Best "free" get data back type software - dad has lost a years worth of work from external drive

DJMK4

DJMK4

DJMK4

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Hi all,

As above, my dad has deleted a folder from his external drive which had a years worth of work on it. Whats the best "get data back/data retrieval software" to use at the moment ? Prefereably free and good results. Picking the drive and his laptop up tomorrow.

Any help greatly appriciated
 
Remember that if you use recovery software don't install it on the drive you're recovering data from, install it on your own PC.

Also the recovered files will need to be copied to a different drive than the one you're recovering from otherwise you'll be overwriting the files you're trying to recover.
 
Thanks for the suggestions all. Yeah will give them a go. Iv run a piece of software called get data back before. So know the score about installing it on another machine and adding the disk as a second drive for recovery.

I'm sure he deleted and not hidden as he got the classic "this folder is too big for the recycle bin, do you want to permemantly delete"

Will give it a go. Thanks
 
So far I have used

www.piriform.com/recuva

On its default scan, I have recovered some files, but some were unrecoverable, I am not sure if it contains what he is looking for, the Root folder does not appear to be in there, but some sub folders, no idea if its what he is looking for. Going to do a deepscan on Recuva however it could take some hours.

Just trying teskdisk now to see what it picks up.
 
Ta, I will see what it picks up, he will be backing up data properly in the future, in addition, I will be taking all his data home and storing on my HP Microserver which gets backed up properly every 3 days for extra security.

Just hope these pieces of software find everything in his 2010-2011 archive folder.

Will let you know how it goes.

I am guessing leaving this drive attached to a PC and leaving the software scanning the drive should be ok (riskwise) it wont re-write any data to the drive whilst scanning and recovering?
 
Anyone know if there is a "huge" difference in results between the default and the deep scan through recuva?

Default scan picked up 9,500 files, however a lot of what he is looking for looks missing still, I am doing a deep scan now which is almost complete.
 
Last edited:
Recuva Deep Scan has found 18k files, however, I am getting a maximum path length exceeded, damn it :( Just trying to google this now to see if there is a workaround.
 
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