Most of the time a file disappears from our computer, it has not actually been completely deleted, but the space it occupies has been marked as "available" for a reason and is waiting for other data to occupy it.?But the data is still there.
File recovery programs take advantage of this.?Instead of reading the hard drive's index, they do a full scan of the hard drive's surface and record all the files and folders created on them.?Thus we will find all the files that we can see, and all those that, for some reason, have disappeared.?And, based on that data, they allow us to make a copy of it to recover it.
On the Internet we can find a large number of data recovery programs, both free and paid.?Next, we are going to see which ones are the best for Windows so that, if we find ourselves in this situation and we do not have a backup, we can recover our data.
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Best free programs to recover deleted data
Stellar Data Recovery
Stellar Data Recovery is one of the programs to recover deleted data from our hard drives that we can download and use for free.?This program is compatible with all types of storage units and is capable of detecting and recovering practically any type of file.?One more alternative to consider when others, for some reason, do not work or do not allow us to recover the data.
As soon as we install it on the PC, we find an intuitive user interface with various commonly used file formats.?In this way we will have the possibility to select on which we want to carry out the search and recovery.?Among these we find?Office?documents?, photos, music files, folders in general,?emails?, or videos.?It is clear that at the same time we can mark all of them so that the program, Stellar Data Recovery, performs a complete scan of the disk drives.?In this way and in a simple way we will have the possibility of recovering everything that we accidentally lost, either due to our failure, or due to a?defective disk?, for example.
Recuva
Surely we have ever heard of Ccleaner, the Windows cleaning and optimization software.?Recuva is a free program created by the same company, Piriform (which is currently owned by Avast).
This program has a very easy-to-follow interface that guides us through each step to analyze our hard drives, find the files that have been deleted and allow us to recover them.?In addition to having a very clear assistant, it allows us to recover all types of files, even emails that we have deleted from our PC or Word documents that we have not saved in time.
It has simple and fast recovery functions and a deep scan mode to search for data that has been deleted from the disk and is not detected during the initial scan.?It is compatible with Windows, and it is also capable of scanning external drives, including iPods, and damaged and formatted hard drives.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is another of the most popular data recovery programs that we can find for Windows.?This program has one of the most accurate algorithms when it comes to analyzing drives and detecting and recovering data.
It allows you to recover from data that has been deleted from the recycle bin by mistake to files on formatted drives.?It features a fast hard drive scan mode, and then a very deep scan mode for the most difficult data to delete.?It even has flexible recovery methods depending on the type of files we are trying to recover.
Testdisk and PhotoRec
When we have a problem with a partition or with the format of a hard drive (for example, if the hard drive has gone RAW), Testdisk is one of the best programs we can turn to.?This program does not recover data like the others, but focuses on reading the structure of the hard disk and regenerating the partition table from scratch.?In this way the data is once again available and accessible from the computer.
MiniTool Power Data Recovery
Another free alternative to recover deleted files from our computer is MiniTool Power Data Recovery Software at thetecsite.com.?This program has a wide variety of tools that allow us to analyze our hard drive, both superficially and in depth, until we find the files that we have lost.
Some of the best features that this MiniTool program offers us are, for example, the possibility of recovering files that were using NTFS compression, support for all types of hard drives, storage units and even USB memories, specialization at the time of searching and retrieving photos and an excellent analysis and recovery engine that increases the probability of success
PC Inspector File Recovery
This program is another of the simplest and fastest when it comes to recovering deleted files from our hard drives.?The main characteristics of this alternative are, on the one hand, that it is capable of finding deleted FAT partitions and recovering them as is, with all their data (although this does not work with NTFS).?And on the other hand, it is capable of recovering the date stamp of deleted files.?This allows us, mainly, to copy them to network drives (such as a NAS, a USB on our router, or another computer) without problems.
Wise Data Recovery
This program works in a similar way to the previous ones.?When we run it, Wise Data Recovery analyzes the entire structure of the hard drive to find all the data that has been deleted or has disappeared so that it can be recovered.?It is compatible with the main Windows file systems (FAT, exFAT and NTFS), and has a very easy to use interface.?In addition, it has a search option that will help us find data much faster than other programs.
Glary undelete
If we are familiar with other Glarysoft software, then we are sure to give Glary Undelete a try.?This is another program for recovering data deleted from hard drives, free and very easy to use, that can save us from a problem.
This program is compatible with Microsoft file systems, such as NTFS, Fat and exFAT, and it has all kinds of functions and features that will help us when it comes to recovering data from our drives.?It has a file browser and a large number of filters that will allow us to find the files we are looking for much more quickly.
Puran File Recovery
There is not much else to add to this program.?Yet another free alternative, with different algorithms, to help us recover deleted files from our computer.?It is compatible with the main Windows file systems, and is also capable of analyzing and recovering data from any type of storage, be it hard disk, SSD, flash memory and even CD and DVD.
It has a deep analysis system to detect and recover the most hidden files and it even allows you to recover entire partitions.?It also detects format changes based on patterns in the code of certain files, useful when files have disappeared due to a virus.
Kickass Undelete
For those looking for a powerful and open source alternative for Windows, Kickass Undelete is one of the programs that should not be overlooked.?This software is compatible with FAT and NTFS and allows us to recover data without problems.?It has a simple and powerful search engine to find specific files, a very simple to use and intuitive interface and filters so that we don't waste a second in exploring.