Good Free File Recovery Software?

Hello Everyone. I'm looking for a good free file recovery software that can restore deleted files from Windows 7 64bit. The files I am interested in are mostly Office files and Outlook files (.pst).

There are hundreds of apps I see on the Internet for file recovery but I didn't just want to install anything and try it out. If any experts have any suggestions I'd appreciate them. I'm not very experienced with Linux and I would prefer GUI tools. I've used UBCD in the past but it doesn't look like it has been updated in a while.

Thanks

 

I've used Glary Utilities with some success; although it's a software suite with many functions, it has a "File Undelete" tool. Recuva is popular and user friendly. TestDisk is more powerful than either of those, but is devoid of a GUI (graphical user interface) and instead runs via command line.

For your consideration: Five Best Free Data Recovery Tools

 

Thanks Prostar. I'm trying Recuva right now. The scan is taking awhile. I did see the article you referenced, although I saw plenty others like it too. +1 for the suggestions.

 

Well thank you! And if you need any help with using Recuva... press F1.

By all means, fire away any questions you have about using the program. Remember that it may be able to detect and show you deleted data, but sometimes the data is still not recoverable using the software, as it may have been overwritten or damaged.

 

I have some interest in Glary Utilities, but have zero experience with it.

Meaning I've grown disenchanted with the slowdown that takes place in all recent Windows versions (XP and W7 are the ones I currently use), with utility packages like Norton/Symantec (no longer on my list) and most recently with Avantec's System Suite package due to their allowance of using it on 5 home PCs for $40 at my local Office Depot. Given the bloat of my current System Suite I'm inclined to not spend another $40 for a new package which will get me a slightly upgraded set of software and another 12 months.

I see that the Glary Utilities are free and easy to download at: Glary Utilities | Glarysoft

And of course they have a current "sale" on the Pro version for "only" $28. (FWIW if they were to offer it for use on 3 home PCs I might give the Pro Glary Utilities a try).

The one thing I'd like to find is a free file system check program that will verify both NTFS and FAT32 file systems. Any help with this will be very much appreciated.

 

This is not the free side but I used the free program called Pandora to undelete as well and its free but it for some reason won't undelete files of larger size and that is when I found Active Undelete 8 but it's paid but does alot more and finds larger files to recover alot better. IMO some paid programs will do alot better to help you find deleted files....

 

If none of the popular software suites out there - such as Glary Utilities, Advanced System Care, etc. - are capable of disk verification on both files systems, then you may be stuck running chkdsk from the GUI or using command line for your FAT32. I haven't used Pandora or many other utility suites, so I can't vouch for them.

 

Thanks for the response.

I'm mildly embarrassed to admit that I'd forgotten about running chkdsk from a Windows prompt (aka a DOS command line prompt ), so my bad on that. Having done a lot of Unix work in the past, I'm very comfortable with command line s/w.

I've yet to reload my new Lenovo T530 laptop with a fresh install of Win7/64_Pro that I paid Lenovo $50 for. Which should get me to having zero s/w bloat on the T530 for a brief moment in time.

FWIW I'm going to move the T530 from a single HDD to having a faster setup with both a 512GB M4 SSD (as the boot drive) and a 2nd 256GB mSATA M4 SSD (both already purchased and waiting). I expect my current boot time of 120 seconds to drop to ~15 seconds. And I figure that while I'm at it that I'll also try a dual boot setup with W7 on the boot drive (single 400GB NTFS partition with 112GB unallocated for better long term SSD performance) and with Ubuntu on the mSATA SSD and a 3 primary partition scheme there.

So this is an ideal time for me to clone the current 750GB WD Black 7200 boot HDD (oop it's now a 500GB WD Black 7200 in there that I'm making sure is a good HDD by using it) back to the original 500GB Toshiba 7200 HDD, so that I'll have that as my easy backup HDD (easy to change the drive in the main bay on the T530) if any need comes up in the next year for the the NBD accidental warranty service that I paid Lenovo for when I bought the T530 ThinkPad laptop. Meaning that I'll simply remove both SSD and put the known to be working Toshiba HDD back into the T530 and then let them fix the machine per my NBD warranty.

So after doing another clone backup (which takes 16 min. for 97GB of data, which is just barely under the clone speeds I get on my desktops) I'll uninstall the Avanquest System Suite s/w, then download the free Glary Utilites in order to see if using it carries as much bloat downside as the System Suite package clearly does. If I like the free package,I'll try e-mailing Glary to find out if they'll cut me a better deal for their Pro package for use on 3 of my home computers.

BTW have you got a web site for Advanced System Care? Thanks in advance.

 

You can never go wrong with a SSD (let alone a dual SSD setup). :thumbsup:

As for ASC - voila!: Advanced System Care by IObit

You can also get the software from Cnet or any other major mirror.

 

Hey Guys. Thanks for the replies. I did use Recuva and it did find some of the files I was looking for. Unfortunately, it said that they had already been overwritten by new files. So now I am going the professional route as I don't have a lot of time to deal with this. Hopefully they will have better success. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

Hopefully they can manage to get some of that data off. By "professional" route, where exactly did you take it to? I know depots can extract the data off it, but that is a high dollar service.

 

That might be hard to recover if the data is overwritten already. If it wasn't your chance to recover it would be higher but as it is get over written your chance are cut in half and less and less.

 

Even overwritten data can be recovered sometimes. Glary Utilities would get back files that were in medium to poor condition sometimes when I tried it out. But StormJumper is correct in that the more severely overwritten it is, the less likely it is that any end-user software or garden variety technician will be able to extract it. That is when depot service is requires, as they have much more powerful tools to extract the data.