Do NOT install, download or extract the data recovery software onto the hard drive or external device that you want to recover from.

Try to stop using the device or partition you want to recover from because if you’re trying to recover files from your C drive for example, any activity such as browsing the internet might accidentally overwrite what you’re trying to get back.

When recovering data from deletion or corruption, there are some simple rules to follow for the best chance of recovery: There are still some free and unrestricted products out there that can help you get your files back, and we have 10 useful data recovery programs here for you to have a look at.

Some may have a free version or trial but usually you only get to view the files that can be recovered or you’re able to recover a small amount of data such as 64KB. The data recovery market is quite competitive and there are loads of products out there, but mostly it’s paid commercial software. I guess the reason I wasn’t able to get back my files is because I might have copied some files to another hard drive. I have several external hard drives, all with the same casing and no label. There was only once, I wrongly formatted my external hard drive and somehow I wasn’t able to get back all my files.

In our experience, it does work more often than not and it’s saved me many times after accidentally deleting important files, or after formatting a hard drive and forgetting to backup some files.

Recently there was a discussion in our forum about data recovery and we were quite surprised to discover that many people don’t think that data recovery software works.

Free hard drive formatting tool