReFS, NTFS5 (encrypted), HFS, HFS+, Ext2-Ext4, UFS1 and UFS.
Able to determine object types based on file signatures. This helps to extract information from damaged drives, on which the file system is defined as RAW (unknown).
Supports RAID arrays and dynamic disks. Has RAID reconstruction function.
Can create images physical drives, their sections and individual directories, from which it then reads data. After creating such an image, the media from which recovery is being carried out can be disconnected.
Allows you to view the contents of read objects, even if there is no program associated with them on your computer.
Recreates MBR, GPT and BCD service records.
Contains a hex editor for manually fixing damaged files.
Displays S.M.A.R.T parameters. – results of self-test of the current HDD status, as well as SSD ( solid state drives), diagnoses the condition of the read heads, corrects surface defects.

How to use

Launch R-studio with administrator rights.
Select the drive from which you want to read information.

Specify scanning options. In particular, note the types of files that are recoverable.

After finishing reading, select the “Recover all files” option in the “Disk” menu.

Specify the saving parameters - location, structure, attributes, etc.

Wait until the operation is completed.

R-studio, as a rule, manages to restore what other programs cannot handle. This complex is good in everything except the price: the cost of a license starts at $79.99. Available in versions for Windows, OS X and Linux.

Ontrack EasyRecovery

From the Polish developer Kroll Ontrack - another recovery software package lost files, which can be used by both professionals and beginners. Available in several versions with different set functions, translated into Russian.

EasyRecovery features

Recognizes more than 250 file types.
Works with different types of media, including damaged ones.
Creates drive images.
Equipped with tools for analyzing the current state of the HDD.
It has a built-in hex editor, as well as a shredder for permanent destruction of file system objects.
Allows you to create emergency bootable media with EasyRecovery in case the operating system stops booting.
Can connect to other computers over the network.
Capable of reading information from VMware virtual environments.

How to use

Run the program as administrator. Click the Continue button.

Select the media type on which you lost data and click Continue again. This button must be pressed after each step, so I will not repeat myself.

Specify the section you want to scan.

Select a recovery scenario (we are particularly interested in deleted or formatted data).

Wait until the reading process is completed.

The found documents will be displayed in the EasyRecovery window. You can view them as a list or thumbnails.

To save the file, right-click on it. Select “Save As” or, as elsewhere, press Ctrl+S.

In order to become a legal user of Ontrack EasyRecovery, you will also have to fork out some money. The license price starts from 89 EUR. Versions available for Windows and OS X.

Recuva

– a product of the British developer Piriform Limited – one of the most popular free data recovery tools. The utility is very easy to use and very effective. Features high scanning speed.

Recuva features

Can work without installation (has an official portable version).
Supports FAT16-FAT32, NTFS and ExFAT file systems.
Works with damaged media.
Has a file shredder.
Capable of restoring directory structures, email messages, documents Microsoft Word, texts, music, images, saved web pages, video files and system objects, including hidden and zero-sized ones.

Compared to the two previously reviewed programs, Recuva's capabilities are much more modest. This applies to both restorative functions and additional tools. Thus, Recuva is best at restoring recently deleted objects, and although it detects old ones, it often cannot read them, despite the fact that they were definitely not overwritten. And yet, let’s not find fault with her too much, because “don’t look a gift (free) horse in the mouth.”

By the way, in addition to the free version of the utility, there is a paid version - Recuva Pro (costs $24.95). Its differences are advanced recovery functions, automatic installation updates, virtual media support and the ability to contact Support.

How to use

Launch the utility. If it opened in the English version, go to the “Options” menu and select the Russian language on the “General” tab.

From the drop-down list on the left side of the window, select the scan area.

After the scan is completed, the utility window will display a list of found objects, some of which are marked with green circles, some with red and some with yellow. A green mark indicates a good chance of restoring the object, a yellow mark indicates a weak one, and a red mark indicates the complete absence of any chance.
To restore something found, mark it in the list and click the button of the same name at the bottom right of the window.

Each of the three applications reviewed is good in its own way. Recuva is convenient to keep on hand for everyday use - despite its limited functionality, it solves its problems well, but most importantly - quickly. And if we can’t cope with something, we use EasyRecovery and R-Studio - “heavy weapons” for the most intractable situations. For 90% of users, this set is enough for almost all occasions.

After deleting files from the hard drive, even if it is impossible to remove them from the recycle bin, they will still remain on the laptop’s hard drive or personal computer, however, in a slightly different form. In the file table, such files are marked “zero”, which gives the system the right to overwrite them with any others. They will be lost forever unless other information is written to the area occupied on the hard drive.

What to do if important information is accidentally deleted

If laptop computer fell or as a result HDD formatting impossible to count important information, but you plan to restore it, you need to remember the following:

To save data, you can immediately turn off the computer in emergency mode and not take any further actions with the hard drive;
In any case, you cannot copy any data to disk C and install applications;
For subsequent work, it is recommended to use only external media.

The reason was stated above - the area of the hard drive with the necessary data can accidentally be overwritten, and you will lose the deleted files. Before contacting specialists to extract information from a laptop, discuss in advance how much it costs - the price sometimes turns out to be too high. If this is exactly the case, then you will have to act independently.

How to recover lost data yourself

You can use special applications to recover data from your hard drive.

They do not provide a 100% guarantee of a positive result, but usually most of the lost information can be recovered with their help.

A condition that dramatically increases the chances of successful recovery is starting the system from another external HDD, that is, you cannot download and install these programs on a disk or at least a partition of a disk with which you will continue to work.

All of these applications operate almost identically, scanning the surface of the hard drive with a certain depth. Both the table and the load record are checked, and certain types of data are recognized by specific headers. After recovery, sometimes the location of files or their names may be lost.

R-Studio

After launching the application, the “Disk Panel” will open - the main window of the program. All laptop media available in the system will be displayed, from which you will need to select the disk or partition containing damaged information. All important information about it will be presented in the right window. If there is no damage to the file system, you can do the following:

Select the required media or partition by clicking on it double click in the program explorer;
An almost familiar-looking explorer will open, in which deleted folders can be distinguished by a characteristic icon crossed out with a red cross;
Select the required files with a tick;
In the top menu, select the “Restore marked” command, specify the location for the restored information.

Do not forget that you can only restore data to another HDD or to another partition. This window also contains other useful features, for example, searching for deleted files by extension, name, size or creation date, restoring data by mask, etc.

Actions with formatted and failed drives

If a computer or laptop “fell” or was formatted, individual sectors on it are faulty and the disk has failed, then, accordingly, the file system is modified or damaged. In this case, there is a possibility that data recovery from the hard drive will be incomplete.

The complexity of working with the program does not increase much, but it will take more time.

You will need to create an image of the disk to be restored and associate all further actions only with it. This will secure the files on the disk and prevent further damage:

Open the main R-Studio window;
In the menu ribbon, find the “Create image” item and run this procedure, indicating in the window that opens the storage location for the image;
Once the process is complete, open the created image by returning to the main program window and selecting the appropriate menu item.

After the image has been created and opened, you can begin the disk scanning procedure:

in the main menu, select “Scan”;
a window will open in which you determine the type of scanning - detailed or simple view;
Next, click the “Scan” button and wait for the results.

The scan type you choose depends on the media size. For small ones, you should select the “Detailed view” item, since in this case a window will appear detailed information about the data found and the structure of sectors. If you are working with large media, to speed up the process, select the “Simple View” option.

At the end of the scanning process, a window will open with a list of found files that can be restored completely or selectively.

You should be prepared for the transfer process to be quite lengthy.

Working with Minitool Power Data Recovery on a damaged hard drive

If the HDD has flown and is not detected on a laptop or PC, there are ways to restore information specialized programs, such as Minitool Power Data Recovery. This application is no less popular than R-Studio, but it specializes in working with faulty HDDs. It performs a deep scan, as a result of which the program manages to find many deleted data that cannot be retrieved by other applications.

Minitool Power Data Recovery is characterized by simple interface, the ability to work not only with hard drives and RAID devices, but also with CDs, DVDs, memory cards, USB flash drives, iPod, etc. The main screen is designed in a modern tiled interface, allowing you to select one of five available program modules:

Recovery after deletion is the simplest option, in which you need to get back files destroyed by a combination Shift keys and Del or erased from the basket;
Digital media recovery - this utility returns lost data from flash drives, cameras, mobile phones, iPad, iPod, etc.
Recovering lost partitions – returning information from deleted partitions after unsuccessful partitioning or damage boot entry etc.;
CD/DVD recovery – the module allows you to “pull out” deleted data from scratched optical discs;
Recovering damaged partitions is the most powerful module that allows you to restore the necessary partitions, even if the disk has crashed and is not detected.

Procedure

Almost any procedure using this application can be carried out in a few clicks. Let's look at how the damaged partition recovery module works:

After clicking on the corresponding icon, a window will appear with all disks and partitions, from which select the one you need and click the “Open” button;
A list will open with all data, including deleted ones (marked with a red cross);
Select the files to recover and click “Save”;
A window will open in which specify the path to save the recovered information, click “Ok”.

To search for specific previously erased information after scanning is complete, the program offers an advanced filter in which you can specify its type, approximate creation date, or size range. Free version The program works without functional limitations, but allows you to recover no more than 1 GB of lost data.

Report content

Send

Firstly, I would like to immediately warn users that data recovery is carried out immediately, in the shortest possible time, since the information on the disk may undergo an overlay process, which will lead to the impossibility of recovering the data at all. This also applies to

Not much theory:

A hard drive can have several partitions, and each partition can have subpartitions. And this can continue indefinitely, but the point is that each disk partition has its own file system . You yourself assign the file system to the disks and partitions: FAT 32, NTFS, etc.

Typically used NTFS system, it is more protected and less susceptible to destruction from incorrect user actions. Files located on hard drive have their own name and labels, using these labels the system can easily find files.

It happens that files are deleted, either by mistake, due to an incorrectly used command, the influence and sabotage of a virus, a banal power outage can also cause harm. The point is that the file that you do not see in the same place is in the same place, no, this is not a verbal pun, the file really is where it was.

The only thing that happened to him was that he simply stopped being visible and his label was changed to deleted. This supposedly deleted file can be restored, almost to its original form, by simply processing the data on the hard drive and extracting the file. For this there are special utilities, which serve as restorers of lost information.

There are tens of thousands of such programs on the Internet, and it is almost impossible to figure out which one is the most suitable. The only thing you should adhere to is the advice of your friends and specialists you trust.

Recovery process:

Today there are two wonderful utilities: R.S. File Recovery And R-Studio.

First of all, you need to understand two simple rules:

A). You cannot write data to a partition with lost information, but if it is a system partition, then it is recommended to perform recovery on a third-party machine, since system disk is subject to constant filling with data, but if you are sure that the lost information was on a specific disk partition, the probability of recovery is very high.

B). If the actions you perform are of a purely incomprehensible nature, and you are not confident in your actions, then it is better to contact specialists in service center, since your actions will make it even worse, you will destroy all hard drive.

Recovering data from a hard drive

So let's use special programs for data recovery. There are quite a lot of them, but now we will describe how to use the utility RS File Recovery.

This utility is shareware.

To begin with, download and install the program on the official website.

A)Choice logical drive.

Let's launch the program. All your logical drives will appear in the window. Select the disk you need. You need to select exactly the drive from which you want to recover data.

B)Disk scanning.

Double-click on the drive of your choice, or right-click and select the "Open" button. The scan of the selected logical drive will begin, and the program will display the contents.

C)Scanning result and file recovery.

After scanning, the program will show the entire contents of the disk in a window. You can view the contents of the folders you need. Deleted files will be marked with a red cross. To see only deleted files, click the “view” button in the program menu and select the “filter” function.

Recovery

You must select the files you need to recover. If you need to select several files, then drag the necessary data into the “Recovery List” column. After the list is prepared, click on the “File” button in the menu and select “Restore from list”. The recovery wizard will open. You are offered several saving options: saving to hard drive, recording to CD/DVD. Choose any one. But, if you decide to save the files on your hard drive, then you need to save them on another local disk. That is, if you recovered data from drive C, then should be saved to drive D.

You can also use paid program R-Studio. How to use the program was described using an example.

Recovering hard drive partitions

There are also situations where a disk partition disappears or was carelessly deleted. To bring a deleted or damaged disk partition back to life, use Testdisk a utility that exists in 2 versions: restoring the main partition (booting DOS - this is the familiar C drive), built-in (Windows - other disks).

You can download the program and detailed documentation on the utility manufacturer’s website.

The dialog box reminds command line, don't be afraid of this.

You probably won't need a report of all scan operations, so use the arrow keys to select No Log, further Enter.

Select the hard drive from the list (focus on size), then the platform (usually Intel), do not change the next item (analysis), Enter again, the last one is Proceed/Search! The search has begun, the time spent on its implementation depends on the disk size.

As a result, the program will display a list of found partitions. Based on size, find yours and click Write– the utility will record system information, after which restart the PC.

After these simple operations, the partition was restored with all the information. You can start working again.