Top 5 Data Recovery Softwares According to Experts

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If you use a PC, you store data in it. Be it photos, videos, movies, music, games, software, documents, or any other file, your PC is never empty. Sometimes the data stored can be crucial, such as family photos, important documents, work software, or any other important file. Electronic devices are prone to failure at some point, no matter how expensive or latest tech they maybe. In case, when the system crashes, you may lose all your precious data. Other causes of data loss are hard disk error, software error or glitches, human error, and viruses among many other possible causes. 

A data loss may cause you a huge loss, be it a professional loss in case of work and important files, or personal loss in case of private files. There are ways in which a deleted file can be recovered. A data recovery software can help you to recover the lost files. If you deleted the file by mistake, it can still be recovered from the recycle bin. If this is not the case, you can use a data recovery software.

How does a Data Recovery software work?

Whenever we store or create a file, the OS writes the data in the form of physical data on the disk and creates a logical address for it. When we delete a file, the OS deletes its logical address so that the file is no longer visible to us. The physical data remains idle on the disk until it is overwritten by another file. 

A data recovery software works by restoring access to files deleted by the operating by restoring this logical access if the file’s storage space has not been overwritten. Thus by reconnecting the logical address to the physical data, the data recovery software restores your original file.

What types of files can a data recovery software recover?

A data recovery software can restore files lost due to virus attacks, software glitches, system crashes, hardware failure, or files deleted due to human or software errors, and even deleted files from formatted storage devices such as hard drives, pen drives, and even android smartphones in some cases. The type of file or the supported extensions depends upon the software used.

How to choose the best data recovery software?

There are a lot of data recovery software available on the software. Some are free while others can be quite expensive. The effectiveness of a data recovery software does not depend on its price. The effectiveness of a data recovery software depends on many factors such as the number of files it supports, the maximum number of files or maximum size of data it can recover at a time, the speed of the software, and many more. It becomes confusing to choose the best data recovery software from such a huge list while considering all the above factors. We made this task easy for you, as our team did thorough research over the internet on various websites and also through customer reviews, and created the list of the 5 best data recovery software. We also listed the factors we considered while choosing the best data recovery tools. Go through our guide to learn more about these factors and choose the best data recovery software accordingly. 

Software Guide

Get a look at the factors that determine the effectiveness of software.

Performance:

Performance is the main factor to consider when selecting any data recovery software. After all, a data recovery application that’s unable to recover your lost files is useless, isn’t it? You would want to select a data recovery application that supports all commonly used file formats, and storage devices; both internal and external, and does not take hours to recover data from them. While some of the applications offer multiple scanning algorithms to speed up the process, others don’t make you wait for the scanning process to finish, thus, allowing you to access the deleted files as soon as they are found. 

Speed:

By speed, we mean the time it takes for a data recovery software to scan your drive and recover the files. We don’t expect users to spend the whole day waiting for the scanning and recovering processes to finally get their hands on something urgent. The software should be able to scan and recover the files in a short duration of time. A customized scanning option should be available which should provide options to scan a particular drive or for a particular free time. In this way, your precious time won’t be wasted by the software by scanning the entire computer for a particular file.

Security:

Security is important while downloading any free software from the internet. There are many dangerous websites that distribute malware that is disguised as legitimate software, and avoiding these websites is not always easy because the hackers know how to reach the first page in Google search results and other search engines. If you don’t want to risk your system with a malware infection and irreversible damage, we will recommend that you should stick with the leading data recovery applications.

For better security, you can also upload the .exe file to Valkyrie, which scans for potential threats. You need to ensure that the program exclusively performs read-only processes during the scan. It could be disastrous having a third party application writing additional content onto the drive from which you want to recover data.

Compatibility:

The data recovery software that you intend to use must support your operating system. If you use both Windows and Mac OS, then it makes sense to select a data recovery application that can run on both operating systems to prevent any extra cost caused due to purchasing different licenses. To check compatibility, you can download and run the demo or trial of the software if available, else check on their website for compatibility details.

Usability:

You shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time reading manuals or going through guides to understand how to recover your deleted or lost data with a data recovery software application. The application should be intuitive and easy to use for a hassle-free experience.

Price:

While there are many great data recovery applications that cost absolutely nothing, ease of use, their features, and customer support are typically pale in comparison with the paid data recovery software. You can try most of the paid data recovery applications for free by getting a trial or demo version. The recovery software can be a freeware or can cost you up to several thousand dollars. You can get a lifetime license or may have to renew a yearly or monthly subscription to keep the tool under support. Make sure you know what you are getting, and try out the software if possible before making a financial commitment.

Here’s the list of the top 5 data recovery software that you can use –

  1. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

EaseUS enables you to recover data that has been accidentally deleted or from a mistakenly formatted drive or partition, as it can easily perform file recovery on an emptied Windows Recycle Bin and can also be used on many types of external storage. With this data recovery application, you can restore lost files, photos, and videos in a variety of file formats.

According to EaseUS, its data recovery software supports over 1,000 file formats, which would make it one of the most versatile data recovery solutions on the market today. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard features a guided recovery process, which consists of just three simple steps: device selection, scanning, and file recovery, to make data recovery accessible even to inexperienced home users.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

  • Has a reliable data recovery performance
  • Can recover from a large number of file formats
  • Features a fast deep-scan algorithm
  • Supports more than 1,000 file formats

Cons:

  • It also Includes unrecoverable files alongside recoverable files
  • Can only preview files that are smaller than 100 MB
  • Does not accurately display the remaining scan time

Click here to visit its official website

  1. Disk Drill

Disk Drill

Disk Drill is one of the best data recovery software that you can have. Developed by CleverFiles, Disk Drill is uniquely tailored to scan both external and internal storage devices, from your local disk drive to portable USB drives and SD cards.

With the latest version of the software, you can recover data in more than 400 file formats from a variety of storage devices and file systems using its advanced scanning algorithms. You can locate files that were recently deleted with the Quick Scan and recover them exactly as they were before deletion. With the Deep Scan, you can reconstruct lost files from bits and pieces left on the storage media. However, you may need to rename the files after recovery from Deep Scan in some cases.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

  • Supports hundreds of file formats
  • Has powerful recovery capabilities
  • Can perform lost partition search
  • Comes with data protection and backup features
  • Has the ability to mount scan results as a folder

Cons:

  • No phone support
  • Scanning speed is average

Click here to visit its official website

  1. Data Rescue 6

Data Rescue 6

Offered by Prosoft Engineering, Data Rescue is an advanced data recovery software that has helped users recover billions of lost and deleted files. This program supports many different file types for recovery, and it also enables the user to teach the application about new file types by using a few file examples as this extends the tool’s flexibility to allow it to recover any type of file. With the new hex previewer, you can look at your files as raw data before initiating their recovery.

Standard and Professional versions provide you with advanced data recovery tools. You can also configure the Disk Drill app to send email notifications regarding current or past scans to allow multiple users to review the scan at their leisure. It’s easy to locate the files you are interested in recovering with the intuitive and powerful search facility. The app supports the HFS and NTFS file systems and is an excellent data recovery tool for your Windows machine that runs on Windows 7 or later operating systems.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

  • Is Capable of cloning and creating bootable drives
  • Supports various file types
  • Includes a hex previewer
  • Has the ability to duplicate a potentially failing drive onto a healthy drive
  • It automatically determines a set of RAID configurations

Cons:

  • Complicated multi-step recovery process
  • Expensive
  • Takes longer time to finish scanning
  • No pause and resume feature available

Click here to visit its official website

  1. R-Studio

R-Studio

Originally designed to be used by data recovery professionals, R-Studio has evolved to provide a user-friendly solution accessible by anyone. R-Studio provides users with extensive recovery options and has versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and as a true cross-platform solution, files can be recovered from any supported operating system regardless of the OS hosting the tool. This offers additional flexibility and can recover data from local and removable disks as well as from client machines connected to a LAN or the internet.

R-Studio has many advanced features that may not be necessary for the majority of data loss scenarios as it was intended to be used by experienced data recovery professionals. R-Undelete provides a simplified, wizard-oriented interface that makes it easier for the normal user to recover lost data. The free demo version R-Studio allows you to recover files less than 256KB in size and preview all data that the tool can restore. The application has advanced such as the ability to create disk images, a multi-language GUI, and S.M.A.R.T. monitoring technology. 

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

  • Cross-platform support 
  • A simplified version called R-Undelete is available
  • Can recover data over a network
  • Capable of reconstruction of RAID arrays

Cons:

  • Expensive than other software
  • For some users, the interface and extensive features can be confusing 
  • Not suitable for non-technical users
  • Does not display results during the scan
  • Capable of previewing only a few file formats

Click here to visit its official website

  1. Undelete 360

Undelete 360

Undelete 360 is a free data recovery application for Windows that has got you covered. Its user interface may be outdated, but it looks familiar and makes the application intuitive.

It allows you to recover deleted files from your computer’s internal disk as well as from memory cards, external hard drives, digital cameras and many other types of storage media. It can even restore files that were too big to fit in the Recycle Bin or that have been erased through the use of the Cut command. Undelete 360 does not come with a technical support. Undelete 360 uses a fast and efficient algorithm and can perform file recovery and folder recovery.

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

  • Free to use
  • Can recover most common file formats
  • Displays the scan results in both file type and folder view
  • Previews files before recovery
  • It can even recover the files which were deleted from the command line.
  • Files that were created and deleted by certain applications can also be recovered.
  • Can recover files that were deleted on Windows network shares 

Cons:

  • Below-average data recovery performance
  • Outdated user interface
  • Abandoned by its developers

Click here to visit its official website

Conclusion:

Losing precious data can be a huge loss. If the files were simply deleted, you can restore them from the recycle bin, or through backup files if you had created one. Otherwise, you can use data recovery software to recover the files. Different software uses different algorithms; some are efficient in one way or the other. You can use any of the above-mentioned data recovery software to successfully restore your lost or deleted files.

If you ask for our preference, we will suggest you to use EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. It has a unique algorithm that makes scanning fast and effective. It even allows you to specify a particular location for faster scanning. With support for over 1000 file formats, EaseUS is one of the most versatile data recovery solutions on the market today. Were you able to recover your precious files? Do share your experience in the comment section below.