Question: How do I recover my deleted files on hard disk / files from formatted hard disk/ floppy drive?
Answer: The lost of data are usually due to virus attack, power failures, software faults, or accidental mistakes. There are several software that let you retrieve the important files but many of them are commercial and unfortunately most of the review sites seem only care of promoting the expensive software.
Now, the software that I frequently use for the purpose you have mentioned is a freeware called Handy Recovery.
Handy Recovery is a easy to use data recovery software designed to restore files acidentally deleted from hard disk, memory cards, formatted partition, virus attack, and restore the structure of deleted software etc. It can also recover files that were sent into Recycle Bin even after it has been emptied.
For whatever file recovery you intended to do, give it a try. At the time this entry is posted, Handy Recovery free version stays available online for download.
OS : Windows (All) Source: Homepage | Download Link
Sample sceenshot
July 6th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Is there a way to delete your files beyond recovery for free as well?
July 7th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Some data always stays no matter how you format the material on the disk.
July 15th, 2008 at 1:16 am
most of the freewares are demo version.
i am looking for a free fully functional version..
July 16th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
i need to retrieve pics that were deleted from my recycle in. how do i do this for free?
July 17th, 2008 at 4:47 am
there is a s/w called sanitizer to delete completely all data inside hdd.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Wow, that’s cool. I’ll try it.
September 6th, 2008 at 3:53 am
So you mean I didn’t have to spend that £50 on a dodgey program that didn’t actually recover what I was looking for? ahhhhhhhhh!!
November 9th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
It’s o good tool but it recovers only deleted files and what about files taht were changed, one file was changed by another file with the same name, can’t find tool for this
February 19th, 2009 at 5:52 am
We have 5 children and our youngest two are forever turning one of our computers on/off via the power button (not the proper Windows shut-down). I did a system recovery to factory specs and to my amazement the data files were still there!
February 25th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I do have a problem. Files recovered are corrupted. Is that normal?
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:30 am
Thanks. Didn’t know that is possible…
March 8th, 2009 at 5:34 am
Actually if file is changed data recovery is useless just because new modifications are written to same place (and thus this overwrites old information with no recovery chances).
The only one solution is to use Vista with its file versionning (in some cases it allows to pick ‘previous file version’). Some chances also exist if file was deleted/created instead of overwritten but chances are quite low.
About this specific software: recently I had to choose recovery software to get back photos from my vacations (they were on flash card and FAT was detroyed).
I tested plenty software products and my choice was new tool named “Raise Data Recovery for FAT”. Only one other good enough tool was one from Stellar, however it costs more. The free tools sucks. I’ll publish my own review in blogs soon…
March 14th, 2009 at 3:03 am
Thnaks for the link. Was looking everywhere for a program like this!
March 17th, 2009 at 6:36 am
Good program. Previously, I used R-studio
April 9th, 2009 at 7:44 am
I used to increase the size of the my page file to its maximum which would then wipe over the top of all deleted file.
April 11th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
this is the first time i heard that software..
is it full version free?
emm,anyway,i have the a recovery software which is totally full version software..
feel free to try it:
File Scavenger 3.2 Portable need NO KEY
just share my experience guys..
thx..
April 17th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
George mentioned that most of these free programs are only demos. Is Handy Recovery really free or only for a limited time period?
April 28th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Handy Recovery is an awesome product.
When it comes to recovering files, there are really no free products and the shareware and freeware options don’t give the options required.
For such an important task it is always best to buy yourself a full copy or take your drive to a data recovery service.
-Mark