Can be run from a bootable/recovery media/disk from outside Windows.

Both programs are easy to use despite not utilizing a Graphical User Interface.

PhotoRec is capable of recovering over 440 file formats.

PhotoRec works with hard disks, CDs, memory cards, USB memory drives, digital cameras, mp3 players, etc.

PhotoRec ignores file system and targets underlying data, ensuring better data recovery and allowing you to recover files even after a reformat or crash.

TestDisk supports several types of file systems including those used on Xbox and Wii.

Ability to fix partition table and recover deleted partitions.

TestDisk recovers lost partitions PhotoRec recovers lost files.

Check out more articles on the best free Windows programs from here. This review is part of our Best Free Windows Software section. Now… here are the best free file and data recovery tools for Windows. For this reason, portability can be considered a much desired feature in a data recovery tool.Īll the programs reviewed here were tested by attempting to recover files and all were successful at retrieving the files. Please note that a data recovery program should not be installed on the same drive from which files are required to be recovered as the act itself of recovering files causes information to be overwritten, thus the files that you may want to recover may become unrecoverable if this is done.

I’m sure this fact makes you appreciate secure erasers even more now, however let us focus on the recovery of these ‘lost’ files. What is removed is a reference to the file, allowing Windows to overwrite this file with new file(s). Luckily when a file is deleted in Windows, it is not actually removed from the drive. If you have ever deleted a file or an entire folder by mistake I’m sure you immediately regretted this and wanted to somehow retrieve the files which were ‘lost’.

Recuva deep scan