Recovery of lost data

[MattyBoy]

It can happen to lose data in case of crash of the hard drive or an unfortunate formatting! It is often possible to recover them through utilities data recovery! However, solutions to restore data is not 100% secure, you should choose the right tools!

Preconditions

• Do not write on the hard disk or partition!
• 1.2 - Have a backup for other media: another partition, another hard drive (internal or external), a ZIP disk, ... etc

Windows

Software

These solutions are free and unlimited

PC Inspector File Recovery
PC Inspector File Recovery
For Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP
It manages the file system FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS.
You must install this software on Windows.

Restoration
Download Restoration
For Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP
It manages the file system FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS.

Handy Recovery
Download Handy Recovery
For Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003
It manages the file system FAT 12/16/32, NTFS and NTFS5.

NTFS Undelete
Download NTFS Undelete
For Windows 2000/XP
As its name suggests, it only manages to NTFS partitions.

Undelete Plus
Undelete Plus
For Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
It manages the file system FAT 12/16/32, NTFS and removable media.

SoftPerfection File Recovery
SoftPerfection File Recovery
For Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003
It manages the file system FAT 12/16/32, NTFS and NTFS5.

Photo Story
Photo Story
Can recover files even if the allocation table file system (FAT, MFT) is totally destroyed. Is based on the structure of files to retrieve the content.
Runs under DOS, Windows (all versions), Linux, BSD, Solaris, MacOSX.
It manages the file system FAT 12/16/32, NTFS, NTFS5, ext2/ext3 (Linux), HFS +, XBox.

TestDisk
TestDisk
Allows you to find the partitions of a disk even if the partition table was destroyed, and rebuild the partition table.
To rebuild the boot sector of NTFS and FAT partitions.
Runs under DOS, Windows (all versions), Linux, BSD, Solaris, MacOSX.
It manages the file system FAT 12/16/32, NTFS, NTFS5, ext2/ext3 (Linux), HFS / HFS +, BeFS, JFS, Linux RAID 1,4,5 and 6, LVM, ReiserFS (3.5, 3.6 and 4), Sun Solaris, UFS/UFS2, XFS

[MattyBoy]

Additions

This software can recreate any partition damaged. They only have access to this partition in order to recover the data (at least until those files are not corrupt themselves). Indeed, these programs are content to detect any partitions then to list the various files recoverable.

It must then recreate the partitions with other methods: formatting, partitioning tools. Therefore, you will need to reinstall!

An alternative to avoid losing too much time to recover data is then re-create images of partitions.

On GNU / Linux

Or another GNU / Linux system is up and running: it is enough to start over.
Either it must start on a GNU / Linux LiveCD (Knoppix, Kaella, Slax, SimplyMEPIS, System Rescue, Ultimate Boot CD ... etc. ...).

It will use the console.
It is assumed here that the partition will be re-registered when the data is correctly formatted (even FAT32) and climb.

[monsitj]

Windows Data Recovery Tool - Recover's damaged happened due to:
• Hardware failures
• Software errors
• File system corruptions
• Virus attacks
• Human errors
• Power outages etc

[Tara_Patrick]

I have used Stellar Phoenix Windows data recovery software to recover lost, missing, formatted,inaccessible data from hard drive, floppy disk, DVD,USB storage media.This partition recovery software provides RAW File Recovery through which you can recover more than 300 file types in case of severe file system corruption.This software demo version is free in which you can see the preview of your recoverable file.

[Banderasky]

There are so many data recovery software on Google, just search"free data recovery software",you will find a list of information, the top one is

Of course you could pay for the commercial data recovery software, but it's unneccessary, for home users free edition is enough to recover data loss due to deletion, format, virus attack,etc