When working with files, a situation often arises when you need to recover a deleted file. In many cases, it is enough to use a similar function in the Shopping Cart. If for some reason this method is not available, the Recuva program, specially designed for recovering deleted files, will help us.
The free utility allows you to recover deleted files of various types, including music, pictures, documents, videos and other data.
After launching the program, we can leave further actions to the wizard, or continue working with the application independently. In the first case, press the button [Further], in the second [Cancel]. If we do not need the services of a Recuva specialist in the future, we can check the box.
In the main window of the program after launch, we will not immediately see a list of deleted files.
To start recovering files, first select the disk on which you want to search for deleted files (1) , you can additionally specify the type of files to search (2) . Then press the button [Analysis].
Depending on the settings, the analysis may take some time. Upon completion, the found deleted files will be displayed:
The green mark indicates files that can be recovered, and the red mark indicates lost files. Recuva provides a very convenient ability to view deleted files without recovery. Simply select a file from the list and its contents will be displayed on the right side of the window.
Tab Summary contains information about the file, including the size and status of the file. In case the condition is indicated as Excellent , you can safely restore the file. State Lost (and the red mark) indicate that restoration is no longer possible.
After viewing the list of deleted files and checking the boxes, click the button [Restore…]. The program will prompt us to specify the new location of the recovered file. The fact is that the recovered file appears not in the same place where it was deleted, but in a different place.
If the deleted file is successfully restored, this will be reported.
Let's pay attention to a few points that you need to remember when recovering files using the Recuva program.
File names do not always remain the same as they were before deletion. Recuva often gives recovered files simple names consisting of numbers. After recovery, you can rename the files.
Not always even recovered files can be opened and displayed normally. The fact is that the program partially restores files. This may be because part of the file has been overwritten by another file.
You need to restore files as soon as possible after deletion, being careful not to write other files or work with any programs. For example, after deleting all the files from a flash drive and then filling it with other files, it will be almost impossible to restore the original data, since the files created later actually overwrote the old ones.
If the recovered documents still cannot be opened, you can delete them, since it is almost impossible to extract useful data from them.
Recuva has additional settings(button [Setting]– tab Actions). For example, by enabling the option Deep analysis (longer), you can get a larger list of found files for recovery than with conventional analysis.
Check box Restore folder structure will allow you to restore files so that they will be placed in a folder with the same name where they were before deletion (although most often it is created with the name Unknown folder).
If you have had to restore many files, chances are one or more of them did not open as a result. Some files are always recovered incomplete or appear damaged. Moreover, no matter how good tool for recovery you used. In order to be able to view, edit, or otherwise use these files, you will need to patch them.
Difference between file recovery and file correction
Return procedures deleted files and fixing damaged files is often called one word - recovery. However, the operations of recovering deleted data and repairing damaged data are completely different, use different methods and require the use of different tools. Let's talk in more detail about their differences.
File recovery
So, “recovering” missing files. Modern recovery tools help you get back deleted files from formatted, redistributed or inaccessible hard drives, damaged memory cards or unreadable USB flash drives. In other words, you can “recover” all available data.
To recover files, you will need specialized tools such as RS File Recovery (to undo file deletion) or RS Partition Recovery (to recover files stored on formatted storage media that have been repartitioned hard drives or damaged partitions). Moreover, these tools will recover any files from the damaged disk or partition that have not yet been recovered.
A number of specialized tools will help you cope with the recovery of certain types of files, such as photos (RS Photo Recovery), office documents (RS Office Recovery). There are also highly specialized tools that allow you to restore only Excel tables(RS Excel Recovery) or text documents(RS Word Recovery) .
Why is it sometimes worth choosing a specialized one? software for data recovery, not a universal tool? There are two reasons: price and convenience. The cost of a quality, specialized tool is often lower than the cost of all-in-one solutions. At the same time, a cheaper tool often uses the same operating algorithms as the most expensive ones, limiting the user only to the ability to recover certain types of files. In addition, specialized recovery tools often offer bonuses that are not available in general generic programs. For example, RS Office Recovery implements an automated pre-recovery file integrity check to ensure that only healthy, complete, undamaged documents and tables appear in the final list of recovered files. This ensures that any file recovered from RS Office Recovery can be immediately opened in Microsoft Office or OpenOffice and use as usual.
Limitations for file recovery
File recovery tools also have their limitations. If you're recovering small, recently deleted, non-fragmented files, you may never need file repair or fix tools. Because restoring such files is usually not a problem.
If, however, you have to deal with formatted partitions, a damaged file system, re-partitioned hard drive, there is a high probability that some files will be restored completely, while others will be damaged and unsuitable for further use.
Why are some files unavailable for recovery? Maybe it's the quality of the recovery tool? Unfortunately, in difficult situations, the data recovery process has its own limitations, which even the most modern instrument recovery. Just one example. If you are restoring a formatted HDD, you are dealing with an empty disk that has a blank (empty) file system. This means that there are no entries on it that would point to the files that were on this disk before formatting. Therefore, a data recovery tool (such as RS Partition Recovery) will be forced to use a specialized Content-Aware analysis algorithm to find these files. The algorithm helps read the entire contents of the disk, looking for files of known types, trying to determine their characteristic signatures.
This algorithm works great when restoring small files and adjacent blocks of data. However, a number of files stored on disks are usually fragmented. When recovering fragmented files, a data recovery tool needs to either use information from file system to find all parts (fragments) of a file, or restore only the initial fragment. As a result, you may end up with corrupted, incomplete files. And in such cases, you cannot do without a file correction tool.
Correction (repair) of files
Now you know what it takes to successfully recover files, and you understand why you may end up with a number of unusable files even after a generally successful recovery attempt. As for repairing such “failed” files, to restore them (or rather, correct them), you need to use a completely different tool, for example, RS File Repair.
Repairing or fixing files means fixing them internal structures and/or “rearranging” or adding to their content so that relevant applications (for example, Microsoft Office for documents) can open these files without problems. To recover damaged images, use RS File Repair. When working with this tool, your files must be on working disks (memory cards, USB flash drives, etc.). In other words, you cannot fix deleted files before undoing their deletion using a file recovery tool, and you cannot recover those files from formatted partitions until they are recovered using a partition recovery tool. The idea, I think, is clear. In order for files to be corrected, they must be available, that is, exist in any form on any serviceable medium.
RS File Repair can open damaged files, analyze their titles and contents, and then correct their structure and make them completely suitable for further use.
Of course, the result of the program will be so successful only if you have only the first piece of a long video or JPEG file With high resolution. However, RS File Repair is unlikely to help you recover data that disappeared as a result of an unsuccessful recovery. The tool will only be useful if there are small inconsistencies and minor errors in the file structures of the files.
Restoration or correction?
So what should you use in your case – a file recovery tool or a file correction (repair) tool? Let's look at some typical cases.
1 . Let's say you have a document called "MyDocument1.doc". When you try to open this document with Microsoft Word you will receive a message stating that the file is damaged and a question: would you like to restore the file? If you agree, the program crashes or an error message appears.
In this case, you can restore the file using a similar tool as RS File Repair. Such tools will help you fix files that the built-in MS Office file repair tools cannot help you recover.
2. Now - about a more complex case. Let's say a file named “MyDocument2.doc” was saved on your disk, but you accidentally deleted the document and emptied the Recycle Bin (or deleted the file using the Shift + Del key combination, that is, it did not end up in the Recycle Bin at all).
In such a case, use a file recovery tool such as RS File Recovery. In addition, you can use one of the specialized recovery tools Microsoft files
Office, for example, RS Office Recovery or RS Word Recovery. In any case, if you use one of these tools in the proper order (download and install it on another drive or additional storage device) soon enough, chances are you'll get the data you need back quickly and you won't need a file repair tool.
3. What if you want to recover a file named “MyDocument3.doc” that was deleted a week ago? In this case, there is a high probability that some parts of the file have already been overwritten by data belonging to other files. If you try to use a file recovery tool such as RS File Recovery, you will recover the file but will not be able to open it in Microsoft Word (the application will give you an error message). If you try to use one of the specialized tools for recovering Microsoft Office files, such as RS Office Recovery or RS Word Recovery, you will not see the file in the list of recoverable files at all, because these tools check the files for integrity and simply refuse to add damaged files to the final list .
In this case, the most successful recovery would be using two tools together. First, use a file recovery tool like RS File Recovery to directly recover the document. Then use the patch utility to fix it.
Sometimes recovery programs give users unreasonable hope: they return deleted files, but they are not readable. The photo does not open, documents saved in *.doc format do not contain text - only a set of characters. What is this connected with? Is there some kind of file recovery program that will not cause problems with data being unreadable?
Causes of the problem
So, you have recovered deleted files, but they cannot be opened. The name, size, and creation date of the photo or document are correct, but when you try to open them, an error appears. This is due to the fact that the file was not actually restored - the program only read its header and pulled out some information from there.
Naturally, such files are not readable, even if after recovery they have the same name and extension (doc, jpg, mp3, etc.). There is nothing inside except the title. Even if there are some fragments, they cannot be viewed because zeros are written instead of the necessary data. You can try opening this photo through Photoshop:
If the JPG file is not very damaged, then you will have a chance to see some part of the image that is not erased by zeros. Sorry, fix those zeros software does not seem possible. Therefore, such files cannot be read after recovery - you cannot create a photo or document from nothing (i.e. zeros).
If you have recovered a deleted video and after returning it find that the file cannot be played, try playing it through VLC Media Player.
Unfortunately, errors are corrected only in AVI files, besides, a heavily damaged video will not be played back in any case.
Recovery by signatures
What to do if the file does not open after recovery? Is it possible to read jpg files to return the photos you need? Small chances remain if you follow these recommendations:
- Try using other recovery programs - DMDE, R-Saver, Recuva.
- Launch full scan disk with search by signatures, not quick search deleted files.
Let's look at an example of launching an in-depth search (by signatures) using the R-Undelete program as an example:
What is signature search? The program scans the disk, trying to detect familiar areas of data. Headers of files of a certain format contain a specific set of characters. For example, a photo saved in JPEG format, has the character sequence "JFIF" in its header.
By reading data from the file system and using signature analysis, the recovery program has a better chance of finding and recovering deleted files. However, search and recovery by signatures is also not a panacea. If the file was heavily fragmented or other information was written in its place, then there will be little chance of returning photos and other data. 
The restriction also applies to damaged disks: Recovery programs can only work with those files that are healthy and accessible to the clusters. Otherwise, a situation arises in which DOC files and JPG seem to be found, but instead of text and photos you only see an error message.
Recuva – free utility for file recovery from developers from the British company Piriform. A fully functional version of the program can be downloaded for free, but there is also a paid edition of Recuva, which adds the function automatic update and support for recovery from virtual disk.
Advantages of Recuva
You can download the program on the official website of the developer. Installation file Recuva weighs a little more than 4 MB, the installed utility occupies 6 MB on the hard drive. Among other advantages:
- Completely free work.
- Russified interface.
- Availability of a recovery wizard that allows you to flexibly customize the procedure for searching for deleted files.
- Ability to add the “Search for deleted files” option to Explorer and Recycle Bin.
The Search for Deleted Files option in Explorer allows you to quickly run a scan of a specific folder from which data has been erased.
For example, a photo was stored in the Pictures folder. If you accidentally erased a photo, click right click in the “Images” directory and start searching for deleted files. The scan will only be performed on that specific folder.
Purpose of the program
Recuva – universal program for recovery, which can find and return files of any format. In one of the recovery wizard windows, you can specify what type of files to search for. 
This filter allows you to speed up the process of searching for erased data. If, for example, a document created in Word, Excel or one of the LibreOffice applications is deleted, then you just need to check the appropriate option so that the program does not search for other formats.
Recuva can find data that was on a formatted drive.
Some files will be damaged, but 90 percent are usually restored without problems - not bad for a utility that can be downloaded for free. However, if the file system of a flash drive or disk fails, it is problematic to return information using this program.
Recovery procedure
Recuva has a user-friendly interface, but a little instruction manual won't hurt: it's useful to know how to use the program to achieve maximum effect.
Once the scan is complete, you will see a list of found data. There is a colored circle next to each file. 
The color indicates the degree of damage:
- Green – no damage, ready for restoration.
- Yellow – there are problems, the file may not open.
- Red – data is damaged and cannot be restored.
To get files back, select them and click Recover. When restoring data, select a folder that is located on another drive.
You cannot save found files to the disk from which they were deleted!
If you are not satisfied with the recovery wizard, you can switch to Recuva's advanced mode. To do this, when starting the program, close the wizard window by clicking “Cancel”. In Advanced mode, you can specify which media to scan. Pay attention to the "Settings" button. 
Hi all!
It can be very unpleasant when you lose important files. Especially if these were personal photographs and videos from the sea, graduation, wedding, birthday, and so on. That is why it is important to know how to recover deleted files as quickly as possible!!!
I want every visitor to my site to recover all the files that he lost and for this I will write very detailed instructions. I'll describe 6 various programs , with which you can recover deleted files from a flash drive, memory card or hard drive!
Recuva
The first program is called Recuva and in the world of recovering lost files, this program is one of the most popular and simplest. As always, we need to download it from the official website and install it.
Let's get down to business right away.
We insert into the computer a USB flash drive or memory card from which you want to recover deleted files. If files need to be restored from a hard drive, then you do not need to insert anything.
Let's launch the Recuva program and first of all, let's turn on the Russian language. Click the Cancel button in the first window.
The second window is the main window of the program, here we go to Options.
Finding the Russian language.
Now everything is in Russian and it’s more convenient to work. Specify the drive letter or flash drive where you will need to restore the files and click Analysis.
After a few minutes, the program will show a huge number of files, among which may be those that we need. Here you will immediately need to pay attention to the File Status.
The file may be in Excellent condition, Average, Poor or completely lost. It's good if you remember the names of the lost files. If not, then you will need to check the boxes next to the files in Excellent condition, Average and Poor. After that, click the Restore button.
We indicate on the computer the location where the recovered files will be saved and click OK.
The main thing is to never save files to the place from which they are restored!
Upon completion, you can check the finished files and delete those that were recovered with errors.
The main thing to remember is that if you deleted some important files, then under no circumstances You cannot write other files to the same drive! For example, did you accidentally delete several photos from your camera? What to do? First of all, stop taking photos. With each new file written to the memory card, the likelihood of recovering previously deleted files decreases!
The next program, with which you can recover deleted files, even if the first program did not help, is called. In some cases it will even be steeper than Recuva.
The principle of operation is very simple, even though the program is in English. You need to download it, install it, run it and select the drive from which you want to recover files.
Having opened the drive, the program immediately scans it and builds the folder hierarchy that existed before the files were deleted. We need to open the folder from which we deleted necessary files and try to restore them.
By hovering over each file with the mouse, we can see its size. To restore it, you need to right-click on it and select Recovery.
You can also select all files or even all folders and click Recovery. Now all that’s left to do is to specify where the files will be saved. The first item is responsible for saving the file to your hard drive.
And in the second window, specify the drive and folder in which these files will be saved.
Oh, yes, you can also give the file a new name.
After saving, we check the received files.
Another program for scanning and finding lost files is called. Distinctive feature This program has a very nice design.
In the main window of the program we are offered to familiarize ourselves with the action plan. If you have a free minute, I recommend reading it.
We accept the terms of the agreement and click Let's get started.
Select the flash drive or disk where you need to find the files.
We wait a few minutes while we search for lost files.
Upon completion, we can review the information found. On the left we open the folders in which the files should have been and they will be displayed on the right. Check the boxes necessary files and press Restore selected.
All that remains is to indicate the drive where the files will be saved and check them upon completion.
The next one is pretty powerful program capable of recovering deleted files on a computer is called . Everywhere you look there are good things to say about this program.
The operating principle is similar to previous programs. We need to select the drive with the lost files and click Scan.
The scanning progress is displayed at the bottom of the program.
When it is completed, we will need to select the drive again. Only now right-click on it and select Recover all files.
We indicate to the program the path to save and click Yes.
In some cases, the program will ask you to correct the file name. This usually happens due to damage to the original file name. Give it a name and click Rename.
The next program is called Ontrack EasyRecover and its operating principle is identical to the others. In the first window, we are simply given a description of the program and here we just need to click Continue.
In the next window, you need to select the type of drive on which the data will be searched.
Well, and most importantly, indicate specifically the drive letter or flash drive on which you want to try to recover deleted files.
We select what exactly we need to restore, what was deleted, and confirm the settings.
AND latest program, which we will try is called .
In the upper left corner, click Start, then Recover Files and Next.
Select the drive letter and the item Search for deleted files.
Upon completion of the scan, open the folders on the left and check the boxes on the right for the files that need to be recovered. Click Save and save to comfortable spot on the computer.
How to recover deleted files on Android?
As for smartphones, the situation is similar. For example, to recover deleted files on Android you need to remove the memory card from your phone, then insert it into your computer or laptop and use any of the methods described above to recover lost files.
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