A listing of useful hard drive data recovery utilities

When your hard drive crashes, your data is your most valuable asset. You can always buy a new hard drive for less than 100 dollars but you might not get back your years of pictures. It’s easy to retrieve data back if Windows is crashed, but it could be hard when it comes to the hardware hard drive crashed. You can always slave your hard drive to another computer to get back your data. Problems such as corrupted MBR (master boot record) could drive you crazy.

Not all tools is useful when it comes to hard drive crashing. Not even all commercial data recovery software can help you. Before you invest to expensive commercial data recovery software, you should search for a free one. Some free tools can help you get back your data, you will just need to try different ones.

This article lists some good helpful data recovery tools that can also do the same jobs as the expensive commercial tools.

TESTDISK

DOWNLOAD TESKDISK

TestDisk is powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.

TestDisk can

• Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
• Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
• Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
• Fix FAT tables
• Rebuild NTFS boot sector
• Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
• Fix MFT using MFT mirror
• Locate ext2/ext3/ext4 Backup SuperBlock
• Undelete files from FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem
• Copy files from deleted FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions.

TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery.

RECUVA

Download Recuva

Recuva is from Piriform, the company that developed Recuva, also developed a few other wonderful freeware utilities - CCleaner and Defraggler - that I highly recommend you check out.

RECUVA FEATURES

• Undelete files on your computer
• Recovery from damaged or formatted disks
• Recover deleted emails
• Recover deleted iPod music
• Restore unsaved Word documents
• Quick-Start Wizard
• Deep Scan
• Securely delete files you want to erase forever
• Portable version
• Full Windows OS support and many languages

GLARY UNDELETE

Download Glary Undelete

Glary Undelete is a free and easy-to-use yet powerful file undelete solution for FAT and NTFS file systems. It will bring back files emptied from the Recycle Bin, in a DOS window, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down. It will even recover files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!

Glary Undelete works under Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista operating systems. The program supports all Windows file systems for hard and floppy drives including FAT12/16/32,NTFS/NTFS5 and image recovery from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards.

Features:

• Supports FAT, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 , NTFS + EFS file systems
• Supports recovery of compressed, fragmented and encrypted files on NTFS
• Supports Basic and Dynamic Volumes
• Undelete files on removable devices (SmartMedia, Secure Digital, MemoryStick, etc.)
• Filter by file name, file date, size, recovery state
• Supports Windows XP/ VISTA / 2003 Server Operating Systems

RESTORATION

Download Restoration

Restoration is a freeware program by Brian Kato that restores deleted files no longer in the Recycle Bin. The good news is that it works not only on Windows 9x versions, but also on Windows NT, 2000, and XP — even in NTFS! It fits neatly on a floppy, since it is only 406 KB in size (and the Windows 2000/XP version is less than half that size), but you can also run it from your hard drive. I recommend you be prepared to use either option.

FREE UNDELETE

Download Undelete

FreeUndelete restores deleted files, including those removed from Windows Recycle Bin. In case of accidental removal of files on a NTFS (1.0 and 2.0) (default for Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and NT), FAT32, FAT16 or FAT12 file systems this is the utility to help.

Features

• File systems supported: NTFS 1.0, NTFS 2.0, FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32
• Operating systems supported: Windows XP, 2000, NT 4 (SP2 or higher required), Windows 2003 Server
• Easy to use, no special user skills required
• Full install/uninstall support

UNDELETE 360

Download Undelete 360

Undelete 360 is one of the best programs to use for restoring accidentally or unintentionally deleted files from your computer, regardless of storage medium.

Built on a very fast and efficient algorithm, the program will browse, search, and recover files that have been deleted as a result of an accident, a virus, or software and computer failures.

Undelete 360 can recover files deleted from computer hard drives, USB/thumb drives and memory sticks, the memory cards used in cameras, smart phones, and other devices, pen drives, and more. The program supports both file recovery and folder recovery.

Best of all, Undelete 360 is 100% freeware: No ads, no beg screens, no time or feature limits. It is completely free for you to use and enjoy.

Related posts:

1. How I recover data from a crashed hard drive using TestDisk
2. Live rescue CDs for data recovery
3. How to fix hard drive not formatted error
4. How to recover data from encrypted folder in Windows XP
5. HP DV2000 laptop Recovery partition