Best Free Data recovery software

Gtiracer · 16 Jul 2011 at 03:00

As above really, which programs are the best, unobtrusive and will search the deepest for old files and folders that could've been deleted ages ago.

Even if you know of a paid one thats extremely good would love to hear about it.

Cheers

jbloggs · 16 Jul 2011 at 11:02

Freeware: PhotoRec, TestDisk and Recuva, or see the Recovery Software section for others...

Paid for: File Scavenger or GetDataBack

Gtiracer · 16 Jul 2011 at 17:40

thank you mr bloggs

Chiz · 17 Jul 2011 at 12:19

Recuva works perfectly and I highly recommend it, based on experience.

I was able to retrieve 99% of data from a formatted 1TB drive. The drive was filled with media, and albeit the files were returned with a different naming format, similar to binary, the fact of the matter is, I managed to recover it all. I even managed to recover the data, while also writing it back to the same drive it came from, which is a nice little touch.

I'm not sure if the name scheme is a known issue, or a one off, but I thought i would bring it up.

Nightglow · 17 Jul 2011 at 12:25

+1 Recuva

Recovered 2400 photo's out of 2460 with Recuva, when hard drive died.