Data loss on USB drives, SD cards, and external hard disks may come as a surprise. Irrespective of whether data loss results from accidental deletions, formatting of the disk, corruption of the file system or unavailability of the storage media, this may be quite a painful experience.
However, the good thing is that data may be recovered in most cases as long as you refrain from using the affected media until the files are recovered.
Luckily enough, there are many software that allow recovering data easily without any need of having technical skills. In this article, we are going to examine the best data recovery software for Windows by providing their key features and best uses.
How Does Data Recovery Software Work?
Before moving on to discuss the tools, it would be important to briefly touch upon the basics of data recovery.
Deleting a file does not mean erasing it from the storage space; instead, what happens is the operating system makes the space available for future use. Unless new files take up the space, the deleted files can be scanned by recovery software.
Recovery software is very useful when dealing with cases such as:
- Accidental file deletion
- Formatting a USB drive or SD card
- Corrupted memory cards
- RAW drives
- Missing partitions
- Virus-related file loss
- Unexpected power failures
Important Tip: As soon as you notice data loss, stop using the affected drive. Continuing to save files can overwrite recoverable data.
1. Stellar Data Recovery
Stellar Data Recovery is a multi-feature Windows software designed to retrieve missing or deleted files on USB drives, SD cards, external hard drives, SSDs, and all kinds of storage media. It recovers data lost because of any reason like deletion, formatting, partition loss, or corruption which makes Stellar Data Recovery appropriate for professionals as well as home use.
Apart from retrieving files, this professional data recovery software comes up with additional features like retrieval from BitLocker encrypted drives, lost partition recovery, RAW drive recovery, and restores data from inaccessible or corrupted drives. It also retrieves more than hundred file formats, including photos, videos, documents, emails, and archives.
The software works in two ways: Quick Scan and Deep Scan to help users retrieve recently deleted files and retrieve files deleted during formatting or severe corruption of drives respectively. There is an option to preview files before restoration through the software.
Key Features
- Recovers deleted, formatted, and lost data
- Supports USB drives, SD cards, HDDs, SSDs, and external storage devices
- BitLocker partition recovery
- Lost partition and RAW drive recovery
- Quick Scan and Deep Scan modes
- Preview files before recovery
- Supports recovery of photos, videos, documents, emails, and more
2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is one of the most popular data recovery software because of its simplicity and efficient performance in terms of data retrieval. This program was designed for both novice and advanced users since it leads users step by step in the process of recovery.
This software enables users to retrieve their data that has been accidentally lost, formatted, or damaged; system crash; computer virus infection; and RAW drive. EaseUS recovers files on internal hard drives, solid-state drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, digital cameras, and other portable drives.
EaseUS has two options – the Quick Scan and Deep Scan. The first one is used when a file was deleted recently, and the second option provides the comprehensive scan of a formatted or damaged partition. In addition, this software allows users to preview their photos, documents, and videos before restoration.
It supports more than 1,000 file formats such as Microsoft Office documents, PDF, image, video, email and archive files.
Key Features
- Recover deleted, formatted, and RAW drive data
- Quick Scan and Deep Scan
- Lost partition recovery
- File preview
- Supports over 1,000 file types
- Compatible with Windows and macOS
3. Disk Drill
Disk Drill is advanced data recovery software with high-quality scanning capabilities and an advanced and easy-to-use interface. The program allows data restoration from HDDs, SSDs, USB drives, SD cards, external hard drives, and other storage solutions, thus being useful both for personal and professional purposes.
The program can restore files that were accidentally deleted, formatted, damaged due to a corrupt partition table, power failure, or other system faults. It supports numerous file types such as documents, photos, videos, audio recordings, and archives.
Disk Drill provides various restoration options such as Quick Scan and Deep Scan in order to ensure high-quality restoration of files. One of the best features of the program is called Recovery Vault, and it helps users improve their chances for future restoration by keeping information about deleted files.
Key Features
- Quick Scan and Deep Scan
- Recovery Vault
- SMART drive monitoring
- File preview
- Supports USB drives, SD cards, HDDs, SSDs, and external storage
4. Wondershare Recoverit
This software, known as Wondershare Recoverit, is a versatile recovery utility for people often working with multimedia files. The recovery tool can recover data from HDD, SSD, USB flash drive, memory cards, digital cameras, and other external devices.
Recoverit offers file recovery in case the data was deleted, formatted, or damaged by a system crash, virus attack, or even when there were errors with partitions. Recoverit can recover more than 1,000 different file types, thus it can be used to recover documents, images, videos, emails, and any other files.
One of the distinctive characteristics of this recovery program is Advanced Video Recovery. This feature scans for video fragments and repairs broken video files. There is also an option called Video Repair, which is used to repair corrupted video files.
There are two scanning options, Quick Scan and Deep Scan, as well as file previewing option.
Key Features
- Recover deleted and formatted files
- Advanced Video Recovery
- Video Repair
- Bootable recovery media
- NAS recovery (select editions)
- File preview
5. R-Studio
This data recovery software is designed as a professional tool intended for performing difficult and sophisticated recovery operations. Contrary to user-friendly recovery tools, R-Studio allows getting full control over the entire process of recovery that makes it popular among IT specialists, forensics, and data recovery professionals.
The software can perform the recovery of lost information from deleted, formatted, corrupted, and inaccessible partitions. R-Studio works with HDD, SSD, RAID, NAS, USB sticks, flash memory cards, virtual disks and allows performing the recovery of data from various file systems such as NTFS, FAT, exFAT, ReFS, APFS, HFS+, Ext, and other types.
The software allows recovering data from corrupt RAID and networked storage media. In addition, R-Studio allows disk imaging, hexadecimal editing, SMART control and customized recovery settings.
Despite of the fact that its user interface is rather complicated compared to other consumer oriented software, it provides great flexibility and high level of recovery efficiency.
Key Features
- RAID recovery
- Network data recovery
- Disk imaging
- Advanced partition recovery
- Supports numerous file systems
- SMART monitoring.
6. MiniTool Power Data Recovery
MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a reliable Windows data recovery solution that helps recover deleted, formatted, and lost files from various storage devices. It supports recovery from hard drives, SSDs, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, and external hard drives.
The software can recover lost data due to accidental deletion, formatting, partition loss, virus attacks, and file system corruption. Its straightforward interface makes it easy for beginners to scan a drive, preview recoverable files, and restore them in just a few clicks.
MiniTool offers Quick Scan and Deep Scan modes to handle both simple and complex recovery scenarios. It supports recovery of documents, photos, videos, emails, archives, and many other file types. A built-in preview feature allows users to verify files before recovery, helping them restore only the data they need.
Key Features
- Recover deleted and formatted files
- Partition recovery
- Deep Scan
- File preview
- Supports HDDs, SSDs, USB drives, SD cards, and external storage
7. DMDE
DMDE is a professional recovery tool, which gives its users a maximum level of control over the whole process of file restoration. Even though its interface is not easy-to-use compared to other programs, DMDE provides high-level recovery features for an affordable price.
It can help users recover deleted files, recover lost partitions, rebuild partition tables, and restore files from failed hard drives or other types of storage devices. The program supports HDDs, SSDs, USB flash drives, memory cards, and RAID volumes.
Another useful feature of DMDE is its built-in disk editor, which helps users analyze storage devices on sector level.
Key Features
- Deleted file recovery
- Lost partition recovery
- RAID support
- Disk editor
- Supports multiple file systems
8. iBoysoft Data Recovery
iBoysoft Data Recovery is a Windows data recovery tool that can help you recover data that has been lost due to deletion, formatting, and corruption of the HDDs, SSDs, USB flash drives, SD card, and any other type of storage media. This utility is especially helpful when it comes to the restoration of data from encrypted BitLocker drives, RAW partition, and inaccessible storage media.
It is capable of recovering data that was deleted or lost due to a variety of reasons, such as accidental deletion, formatting, partition loss, viruses, and system crashes. The tool provides Quick and Deep scan modes, supports all types of file formats and has a built-in preview function, which lets you see the files that can be restored.
Key Features
- Recover deleted, formatted, and lost files
- BitLocker-encrypted drive recovery
- RAW drive recovery
- Quick Scan and Deep Scan
- File preview before recovery
- Supports HDDs, SSDs, USB drives, SD cards, and external storage
9. Ontrack EasyRecovery
This software is meant for file recovery from Windows-based PCs, laptops, USB drives, memory cards, SSDs, and external hard drives.
The capabilities of this application allow for file restoration in case of their accidental deletion, formatting, corruption, virus attack, or an inaccessible partition. The more expensive versions include additional functions like RAID recovery, RAID rebuild, and restoration from seriously damaged storage devices.
Also, the program includes utilities for disk diagnostics that can detect problems of storage devices at an early stage.
Key Features
- Deleted and formatted file recovery
- RAID recovery (higher editions)
- Disk diagnostics
- File preview
- Supports various storage devices
10. Wise Data Recovery
Wise Data Recovery is a relatively light recovery tool that works mainly for restoring recently lost data. The software supports internal hard drives, USB flash drives, memory sticks, digital cameras, and other external storage.
The application runs quick scans on storage devices and shows the recovery state of each file, allowing users to judge about the success of data recovery. Though Wise Data Recovery does not provide some additional functions like partition recovery or RAID, it works fine for standard recovery operations.
A good interface and quick scans make it the right tool for simple recovery work.
Steps on How to Recover Lost Data Through Data Recovery Software
Most data recovery software follow a standard process of recovering lost files. These are some of the steps that will guide you through recovering lost files using Stellar Data Recovery as an example:
- Launch the software: You can open the software and select the type of files that you are looking for, including pictures, videos, documents, or emails.
- Choose the drive: Select the USB flash drive, SD memory card, or other external storage where the data is lost.
- Perform the scan: Begin with the Quick Scan and then run the Deep Scan in case the files are not recovered during the former one.
- Preview the files: After performing the scan, preview the recovered files.
- Restore the files: Select and restore the files to another drive and do not over-write the restorable data.
Final Thoughts
The data loss can occur at unexpected moments, although not necessarily it means that your files will disappear forever. If you need to recover family pictures from SD cards, work documents from a USB stick, or media files from the external hard drives, then the methods described below will help you out.
However, first of all, make sure to assess the problem, study the offered options and try to recover the lost data before doing anything else to your storage medium.
