If you lost or deleted important files on a hard disk, you can turn to hard drive recovery software for help. There are fifteen best free hard drive recovery applications. Compare the best free and paid file recovery applications on the market. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard outranks its equivalents. Download this data recovery software to recover deleted files on Windows and Mac.
Did you accidentally delete a file from your hard drive? Then, you realized you needed to get that file back. Data loss is an unpleasant experience. Hard drive deleting, formatting, and crashes make it easy to lose data. Fortunately, hard drive recovery software can help restore lost files even if you don't have a backup.
There are many hard drive recovery programs, and we have listed ten based on their features, performance, price, and our personal experience with them. If these disk recovery tools can't help you get your data back, you can turn to a hard drive data recovery service to do so.
The best HDD recovery software:
We tested this hard disk data recovery software from multiple aspects, such as operating system compatibility, performance, supported file types and storage devices, price, and more. Testing statistics are listed below:
| 👉 Data loss scenarioias | Deletion, hard drive formatting, corrupting, or RAW |
| 🔢 Number of HDD recovery software tested | 10 |
| 💻 Version limits | Unlimited free or limited |
| ⌨️ OS Compatibility | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| 🗂️ File formats | Documents, images, videos, audio files, emails, etc. |
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is a top-notch tool that has helped millions of users retrieve their precious data. Whether you have lost data from a disk, formatted the disk, lost partitions, or the disk became RAW/inaccessible/unrecognized, you can recover data with this hard disk recovery software.
This program is also a world-famous free data recovery software. You can recover up to 2GB of data with the free version. Here are its key features:
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: 2GB of free recovery. Users can instantly recover 500MB of data with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free. Share the software on your Facebook or Twitter to reach a limit of 2GB.
I believe the program you can use is EaseUS Data Recovery.
— Venerabela Vuh'uni ❀ (@VenerabelaAD) January 6, 2023
The file is not gone. It's space on your hard drive is simply marked as 'vacant' until more data comes to overwrite it.
EaseUS disk recovery software can be used on Windows 10, 8, 8.1, 7, Vista, XP, and even older versions of Windows. It also has a Mac version that supports macOS 10.15 ~ 10.9. It only allows you to recover up to 2GB of data for free. However, the recovery rate of EaseUS is among the highest in the industry on both its Windows and Mac versions. It can recover files with ease and has the remarkable ability to repair corrupt photo and video files.
Top 10 Best Free Data Recovery Software for Windows 11?
This post provides you with the 10 best free data recovery software in Windows 11. You can recover files that are deleted, formatted, and corrupted without spending money.
Piriform Recuva is widely used by users who have lost files accidentally. What differentiates Recuva from other hard drive recovery software is that it's more interactive. Recuva guides you through the file recovery by asking you several questions, which makes it more user-friendly.
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: Unlimited free recovery.
Recuva is attractively priced and easy to use, though it can't dig in quite as deeply as higher-priced data recovery software. It can satisfy basic needs like photo recovery, deleted music, documents, videos, and email recovery. We have tried this software to retrieve lost Excel files. Recuva is 100% free for personal use.
Cleverfiles Disk Drill is also one of the well-known hard drive recovery software tools in the field. It supports retrieving deleted, erased, and lost data from hard drives. Other than the data recovery feature, Disk Drill also provides users with extra functions like data protection and drive backup.
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: 500MB of free recovery. The Pro version costs $89 and has no recovery limits.
Disk Drill has an intuitive interface, allowing users to recover lost data quickly. Its recovery capabilities also attract more experienced computer users. The tool provides additional free data protection tools that can help you recover recently lost data quickly. The Recovery Vault feature enables you to designate folders and files for enhanced protection. You can create a byte-level backup of a drive that can be used for the recovery of failing storage devices. But you can only recover 500MB of data for free. If you want to restore more data, you must pay a fee of at least $89, which is expensive. Besides, the scanning takes longer than the previous equivalents and fewer files are found.
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Wise Data Recovery is a free data recovery tool that helps to recover data in photos, videos, audio files, documents, and more from local hard drives and removable devices like external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, digital cameras, mobile phones, and MP3 players. With advanced algorithms, Wise Data Recovery performs well to retrieve lost data from supported devices.
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: Unlimited free recovery. You cannot run RAW recovery and deep scan with the free version. The Pro version costs $44.96 and has no recovery limits.
Wise Data Recovery allows you to recover data on your Windows system(64-bit and 32-bit). It has been developed to work on Windows 10 and other Windows operating systems, from Windows XP and up. The free version allows you to run a quick scan and recover recently deleted files. If you want to recover permanently deleted files from Windows 10, this freeware may not work well. The user interface of Wise Data Recovery is straightforward, so even less experienced users shouldn't have much trouble figuring it out. We appreciate the ability to preview deleted files before recovery and display detailed information about them, including file headers.
Ontrack EasyRecovery is one of the top choices for disk data recovery. It retrieves files from an HDD, SSD, memory card, USB, and optical media after deletion, format, corruption, and more. Other than the basic data recovery features, EasyRecovery also enables users to perform advanced RAID recovery.
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: 1 GB of free recovery. The Pro version costs $87.81 and has fewer recovery limits.
Ontrack is straightforward file recovery software for missing or deleted photos, videos, and more from all types of computer storage devices. Utilize quick scan and deep scan to optimize your recovery. It also provides manual data recovery and repair with experts. The cost depends on your data and the difficulty of the recovery process. It is a little hard to download. You need to give your email and personal information before you can download it.
Recover My Files is a reliable data recovery software tool that is exclusive to Windows. It enables users to recover files from hard drives, SD cards, USB zip drives, floppy disks, iPods, and more. It performs well in Recycle Bin recovery, formatted data recovery, OS reinstallation recovery, RAW partition recovery, and more. Documents, photos, videos, audio files, and emails are all recoverable.
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: Unlimited free recovery. The Pro version costs $69.95 and has fewer recovery limits.
Recover My Files is a data recovery program that uses file carving to extract lost files from unallocated clusters. Recovery is based on the interpretation of file content, usually through the process of reverse engineering a file type. The recovery process is not as easy as explained. The old-fashioned interface makes it hard for common users. Unfortunately, the last version of Recover My Files was version 6, and it's clear that its original developers have abandoned it. You cannot get any updates.
Photo Rec recovers images from all kinds of digital devices, such as computers, digital cameras, cell phones, tablets, memory cards, external hard drives, and more. It has powerful file recovery capabilities and support for various platforms. This open-source data recovery software can recover more than 480 file extensions.
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: Unlimited free recovery.
PhotoRec is free and open-source. It uses text-based data recovery techniques to get lost files from a system. It is designed for experienced users with its text-only user interface. The good news is that this software is 100% free. PhotoRec can measure up to many paid data recovery software applications. You don't need to worry about the price and limitations.
TestDisk is also an open resource application that is used to recover lost partitions. It can recover deleted partitions from hard drives, fix the partition table, recover the boot sector, and more. Since TestDisk is open-source software, you can inspect, modify, and enhance it, provided you know how to do it.
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: Unlimited free recovery.
This freeware solution is only applicable to partition recovery. It is a command-line tool that supports many operating systems and filesystems. The app is still supported by its developer and is available in a bootable version. If you lose your partition, you can run this software. Otherwise, you can try other free data recovery software.
Orion File Recovery can undelete files from Windows computers and Windows-compatible storage devices. In addition to data recovery features, Orion File Recovery is also equipped with exclusive features that permanently erase data from your hard drive to protect your privacy.
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: Unlimited data recovery.
One of the features that makes Orion File Recovery Software so user-friendly is that every time you open the program, it starts a recovery wizard. Specifying the criteria that the app will use to search for your files couldn't be easier. For instance, Orion File Recovery Software will search for videos, music, pictures, documents, and other file types, whether or not you can remember the file name. The bad news is that there are many configurable options. The scanning result and recovery rate are not so reliable.
Windows File Recovery is a command-line software utility from Microsoft to recover deleted files. It is freely available for Windows 10 version 2004 (May 2020 Update) and later from the Microsoft Store. It can recover most file types, with Microsoft listing JPEG, PDF, PNG, MPEG, Office files, MP3, MP4, and ZIP files from your hard drive or other devices.
Pros
Cons
Limitations on the free version: Limited file type recovery.
If you run this tool, you must know your target file names, keywords, file paths, or extensions in your recovery. You can only recover JPEG, PDF, PNG, MPEG, Office files, MP3, MP4, and ZIP files. Different file recovery has different commands, which are hard to find for common users. This tool is totally free and clean. It will not bring additional software and plug-ins.
Here are the simple steps needed to recover lost and deleted files using EaseUS data recovery software for Windows.
Step 1. Select the drive where you lose your data and click "Scan".
Step 2. Use "Filter" or "Search" to find the lost files when the scan completes.
Step 3. Select all the files you want and click "Recover". Then, browse another secure location to save them.
Data loss on hard drives, be it internal or external, occurs more frequently than you expect. It's usually caused by one or more of the following reasons:
At this point, most people learn the importance of a backup. However, people often lose data without any backup. That's what makes the hard drive recovery software necessary for the users.
Many software developers claim that their hard drive recovery software is the best in the field. But what makes a great data recovery tool? The higher the price is, the better the software will be. Or is it just the freeware regardless of its quality? While choosing hard disk data recovery software, you should consider the following factors:
Here "needs" indicates the situation in which you need to perform data recovery. An excellent software tool should be able to recover data from a hard drive in different data loss scenarios, like deletion, format, partition loss, partition/disk becoming RAW/inaccessible, virus infection, and more. Make sure the software you choose supports the data recovery from your specific data loss situation.
The hard drive recovery software should be virus and plugin-free and must not cause further damage to the lost/deleted/formatted data. Also, the hard disk recovery software shouldn't crash during the data recovery process.
What's equally important is that there should be both pre-sale and after-sale technical support available from the software developers that will serve you anytime you need it.
Depending on the hard drive capacity and data stored on the storage medium, it may take hours to scan the hard drive and search for the lost files. That’s why speed matters.
Besides, make sure the hard drive data recovery software is capable of recovering data successfully. For information about its success rate, you can refer to the comments from real users and reviews from authoritative sites like Trustpilot.
A great disk recovery tool should make it simple for its users to use by providing a clear and intuitive interface. The data recovery process should be as easy as possible. In addition, the software must have some advanced features that help users quickly locate the lost files. Such features include filters, search bars, preview pane, and more.
Of course, there may be other qualities you are concerned about. Regardless, check the list above and choose the best hard drive recovery software for yourself.
Here is the comparison of the hard drive recovery software scanning the same partition (127GB free of 141GB) and searching for lost data: You can choose the best one according to your needs.
| Product Name | Recover My Files | Recuva | Disk Drill | Wise Data Recovery | EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scanning Time | 1h | > 1h | > 1h | 37min | 27min |
| Files Found | 321,297 files | 111,213 files | 2,254 files | 414,170 files | 784,741 files |
| File Size | 13.80GB | no size is shown | 1.92GB | 19.84GB | 38.53GB |
Did you find the hard drive recovery software you needed from the list above? As long as your lost files are not overwritten, you can use one of the software above to give data recovery a try, but the success rate varies. The higher the software ranks, the higher the chance you will get your files back. If your hard drive is physically damaged, we're afraid none of the software above will help. In that case, you should send your hard drive to manual data recovery services.
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Updated by EaseUS Team
Here is a list of the 10 top best hard drive recovery software in 2023:
Steps to recover data from a corrupted hard drive free:
Step 1. Download and install EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for free.
Step 2. Run EaseUS data recovery software and select the corrupted hard disk to scan.
Step 3. Preview and recover the files from the corrupted hard drive.
Yes, you can recover a damaged hard drive with professional data recovery software like EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. Download and install EaseUS hard drive recovery program on your computer. Lauch it and choose the damaged hard drive to scan for lost files.
Step 1. Download, install and launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.
Step 2. Select the 1TB hard drive from the disk list to scan for lost data.
Step 3. Review the files that have been found and restore what you want.
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