Free Data Recovery, File and Partition Recovery, Undelete and Unformat Software

Free Data Recovery, File and Partition Recovery, Undelete and Unformat Software
Have you ever deleted a file, deleted a partition or formatted a disk only to realize that it was a crucial mistake? The data recovery utilities on this page allow you to undelete erased files, recover or restore a deleted partition, restore deleted pictures from your CF card, SD card, MMC, Memory Stick or USB drives, and so on. Some of the tools below can even reconstruct portions of a deleted file (namely, the file header) that have been destroyed or overwritten by some other file.
Note that undeleting a file is an "iffy" business at best, since modern operating systems tend to access the hard disk behind your back while you use it, possibly overwriting portions of hard disk that contain your deleted files, making it impossible for you to unerase them. If you know that you have deleted a file by accident, you should immediately stop using that computer. Use a different computer to download the tools below. If possible, detach the hard disk (if it's a hard disk we're talking about) from the computer and attach it as a secondary drive in another computer and perform the recovery from that computer.
The best file undelete tool / data recovery utility is a regularly backed-up system. If you back up your data at regular intervals, your ability to recover your data improves tremendously. If you do not back up your system regularly, you should check out the Free Hard Disk Backup and Restore, Hard Disk Image and Cloning Utilities page for tools that you can use.
If your data is very precious, you might also want to consider recovering it using a commercial tool like Handy Recovery, a utility that has garnered favourable reviews in many circles.
Disclaimer
The information provided on this page comes without any warranty whatsoever. Use it at your own risk. Just because a program, book, document or service is listed here or has a good review does not mean that I endorse or approve of the program or of any of its contents. All the other standard disclaimers also apply.
Free File Undelete Utilities, Data Recovery, Software to Recover Deleted Files, Folders and Partitions
Disk Digger
Disk Digger recovers deleted files from any media, including USB flash drives, SD / CompactFlash / Memory Stick (etc) memory cards and hard disks. It supports the recovery of documents, videos, photos, music and other types of files. It bypasses the Windows file systems drivers and scans the hardware directly, thus allowing it to scan even systems that have bad sectors or that do not have drive letters in Windows. It supports FAT12 (used by floppy disks), FAT16 (used by older memory cards), FAT32 (used by newer memory cards and some Windows hard disks), exFAT and NTFS (Windows). It is able to search for deleted files by either simply scanning for deleted entries in the directory, or by actually going through the entire hard disk to look for traces of that particular file type. It can also scan certain disk image files. It operates completely in memory (RAM) so as not to overwrite any portion of lost file(s) on your hard disk. You do not have to install it to run it, so you can even place it on a thumb drive or burn it on a CD for use in times of need.
NTFS Undelete
NTFS Undelete is a Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista program that allows you to locate and undelete files that you have accidentally deleted from an NTFS file system (which is the format of your hard disk for modern Windows systems).
PCInspector File Recovery
PCInspector File Recovery is able to find and unerase deleted partitions on your hard disk even if the boot sector or file allocation table (FAT) has been deleted or damaged. It can also recover files that have been deleted; the files are recovered with the original date and time stamps. You can also recover the unerased files to a network drive. It has specially written routines to recover deleted a variety of file formats including document files from popular programs, like Word's DOC and RTF files, Excel's XLS, database files (DBF), Adobe Reader's PDF files, as well as multimedia files like MP3, WAV, MID, AVI (video file), MOV (video file), picture files (BMP, JPG, PNG, GIF, TIF), archive files (ZIP, ARJ, TAR, LZH), executable files (EXE), help files (HLP), web pages (HTML, HTM), etc, so that even if the headers of these files are missing, the program is able to reconstruct them. This is a Windows program.
TestDisk and PhotoRec
TestDisk is designed to recover lost partitions and make non-bootable disks bootable again. PhotoRec is a data recovery software that recovers lost files such as videos, documents and archives from your hard disks and CDROM, as well as pictures from your digital camera memory (the photo recovery function, as its name implies). PhotoRec ignores the file systems it works on, and is thus able to recover from a variety of file systems including NTFS, FAT, ext2/ext3 and HFS+. It specially recognizes certain file formats like ZIP, Office files, PDF, HTML, JPEG and other graphic file formats. Its photo recovery function is able to retrieve lost or deleted files from hard disks, CDROMs, Compact Flash memory (CF cards), Memory Sticks, SecureDigital cards (SD cards), SmartMedia, Microdrives, MMC, USB memory drives, etc. The program works under a variety of operating systems, including Windows 9x, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, DOS, Linux, Mac OS X, Sun Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc.
Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File Recovery
Recuva is a freeware Windows tool that you can use to restore files that you have deleted from your computer, or emptied from your Recycle Bin. It can also recover files deleted from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. The software works in Windows Vista, XP, 2003 and 2000.
DATA Unerase Personal Edition
This unerase utility may be used to recover deleted files found on drives visible to Windows. It can recover files from FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS hard disk, memory sticks, USB flash drives, memory cards, removal media, etc. It works under Windows ME, NT, 2000, XP and 2003. This program is for non-commercial use only. Note that it is NOT able to recover any type of graphic image or picture.
SoftPerfect File Recovery
SoftPerfect File Recovery can restore deleted files from NTFS, NTFS5, FAT32, FAT16 and FAT12 disks, floppy disks, USB flash drives, CF and SD cards and other storage media. It also supports compressed and encrypted volumes. No installation is required. The program works under Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000 and XP.
Undelete Plus
Undelete Plus allows you to retrieve accidentally deleted files from your hard disk (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5), network drive, and floppy disk. It is also able to perform a recovery of deleted images from your CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards. It runs under Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP and 2003.
FreeUndelete
FreeUndelete recovers accidentally deleted files from your hard disk, whether your hard disk has a NTFS, FAT32 or FAT16 file system. This is a Windows program.
Avira Unerase Personal
Avira Unerase Personal recovers deleted files or data from your hard drive. It is for personal, non-commercial use only. This is a Windows program.
RoadKil's Undelete and Unstoppable Copier
RoadKil's Undelete is a Windows program that undeletes files from FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file systems. The Unstoppable Copier attempts to recover files from damaged disks (eg disks with bad sectors or scratches). It does this by copying available pieces of the file and assemble them.