Recovering data for free can be challenging depending on the specific circumstances of data loss and the type of data you’re trying to recover. Here are some general steps you can try: Check backups: If you have backups of your data, whether it’s through cloud storage services, external hard drives, or other means, restoring from…
Pandora Recovery
Find, preview and restore permanently deleted files.
Operating system: Windows 2000/XP/Vista
Pandora Recovery is a powerful free tool that provides its users an effective way to attempt recovery of permanently deleted files. And that does not mean restoration of a file from Recycle Bin. The software recovers files removed from Recycle Bin, deleted using Shift + Delete keys bypassing Recycle Bin and files deleted from DOS prompt. Pandora Recovery lets its user browse, search, preview and recover files deleted from NTFS and FAT volumes, supporting hard drives, flash drives and memory cards. It successfully handles archived, hidden, encrypted and compressed files and recovers Alternate Data Streams (ADS). Pandora Recovery features classic interface wizards, hints and context-sensitive help. Pandora Recovery allows user to browse and search the tree of deleted files where show deleted items only button comes handy. Finally, it has ability to scan drive clusters, picking up files whose MFT record has been reused by OS, damaged or recreated (it can restore files on formatted drives).
Version 2.1.1 supports Data carving (surface scan) of Adobe PhotoShop PSD and MS Outlook PST.
EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition
Recover data from formatted/lost partitions.
Operating system: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Server 2008/7
EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition is a one-stop & free data recovery software to recover 1 GB data free of charge. It is a comprehensive file recovery freeware which can recover deleted files or folders even when they have been emptied from Recycle Bin, recover data due to format, lost partition, system crash, and virus attack. Compare with other data recovery freeware, it can restore files from formatted disk, dynamic disk, deleted or lost partition with original file names & storage paths. By the way, it is designed with wizard mode which makes the data recovery process easy even for a beginner. Free, easy-to-use, powerful functions make EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition a must-have data recovery software in case of any data loss.
PC Inspector File Recovery
Recover lost or damaged files.
Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/NT
PC Inspector File Recovery is a data recovery program that supports the FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS file systems. Finds partitions automatically, even if the boot sector or FAT has been erased or damaged (does not work with the NTFS file system). Recovers files with the original time and date stamp. Supports the saving of recovered files on network drives.
Version 4 supports the saving of recovered files on network drives.
Data Recovery
Restore accidentally deleted FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, and NTFS files.
Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/Vista/NT
FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS undeletion. Undelete NTFS compressed files. Undelete EFS encrypted files. Wipe out deleted files never to be recovered again. Runnable from floppy disk. Search by partial string in the file name. Undelete whole files in a directory. Neither installation nor DLLs is needed. Windows Vista supported.
R-Linux Free Recovery
Recover files from existing logical disks when file records are lost.
Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/Vista/NT
R-Linux is a free data recovery and undelete utility for Ext2FS/3FS (Linux) file systems. File recovery after power failure, system crash, virus infection or partition reformation, even for the different file system. Unformat and unerase tool. The utility creates image files an entire disk, partition or its part. Such drive image can be processed like regular drive. Recognition and parsing of Dynamic (Windows 2000/XP), Basic and BSD (UNIX) partitions layout schema. Localized names support. Recovered files can be saved on any (including network) disks accessible by the host operating system.
Version 3.0 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.
When To Use Data Recovery Freeware？
Data recovery freeware is an excellent idea to try in a few very specific circumstances. There are no guarantees with any commercial data recovery programs, freeware or not, however. The circumstances under which the use of freeware might be a good idea would include:
• When loss is due to human error or virus. Freeware is generally very adept at restoring files that have been accidentally deleted or damaged during a virus outbreak on a machine. Be very certain that the problem is a result of this type of issue before using, however.
• When money is at a premium. Data recovery freeware costs users nothing to try. If a good program is selected, it can have very good results and save a wallet a great deal of potential pain.
When To Avoid Using Data Recovery Freeware？
Data recovery freeware is not always the advised route to take to restore lost or damaged files. There are three particular scenarios where it can be beneficial to seek out different options. They are:
• When hardware failure is suspected. Freeware is generally designed to address software-based problems. If a mechanical crash is to blame, another route is typically advised.
• If installation is required to run the program. Good freeware recovery programs will run off the Internet or a floppy. The process of installing a program might damage all chances of recovering lost information.
• If the maker is unknown. Make sure to select data recovery freeware that is highly recommended by others. Check on computer user boards and other similar outlets before selecting a program.
Why Consider Freeware At All?
Data recovery freeware is an excellent option under the right circumstances. If files are lost due to accidental deletion or because of programming issues, these programs can work wonders. With some paid programs and professional services costing a great deal of money, many people find freeware is the best place to start. Many people start here and then work up to paid-for options if the effort doesn’t pay off with a recovery.
Which Data Recovery Freeware To Use?
The best place to look for data recovery freeware is on the Internet. A simple search should net some results. If higher recommendations are desired, try checking out computer troubleshooting web sites, message boards and other similar locations.
Data recovery freeware can provide the perfect solution to fix damaged or lost files. It does pay to tread lightly when considering this option. Sometimes the cheapest or even free option may not be the recommended route to take.
Helpful tips for using data recovery freeware
1. If your drive is making strange noises or reports a CRC read IO error, DO NOT PROCEED. This indicates a hardware failure so your data is not going to be recoverable using “undelete” style data recovery software.
2. As soon as you realize your data has been deleted, stop using the computer! The less activity the better to avoid dangerous disk-swap activity.
3. Find and download data recovery software on another computer.
4. Save the recovery tool to a flash drive and run it directly from there.
5. Save the extracted data back onto the flash drive for added safety.
Data Recovery Freeware：
1. GParted Live CD aims to be fast, small in size (~50mb), and use minimal resources to get that disk partitioned the way you want it. GParted Live CD is based on Gentoo-catalyst, and uses Xorg, the lightweight Fluxbox window manager, and the latest 2.6 Linux Kernel. The CD also offers the following programs: parted and fdisk vi, ntfs-3g, partimage, testdisk, Terminal and Midnight Commander. GParted is written in C++ and uses gtkmm for its Graphical User Interface (GUI). The general approach is to keep the Graphical User Interface as simple as possible.
URL：http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/
2. KNOPPIX is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. It can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it.
URL: http://www.knoppix.net/
3. The Ultimate Boot CD will be of great help if you want to run floppy-based diagnostic tools from CDROM drives, consolidate as many diagnostic tools as possible into one bootable CD. Avoid digging into the dusty box to look for the right floppy disk, but simply run them all from a single CD.
URL: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
4. Undelete Plus is a quick and effective way to retrieve accidentally deleted files, files removed from the Recycle Bin, in a DOS window, from a network drive, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down.It works under Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista operating systems. The program supports all Windows file systems for hard and floppy drives.
URL:http://www.undelete-plus.com/
5. The Magical Jelly Bean Key Finder is a freeware utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry. It has the options to copy the key to clipboard, save it to a text file, or print it for safekeeping. It works on Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Windows Vista, Office 97, Office XP, and Office 2003.
URL:http://magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/
6. Ghost for Linux is a hard disk and partition imaging and cloning tool similar to Norton Ghost. The created images are optionally compressed and transferred to an FTP server instead of cloning locally.
URL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l
7. USB PC Repair Kit is a list of programs. The programs are loaded onto a USB Pen Drive to help fix your computer. The Kit contains the programs that can tell you if you really need to reboot after installing a program or permanently erase sensitive data from your hard drive that may still exist after using the windows delete feature.
URL: http://www.dailycupoftech.com/usb-drive-systems/3/
8. TestDisk is a powerful free data recovery software. It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting your Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.
URL: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download
9. FSBackup is a shell script that automates the execution of backups using the tar archiving utility. It is designed for use by technically knowledgeable users (programmers, system administrators, or other power users), for backing up a small network or individual computers.
URL: http://www.fullspan.com/proj/fsbackup/#introduction
10. SuperDuper is a program that makes recovery painless, because it makes creating a fully bootable backup painless. Its incredibly clear, friendly interface is understandable, easy to use, and SuperDuper’s built-in scheduler makes it trivial to back up automatically. And it runs beautifully on both Intel and Power PC Macs. It is an indispensable tool, specially if your hard drive starts making that horrible clicking noise, your most important day-to-day application isn’t working with the system update you just applied, or you need to restore a stable copy of your system, but don’t want to lose what you’ve been working on, or other similar cases.
URL:http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html
11. Corruption Corrector is a program designed for fixing corrupt files. It is for situations when you have (downloaded) many copies of the same file, but all of the copies are a bit corrupt. If the corruptions are in different parts of the file, it is possible to combine the good bytes from each file and get an uncorrupted copy of the file.
URL: http://ccorr.sourceforge.net/
12. Myrescue is a program to rescue the still-readable data from a damaged hard disk. It is similar in purpose to dd_rescue, but it tries to quickly get out of damaged areas to first handle the not yet damaged part of the disk and return later.
URL: http://myrescue.sourceforge.net/
Pandora Recovery is a powerful free tool that provides its users an effective way to attempt recovery of permanently deleted files. And that does not mean restoration of a file from Recycle Bin. Pandora Recovery actually recovers files permanently removed from Recycle Bin, files originally deleted using Shift + Delete keys bypassing Recycle Bin and files deleted from DOS prompt.
Pandora Recovery is not a backup tool – it can recover files that have been deleted months before Pandora Recovery was installed. And while the likelihood of successful recovery is negatively affected by the time passed since the deletion of files Pandora Recovery users were able to recover files eleven years after deletion and more than five years after re-formatting a hard drive!
Features:
1. Browse, Search, Preview and Recover deleted files
Pandora Recovery allows you to find and recover recoverable deleted files from NTFS and FAT-formatted volumes. Pandora Recovery will scan your hard drive and build an index of existing and deleted files and directories (folders) on any logical drive of your computer with supported file format. Once the scanning is complete you have full control over which files to recover and what destination to recover them to. You can BROWSE the hierarchy of existing and deleted files, or you can use SEARCH functionality to find a deleted file if you remember at least one of the following:
– full or partial file name,
– file size,
– file creation date, or
– file last accessed date
On top of that, Pandora Recovery allows you to preview deleted files of certain type (images and text files) without performing recovery. This feature becomes really important if you are forced to recover deleted files to the same drive. Currently you can preview files having several image file types (BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, ICO,TIF, TGA, PCX, WBMP, WMF, JP2, J2K, JBG, JPC, PGX, PNM, RAS, CUR) and several text file types (TXT, LOG, INI, BAT, RTF, XML, CSS). Quick Viewer allows you preview file contents as text if it cannot find appropriate viewer for it. To use quick viewer you can select deleted file and or click the Quick Viewer icon or right click on deleted file and select ‘Quick View’. Quick View will then display a preview of deleted file.
Finally, Pandora Recovery allows you to recover deleted files, without any limitations on application’s end. Note that successful recovery might not be possible – if the original location has been reused by operating system to store different content the integrity of the original content has not been preserved and the recovered data will most likely be corrupted.
2. Surface (cluster) scan
Surface Scan – Embedded Image Preview
Click Image to Enlarge
As of version 1.1.20 Pandora Recovery implements surface (cluster) scan of targeted media, which allows:
– recovery of files whose MFT record has been reused by OS,
– Recovery of files from reformatted media,
– Recovery of files from discs with damaged or missing file allocation table.
Disk surface scan enumerates all unused clusters on the disk drive and searches for disk areas probably occupied by the data of removed files. Using this method of search, we do not use information contained in the file allocation table. So, it can work even on reformatted disk drives (except in) the case when low-level formatting was performed).
Almost each type of files has its unique features, for example the beginning of a JPEG file always contains JFIF magic word. Using this information we can determine what areas of the disk may contain deleted files data. Knowing the structure of a file (which is common within one file type) we can determine the length of the file and then recover file data.
File name and file attributes information are stored separately of the file data in file allocation table (FAT in FAT32 file system, MFT in NTFS), so we cannot determine the name of the file, its attributes, file path and recover data of file alternative data streams.
This method works only with non-fragmented files. Data of non- fragmented file(s) are stored in contiguous neighbor clusters, while data of a fragmented file may be stored in different places of the disk.
Remarks: In NTFS small files (less than 1KB in size) reside only in the Master File Table (MFT), so we cannot find such files using the Surface Scan Method.
3. Recover Archived, Hidden, Encrypted, Compressed files
Pandora Recovery can recover not only ‘regular’ files, but also archived, hidden, system, sparse, encrypted and compressed files.
Windows 2000 introduced Encrypting File System (EFS), which supports file encryption. EFS service runs on top of NTFS and encrypts or decrypts files or folders transparently for users and applications. Pandora Recovery does not decipher contents of encrypted files. Instead of that it copies the content of an encrypted file in raw mode just like data back-up applications do.
Encrypted and compressed files will be color-coded once drive indexing has been completed. Names of the encrypted files will be displayed in GREEN, while compressed files will be BLUE.
4. Recover Alternate Data Streams (ADS)
In NTFS all files have at least on file stream also called the unnamed $DATA stream. The unnamed stream contains the actual data of the file. Alternative streams usually contain file-related metadata. For example, MP3 music file may contain unnamed stream, where data are stored, and one or several additional streams where composition genre, album name and author’s name are stored.
While file might be usable without the original content of its Alternate Data Streams this useful information should be recovered. Alternative streams often contain file metadata, while file attributes contain information about how files are displayed in Windows Explorer.
5. Recover Images, Documents, Movies, or any other type of files
Pandora Recovery handles files regardless of their type, size or any other attribute. As long as the space on the logical drive has not been reused by operating system Pandora Recovery can successfully recover content of any deleted file.
If you want to search for unspecified deleted images or movies the best strategy is to search for common file extensions:
– *.avi, *.mpg, *.mov for video
– *.bmp, *.jpg, *.png, *.gif for images
6. Recovery success estimate
When a file has been deleted, the disk space occupied by the file can be reused by file system. The file system can reallocate this space for data of newly created files. Once operating system does that the deleted file becomes partially or completely overwritten. There are more chances that an overwritten file is corrupted and can not be recovered successfully. Overwritten files can still be recovered, but they likely will not be usable.
If clusters once used by a file have been reused by another already deleted files Pandora Recovery will display 0% as ‘overwritten’ value, which means the clusters are not currently in use. Still, the recovered data is likely to be corrupted.
Pandora Recovery gives you an estimate of recovery success by displaying the percent of clusters reused by operating system. To view the estimate move the mouse pointer over a file for a second or two until popup tip is displayed. The tip will say “Overwritten: 50%” or “Overwritten: 0%” . The higher the percent, the lower the chance of successful recovery.
Names of files with partially or completely overwritten clusters are displayed in RED.
7. Review File properties and Drive properties
Pandora Recovery displays properties of files: file type, deletion status, percent of clusters reused (‘overwritten’ attribute), path and size of the file, date created and date modified and common attributes (compressed, archived, hidden, system, encrypted…). To display file properties you should right-click on a file and select ‘Properties’ from context menu.
Pandora Recovery also displays properties of available logical drives: Drive letter, volume label, type, file system, total and available size. To display drive properties you should right-click on a logical drive and select ‘Properties’ from context menu.
8. Recover to Local Hard Drive, Network Drive, or Flash Drive
Pandora Recovery can use local hard drive, remote network drive or flash drive as a recovery destination folder. Pandora Recovery even allows you to recover deleted files on the same drive that the deleted files resided on originally.
IMPORTANT! To increase the success rate of file recovery it is strongly recommended that you recover your deleted file to a secondary hard drive, a network drive, USB Flash drive, or other external media. While recovery to the same drive that the deleted files reside on is physically possible it may lead to partial or complete loss of your deleted content. Non-deleted files will never be put at risk in either circumstance.
If your lost data resides on your C: it is recommended you perform your file recovery by physically removing the C: drive from your computer and attaching it as a slave on another computer and then performing the file recovery using that other computer.
9. Recognizes FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 and NTFS/EFS
NTFS (New Technology File System) is the default file system in all modern operating systems from Microsoft, such as Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. NTFS 5.0 is improved version of NTFS introduced with Windows 2000.
NTFS replaced Microsoft’s previous FAT file system, used in MS-DOS and early versions of Windows. NTFS has several improvements over FAT such as improved support for metadata and the use of advanced data structures to improve performance, reliability, and disk space utilization plus additional extensions such as security access control lists and file system journaling. The exact specification is a trade secret, although (since NTFS v3.00) it can be licensed commercially from Microsoft through their Intellectual Property Licensing program.
NTFS5 (where 5 comes from internal enumeration of Windows 2000, the operating system which first implemented NTFS v.3.00) includes several new features over its predecessors: disk usage quotas, sparse file support, reparse points, distributed link tracking and file-level encryption, also known as the Encrypting File System (EFS).
FAT16 based on the usual 512 byte sector size and used with MS-DOS and Windows 3.xx, has a maximum partition size of 2 Gigabytes. FAT16 does not natively support alternate data streams or file permissions and it is not a journaling file system.
FAT32 was introduced with Windows 95. It is the standard file system used in Windows 95/98/Me. The theoretical Maximum partition size for the FAT32 file system is 8 Terabytes. However, in Windows 95 and 98 the size is limited to 127.53GB because to the disk 16-bit disk utilities included with the operating systems. Windows 2000 and later operating systems should be able to support the theoretical maximum size of FAT32, but Microsoft has placed an artificial limit which only allows formatting up to 32GB volumes on Windows 2000 and XP. The Maximum file size that can exist on a FAT32 formatted partition is 4GB. This has become a major factor in rendering the FAT32 file system obsolete for use on a personal computer hard drive. Media files can easily exceed this maximum size. FAT32 does not natively support alternate data streams or file permissions and it is not a journaling file system.
10. Compatible with Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2003 and Windows 2000
Pandora Recovery requires Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server or Windows Vista for installation. Pandora Recovery currently only recovers deleted data from NTFS formatted drives. There are no plans at this time to create a version compatible with the Mac, Linux, or any other non-Microsoft Operating System.
11. Wizards, hints and context-sensitive help
An easy way to get started in recovery your deleted files is by using the Wizard. By default the Wizard will open automatically when you start Pandora Recovery. You can also access the Wizard by clicking on the wizard icon in the program toolbar.
How does it work?
When you delete a file on FAT32 or NTFS file system, its content is not erased from disk but only reference to file data in File Allocation Table or Master File Table is marked as deleted. It means that you might be able to recover deleted files, or make it visible for file system again.
Search Deleted Files – Click Image to EnlargePandora Recovery allows you to find and recover recoverable deleted files from NTFS and FAT-formatted volumes, regardless of their type – you can recover pictures, songs, movies or documents. Pandora Recovery will scan your hard drive and build an index of existing and deleted files and directories (folders) on any logical drive of your computer with supported file format. Once the scanning is complete you have full control over which files to recover and what destination to recover them to. You can BROWSE the hierarchy of existing and deleted files, or you can use SEARCH functionality to find a deleted file if you remember at least one of the following:
– full or partial file name,
– file size,
– file creation date, or
– file last accessed date
On top of that, Pandora Recovery allows you to preview deleted files of certain type (images and text files) without performing recovery. This feature becomes really important if you are forced to recover deleted files to the same drive. Currently you can preview files having several image file types (BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, ICO,TIF, TGA, PCX, WBMP, WMF, JP2, J2K, JBG, JPC, PGX, PNM, RAS, CUR) and several text file types (TXT, LOG, INI, BAT, RTF, XML, CSS). Quick Viewer allows you preview file contents as text if it cannot find appropriate viewer for it. To use quick viewer you can select deleted file and or click the Quick Viewer icon or right click on deleted file and select ‘Quick View’. Quick View will then display a preview of deleted file.
Pandora Recovery FREE DOWNLOAD
Download from Download.com – recommended
Download from local server (if the above location is not available)
http://www.pandorarecovery.com/
To install Pandora Recovery please do the following:
1. Download the Pandora Recovery installer from one of the download servers listed above.
2. Run the installer on the computer you wish to use to recover the deleted data with. After clicking the link above, simply click RUN or OPEN when the dialog window pops up.
3 . Proceed with the installation.
4 . Once installation is complete run the software and follow the wizard to start recovering deleted data.
IMPORTANT! To increase the success of file recovery it is strongly recommended that you recover your deleted file(s) to a secondary hard drive, a network drive, USB flash drive, or other external media. While recovery to the same drive that the deleted file(s) reside on is physically possible it may lead to partial or permanent loss of your deleted content. Non-deleted file(s) will never be put at risk in either circumstance.
