How to Recover Files from a Hard Drive?

Last Updated on September 13, 2024

Data loss is frustrating and can really ruin your day. It can happen from physical damage to the hard drive, malware, accidental formatting, and other reasons.  However, there are several ways to recover lost or deleted data from a damaged hard drive. Depending on the case, you may need a professional data recovery service to recover files from a hard drive. Wondershare Recoverit is the best hard drive recovery tool you can’t miss. 

Common Data Loss Scenarios on Hard Drives

Here are some common reasons for data loss on hard drives: 

• Damaged Hard Drive: Hard drives are durable but won’t last forever. When the hard drive is physically damaged, accessing the files on the disk is almost impossible. This damage may occur from sudden shocks, power disruptions, and wear and tear.
• Accidental Hard Drive Formatting: It’s easy to format a hard drive by mistake.  This erases all the data on the disk and makes it impossible to access files. However, in some circumstances, there is a chance you can recover some data using specialized software like Recoverit.
• Viruses or Malware: Viruses and malware corrupt files or delete important data from a hard drive. We advise not opening links or emails with suspicious content, as this is how most computers get attacked by malicious software. 
• Natural Disasters: Natural disasters, such as floods and fires, can cause significant damage to hard drives. If you live in a place prone to natural disasters, always have backups of your data in a separate hard drive or the cloud. This way, you don’t need to work hard if you suffer any kind of data loss. 
• Hackers: Cybercrimes are prevalent today, and the most common target is hard drives. Hackers can gain access to your files and either delete or corrupt them. Hackers can also access your system to steal critical data, whether personal or corporate. Therefore, ensure you have a copy of all essential documents. Additionally, bolster your system with effective firewalls, an appropriate server solution, and complex passwords for optimal security.

Part 2. How to Recover Files from a Hard Drive?

If you’re trying to recover lost or inaccessible data from a hard drive, act fast. The sooner you start the recovery process, the better your chances of success. Here are some tips on recovering files from a hard drive:

Recycle Bin

When you delete any file, it is temporarily stored in the Recycle Bin. You can easily recover this file by pressing Control + Z. However, if you have already deleted it and want to retrieve it, search the file on Recycle Bin. Once located, right-click on it and select Restore. The file will be returned to its original location. However, this method will only work if you haven’t pressed Shift + Delete to delete a file or cleaned your Recycle Bin. 

Backup Files

If you have backed up your hard drive before data loss using File History, you can restore the deleted files using the File History backup drive. However, this method won’t work for an external hard drive. 

Recover Files from Hard Drive with Wondershare Recoverit

If the above methods don’t help, you can try Wondershare Recoverit to retrieve your lost files. This software can recover all deleted, formatted, and even corrupted files from hard drives.

File Recovery 

Wondershare Recoverit file recovery software is designed to effortlessly recover permanently deleted or lost photos, videos, and audio files from HDD, SSDs, cameras, USB Drives, SD cards, and any other popular data storage devices. It supports all types of files, and also supports a deep scan to look for files that have been lost or damaged due to virus attacks, formatting, and other data loss scenarios.

Crashed Computer Recovery 

It can also recover lost or damaged files caused by a crashed computer that is unbootable. 

NAS/Linux Recovery 

Recoverit also supports NAS and Linux data recovery. It offers NAS file recovery for all mainstream vendors, RAID levels, media formats, and operating systems. No matter how you lost your data on NAS drives, Recoverit can restore them easily and safely.

Not only this, but Recoverit also provides the fastest and easiest Linux file recovery service for in any scenarios. The Linux Recovery is compatible with EXT4, BTRFS, XFS, and BFS file systems.

Video Recovery 

You can rely on Recoverit to retrieve any video files lost or deleted. This tool can help you recover videos in any format across all operating systems and storage devices in over 500 different scenarios.  

Video Repair 

Recoverit can repair corrupted video files and supports over 100 video formats. So, you can rest assured that all your videos will be repaired and restored to their original quality.

Tech Specs 

Overall Features

1. Recover data from 2000+ storage devices, such as SSD, HDD, external hard disks, USB flash drives, SD cards, Linux devices, NAS servers, etc. 
2. Get previews and thumbnails of files before restoring them. 
3. Repair all kinds of broken, corrupt, or damaged videos, including MOV, MP4, MKV, AVI, FLV, WMV, MPEG, and more. 
4. Work on Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP, Windows Server 2022/2019/2016/2012/2008/2003, and Mac macOS X 10.10 – macOS 13 Ventura.
5. Compatible with almost all file systems like NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, exFAT, ReFS, APFS, encrypted APFS, HFS+, encrypted HFS, HFSX, RAW, RAID, EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, BTRFS, JFS, etc.

Steps to Recover Files from Hard Drive with Recoverit Data Recovery

To recover data on a computer, please follow these three steps:

Step 1: Select a Location

Launch the program and choose a location where you have lost data. 

Select “Hard Drives and Locations” on the left. Then,  select a hard disk under the “Hard Disk Drives” tab and click “Start” to begin the scanning on the selected location. 

Step 2: Scan the Location

Recoverit will start scanning the selected hard drive and it will require a few minutes to complete. Sometimes, the scanning will need a few hours to finish if there is a large amount of file to scan. 

As the scanning process runs in the background, you can see the scanning results in real-time on the interface. You can also stop scanning or pinpoint files during the scanning process. 

Step 3: Preview and Recover Files

With Recoverit, you can preview the recoverable files before restoring them. Select the targeted files and click the “Recover” button to restore the files.

Conclusion

Recoverit is a powerful hard drive data recovery software with excellent features to recover files from your hard drive. It can recover deleted, formatted, and corrupted data from almost any storage device quickly and easily. The user-friendly interface makes it easy to use, and with just a few clicks, you can get your lost data back in no time. Overall, Recoverit is the best hard drive recovery software you need to check out.