Best Windows Data Recovery Softwares and Tips

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Best Windows Data Recovery Softwares and Tips

Have you lost your critical data accidentally and now wondering if you could recover it somehow? Well, do not worry. With the best data recovery softwares available nowadays, it is possible to recover data very easily. To help you make the right choice, here are the top tips to select the right data recovery software and our review of the best paid and free data recovery softwares of 2013, including EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, MiniTool Power Data Recovery, Recuva, TestDisk, PC Inspector File Recovery, Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery 6, R-Studio Data Recovery, and Data Rescue PC3.

Basics of Deleted Data Recovery

Data recovery works on the basic concept that when a file is deleted or a recycle bin is emptied, the deleted file content isn’t physically damaged on the disk, but instead the file is just flagged as ‘deleted’. To be more precise, the disk space occupied by the file is made available for writing once it is deleted. This simply means that older your deleted file gets, lesser are the chances of its successful recovery as it is quite likely to have already been overwritten by a newer file on the disk.

Now having said this, any data recovery software will work best for you if the deleted data is recovered to another external drive, be it another hard disk, disk partition, external USB drive, or some networked machine. Also, the data recovery softwares give best results when they are installed on the system before the file is deleted or any recovery is attempted. For instance, if the data you wish to recover in on C Drive, installing a recovery software on the same drive might damage or overwrite the target file. Lastly, it is very difficult to recover any data from drives that are physically damaged. Although you may find softwares that promise partial data recovery in such scenarios, these are pretty expensive services suited only for commercial use.

So the golden rule to remember when attempting any kind of data recovery is – Do not reboot or write anything onto your disk until you recover your deleted data.

What is the Best Data Recovery Software?

5 Top Tips to Find the Right File Recovery Solution

When finding the right software for data recovery, you must go for a program that can recover your data from where you ‘lost’ it. Perhaps your system underwent a partition reformatting or suffered a bad virus attack. Or may be you just accidentally ended up deleting some of your important files. You need recovery software that is best suited to the specific scenario that led to deletion of target data. Here are some of the features you must look for when making the right choice –

  • Recoverable Targets – The top data recovery software is the one that can recover all deleted data not only from emptied recycle bins but also from external drives, damaged sectors, altered partitions, and USB discs and drives.
  • File Systems Supported – While most easily available recovery solutions support different types of FAT file formats, the best software product is the one that supports both NFTS and FAT file systems.
  • Recovery Software Features – Most software solutions for data recovery offer only the basic features, but the ones that come with abilities to launch file search without requiring access to Windows and create damaged disk images are the best to pick up. This will help you prevent any data loss in future.
  • Filter, Sort, and Search Features – Tools that allow you to filter and sort discovered file lists and also search them by file size, file name, extension, type, or size are best to have. You can also look for ones that allow searching specific file versions and also provide you file previews of the target files.
  • Service Support – Most free data recovery tools come with a user friendly interface, but before you opt for one, ensure that the company offers direct service support via chat, e-mail, or phone. The product should also have proper support documentation like user FAQs and product manuals. Some products also offer professional data recovery services, but that might lead to a big hole in your pocket.

Top 5 Free Data Recovery Softwares

Here the five best free data recovery softwares that you can use to recover deleted data from your Windows system –

  1. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard (Free Edition)

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is among the best and most reliable data recovery softwares that offer a powerful undelete, data recovery, and unformat functionality. It allows you to retrieve and view deleted or formatted folders and files from various sources. Its special Disk Scan functionality has an outstanding capability to retrieve data from damaged, corrupted, reformatted, and formatted FAT and NTFS partitions and hard drives. It is very easy to use and comes with a detailed user guide.

  1. MiniTool Power Data Recovery (Free Edition)

It stands out among the rest because of its intuitive, user-friendly interface and its amazing recovery time and a higher recovery ratio. Its limited free edition can be used for recovering data up to 1GB. For more than 1GB data recovery, you will have to go for the full paid professional version. Unlike other softwares, this one comes with very easy-to-follow help guides to guide you through the data recovery process step by step.

  • Official Website: https://www.powerdatarecovery.com/
  • Where to Download? https://www.powerdatarecovery.com/download.html
  • Latest Version Available: 6.6
  • File Size: 5.60 MB
  • 64 Bit compatibility: Yes
  • License: Limited Freeware (up to 1 GB data recover)
  • System Requirements: Windows 7/8/2000/XP/Vista/2003; 486/Pentium-class processor; 64MB RAM (recommended 128 MB); IDE/SCSI/SATA hard drive; Free space up to 100 MB;  second hard disk recommended.
  1. Recuva

Developed by Piriform, Recuva is another good data recovery solution to consider for deleted file recovery. Although it also has a user-friendly interface and great recovery times, it lacks some features when compared to the MiniTool Power Data Recovery software. Also, Recuva seems to work well only on straight forward and simple data recovery. While MiniTool could recover all the 110 files we tried to recover after disk formatting, Recuva deep scan managed to locate and restore just 25 out of them. Recuva Free can be downloaded for free but the free version comes with no professional service support. Recuva Professional and Recuva Business come with technical support and additional features and can be purchased from the below links.

  1. TestDisk

TestDisk, one of the open source softwares, definitely stands out due to its amazing data recovery times, which can be matched only by expensive commercial tools. It could recover 1 GB data in 83 sec, as compared to 87 sec taken by MiniTool and Recuva. Being a cross-platform application, which comes pre-installed on some Linux Distro-Live CDs, it doesn’t need to be specifically installed and is very powerful. TestDisk also has several valuable features like it enables you to restore even the DE-type partitions. This is extremely helpful if you are using a Dell Computer. The only disadvantage is that this tool is targeted to more specific and advanced users and hence does not have any GUI. However, it does have great online guides to guide you through the process.

  • Official Website: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
  • Where to Download? https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download
  • Latest Version Available: 6.14
  • File Size: 900K to 3.3 MB depending on OS
  • 32/64 Bit compatibility: Yes
  • License: Unrestricted freeware
  • System Requirements: DOS (Windows 9x DOS-box or the real one), Windows (NT4/XP/2000/Vista/2008/2003/Windows 7 (x86 & x64); recommended use only on systems that lack WoW64 as few features are missing), Linux kernel 2.4x/2.6x i386/x86_64, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, MacOS X and SunOS.
  1. PC Inspector File Recovery

PC Inspector File Recovery is another option to consider for free external disk data recovery. It does have some promising features like Sector Scan option. But what is lacking is more that what it offers and hence we have chosen to rank it last in our list. It certainly has a decent GUI but when compared to others in the list, it does not live up to our expectations. Logical drive selection is a good feature but with lack of detailed guides, it looked complicated to use. Sector Scan also failed to restore files after disk was formatted. Besides, recovery times are good but not that great. It took 15 min for 1 GB data as compared to 83-87 sec taken by others! Choice is yours.

Top 3 Professional Data Recovery Softwares

For those who are ready to shell out some good money to have a professional data recovery solution with professional business and technical support, here are the top 3 file recovery softwares for purchase –

  1. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery 6

With user friendly GUI, easy-to-follow data recovery process, Stellar Phoenix 6 makes recovering lost files less stressful. It can you recover more than 200 different types of files from various devices, including DVDs, USB drives, and SD cards. The entry-level product, designed for home use, doesn’t have all the advanced features. If you are looking for creating disk images, performing RAW recovery, or retrieving RAID array, you must upgrade to the Pro version.

  1. R-Studio Windows Data Recovery

This is one of the most adaptable and resourceful tools for Windows file recovery in the market today. It boasts of its amazing ability to retrieve lost data from any kind of memory device you can think of. Its DIY package is no less than any professional data recovery solution.

  • Official Website: http://www.r-tt.com/
  • Latest Version Available: v6.x
  • System Requirements: Intel compatible platform running Windows 2012/2008/2000/2003/XP/Vista/Windows 7/8; min 32 MB RAM; a network connection for data recovery
  • Price: Different packages, starting $49 (refer link below)
  • Where to Buy? http://www.data-recovery-software.net/
  1. Data Rescue PC3

Yet another great tool to recover data, Data Rescue PC3 is mainly known for its boot disk feature that allows you to recover deleted data from a PC that isn’t able to boot Windows.

There are many other products in the market, but the free and professional softwares reviewed above are really worth a try. Go through detailed specifications of each one of them and make a wise choice before you decide on what is the best data recovery software for you.

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