Truly free data recovery software?

[Saint Grimm]

I've tried 3 different data recovery programs to retrieve data from a formatted HDD. They claim they're free until after the 10+ hours of scanning, then want 50+ bucks to recover anything over a few kb...

I'm currently trying recuva and also downloading paragon rescue kit in case recuva is another 'free until we find your data' program.

EaseUS took over 16 hours because it found OLD deleted files as well, it found over 18tb of data on 1.5 tb drive... filescavenger managed to only find what I acually needed by having an option to not scan for deleted files.

So if anyone knows of a FREE data recovery program that can not scan for deleted files, and possibly even recover an entire partition instead of just finding the files, please let me know.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

Have you checked for hardware faults eg bad sectors before trying data recovery?
Hirend boot cd is usefull as it has a collection of hard disk diagnostics

If the disk has bad sectors you need cloning software which can deal with bad sectors without crashing or giving up
Clone damaged disk to a new or known good disk of equal size before doing data recovery on copy.

Wanting to use only Free fully functional recovery software means your data is not valuable to you.

I have recently tried
Piriform recuver
Cgsecurity testdisk + photorecovery package
On a formatted partition with good results
Though some files were corrupted or lost

There are many more free programs most are a cut down version of a commercial package

A few recover a limited number of files for free or show you what could be recovered if you Pay for a licence.

How sucessfull they will be depends on how much has been written to the drive since formatting

You need another hard disk eg usb, esata or over a network to a hard drive to recover the data to

Trying to recover to the partition the files were originally on will prevent experts recovering your files if you give up and ask for help

Some packages loose file names others can recover the names of files & folders

Look for unformat option if you have not written to the formatted partition since it happened (although windows will write to the drive anyway )

Depending on value of data ask for proffesional help or carry on recovery your self

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[Saint Grimm]

My lost files are very valuable to me. But with $2.50 in my wallet and not getting my next grant refund until the end of this semester at school, paid programs are just not an option for me.

The drive was accidentally formatted when doing a fresh install of windows (installed the windows to the wrong HDD)

I scanned the old drive for bad sectors shortly before buying the new drive, no issues. There's not a lot of data that I actually need off of the old HDD...

It had 600gb/1.5tb free and I only need a 50gb ISO, around 2gb of pictures, and my save files for a few games. FileScavenger let me preview all of my photos, so they're all seemingly fine, but 99% of those images are bigger than 64kb, so it wouldn't recover but a small part of the image and leave the rest grey.

I'll try piriform when recuva finishes.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

Piriform make Recuva

Did you mean testdisk photorecovery?
Use the photorecovery program

It may look like it was designed to recover photos but it can recognise the file headers of most common data files

If you installed windows to this drive this reduces the chances of recovery
Some programs recognise picture preview icons which are at the start of the file but cant recover the full picture
Most recovery programs can tell you if the files is fully recoverable or only partially often using a traffic light system
Green for good red for bad

Regards
Mike Barnes