There’s no point crying over spilled milk but if that figurative milk turns out to be a file which took you hours or years to create, nobody can blame you for wailing.
Don’t fret yet, there are several ways to get reunited with the lost file, In fact, there are tons of Data Recovery Tools out there, such as DT utilities Digital Rescue and Data Recovery Wizard. The thing is, these products will cost you a few thousand bucks and they’re hard to find in the local market.
To help you cut on expenditures and to end your frustration from a file accidentally wiped out by human error or system glitch, I have listed (in no particular order) the Top Four Free Data Retrieval Applications according to various reviews online.
Read on and get yourself one today.
1. RECUVA
A date retrieval application with a lot of swag in its name, Recuva is a Windows-based tool with two modes of operation. If you can recall the last location of a missing file, Recuva’s manual mode will conduct a search in a location in your computer where ou thought your file should’ve been. But if you don’t know where to look, then you should try its file recovery wizard. With it, you can indicate the kind of file you’re looking fir and set a specific location.
Recuva assigns data recovery probability by means of light system (green-high; yellow-average; red-low). Recuva can also recover files from digital camera memory cards of MP3 players, and can restore files that have been corrupted by bugs, crashes and malwares.
http://www.piriform.com/recuva
2. RESTORATION
A simple name for something user-friendly, Restoration allows users to recover files, which were deleted from the Recycle Bin, On either a File Allocation Table (FAT) or New Technology File System (NTFS).
The moment you delete a file, it doesn’t mean that it’s gone for good. It simply becomes invisible, hidden in the depths of you hard drive. The space that used to belong to a deleted file is made available for use, but until that space in overwritten, the deleted file is sil retrievable. Restoration only requires 406k of disk space, so it leaves plenty of disk space for other programs or files, In addition, Restoration is compatible with most versions of Windows. However, it lacks advance features other data recovery tools have.
http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html
3. PC Inspector File Recovery 4.x
As the name implies, this program is one mean examiner that can perform quite well as a data rescuer, even if the boot sector or FAT of the missing file is unavailable. The PC Inspector File Recovery 4.x works by scanning your drive for recoverable files, and making such files available in a “Deleted” folder in an Explorer Style navigation tree, It also works with most versions of Windows and supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS. A reminder to interested parties, you should never install PC Inspector File Recover 4.x on the drive where you plan to conduct data recovery. The program must be installed on another independent drive (e.g. flash drive).
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/pcinspector.html
4. DiskDigger
If you aim for versatility, then DiskDigger can serve you well. This application recovers files from any type of media including USB flash drives, memory cards, and hard drives. Aside from its data recovery prowess, DiskDigger can scan reformatted or poorly formatted disks, and even disks with bad sectors, and can support FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and exFAT file systems. DiskDigger works by going through the Windows file system drives, scanning disks directly for deleted files or for traces of lost files, Aside from rivaling Restoration in terms of portability, the program can be run from any storage device and doesn’t leave any traces of having been used in a system.
http://dmitrybrant.com/diskdigger
*Reminders
FAT, NTFS and exFAT are examples of file systems. Each file system corresponds to a certain storage device:
FAT12 – floppy disks
FAT16 – old memory cards
FAT32 – new memory cards
NTFS – new hard disks
exFAT – Microsoft’s upgrade from FAT32
