Recover data from your hard drive yourself. Data recovery from DVD and CD discs

After deleting files from the hard drive, even if it is impossible to remove them from the recycle bin, they will still remain on the laptop’s hard drive or personal computer, however, in a slightly different form. In the file table, such files are marked “zero”, which gives the system the right to overwrite them with any others. They will be lost forever unless other information is written to the area occupied on the hard drive.

What to do if important information is accidentally deleted

If laptop computer fell or as a result of formatting the HDD it is impossible to read important information, but you plan to restore it, you need to remember the following:

To save data, you can immediately turn off the computer in emergency mode and do nothing with it. hard drive do not take further action;
In any case, you cannot copy any data to disk C and install applications;
For subsequent work, it is recommended to use only external media.

The reason was stated above - the area of the hard drive with the necessary data can accidentally be overwritten, and deleted files you will lose. Before contacting specialists to extract information from a laptop, agree in advance how much it costs - the price sometimes turns out to be too high. If this is exactly the case, then you will have to act on your own.

How to recover lost data yourself

To recover data from hard drive you can use special applications.

They do not provide a 100% guarantee of a positive result, but usually most of the lost information can be recovered with their help.

A condition that sharply increases the chances of successful recovery is to start the system from another external HDD, that is, you cannot download and install these programs on the disk or at least partition of the disk with which you will continue to work.

All of these applications operate almost identically, scanning the surface of the hard drive with a certain depth. Both the table and the load record are checked, and certain types of data are recognized by specific headers. After recovery, sometimes the location of files or their names may be lost.

R-Studio

After launching the application, the “Disk Panel” - the main window of the program - will open. All laptop media available in the system will be displayed, from which you will need to select the disk or partition containing damaged information. All important information about it will be presented in the right window. If there is no damage to the file system, you can do the following:

Select the required media or partition by clicking on it double click in the program explorer;
An almost familiar-looking explorer will open, in which deleted folders can be identified by a characteristic icon crossed out with a red cross;
Select the required files with a tick;
In the top menu, select the “Restore marked” command, specify the location for the restored information.

Do not forget that you can only restore data to another HDD or to another partition. This window also provides other useful features, for example, searching for deleted files by extension, name, size or creation date, restoring data by mask, etc.

Actions with formatted and failed drives

If a computer or laptop “fell” or was formatted, individual sectors on it are faulty and the disk has failed, then, accordingly, the file system is modified or damaged. In this case, there is a possibility that data recovery from the hard drive will be incomplete.

The complexity of working with the program does not increase much, but it will take more time.

You will need to create an image of the disk to be restored and associate all further actions only with it. This will secure the files on the disk and prevent further damage:

Open the main R-Studio window;
In the menu ribbon, find the “Create image” item and run this procedure, indicating in the window that opens the storage location for the image;
Once the process is complete, open the created image by returning to the main program window and selecting the appropriate menu item.

After the image has been created and opened, you can begin the disk scanning procedure:

in the main menu, select “Scan”;
a window will open in which you determine the type of scanning - detailed or simple view;
Next, click the “Scan” button and wait for the results.

The scan type you choose depends on the media size. For small ones, select “ Detail view", since in this case a window will be displayed detailed information about the data found and the structure of sectors. If you are working with large media, to speed up the process, select the “Simple View” option.

At the end of the scanning process, a window will open with a list of found files that can be restored completely or selectively.

You should be prepared for the transfer process to be quite lengthy.

Working with Minitool Power Data Recovery on a damaged hard drive

If the HDD has flown and is not detected on a laptop or PC, there are ways to restore information specialized programs, such as Minitool Power Data Recovery. This application is no less popular than R-Studio, but it specializes in working with faulty HDDs. It performs a deep scan, as a result of which the program manages to find many deleted data that cannot be retrieved by other applications.

Minitool Power Data Recovery is characterized by simple interface, the ability to work not only with hard drives and RAID devices, but also with CDs, DVDs, memory cards, USB flash drives, iPods, etc. Home screen designed in a modern tiled interface, allowing you to select one of five available program modules:

Restoring after deletion is the simplest option, in which you need to get back files destroyed by the Shift and Del key combination or erased from the Recycle Bin;
Digital media recovery - this utility returns lost data from flash drives, cameras, mobile phones, iPad, iPod, etc.
Recovering lost partitions – returning information from deleted partitions after unsuccessful partitioning or damage boot entry etc.;
CD/DVD recovery – the module allows you to “pull out” deleted data from scratched optical discs;
Recovering damaged partitions is the most powerful module that allows you to restore the necessary partitions, even if the disk has crashed and is not detected.

Procedure

Almost any procedure using this application can be done in a few clicks. Let's look at how the damaged partition recovery module works:

After clicking on the corresponding icon, a window will appear with all disks and partitions, from which select the one you need and click the “Open” button;
A list will open with all data, including deleted data (marked with a red cross);
Select files to recover and click “Save”;
A window will open in which specify the path to save the recovered information, click “Ok”.

To search for specific previously erased information after scanning is complete, the program offers an advanced filter in which you can specify its type, approximate creation date, or size range. Free version The program works without functional limitations, but allows you to recover no more than 1 GB of lost data.

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The loss of information stored on a hard drive (HDD) is a sad event, but most often not fatal. Accidentally deleted documents, folders, and even entire sections can be restored if nothing happened that could prevent this.

We’ll tell you further how to recover data from a hard drive, in which cases you can do it yourself, and when it’s better not to take risks and turn to specialists.
How to recover data from a hard drive

When can missing files be recovered?
The main condition for successful data recovery is the physical health of the hard drive.

Most likely, you will be able to return data that:

were deleted without going to the Recycle Bin;

destroyed by a virus;

disappeared due to a file system failure (with such problems, entire directories and partitions are usually lost);

were in a partition that was formatted (formatting erases some of the information about the location of the files on the hard drive, but they themselves remain in place).

But in some cases it will not be possible to restore information:

if the area of the hard drive where the data was stored was overwritten (for example, when reinstalling the operating system and formatting the volume, all objects of the old OS are permanently destroyed);

if objects were deleted using a shredder program (shredders also overwrite the storage areas of deleted objects, many times);

if the magnetic surface of the hard drive “pancakes” is damaged.

When you shouldn’t do recovery yourself

If you are not confident in the serviceability of the drive, but the information is very valuable, it is better to refrain from experiments and contact a specialized service for restoration. The service is not cheap, and the specialists working there are not omnipotent, so the less you torment the “sick” disk, the lower the price will be and the higher the chances of success.

The following signs indicate a hard drive malfunction:

Unnatural noise during operation (clanging, clicking, clanging, whistling, etc.).

The HDD from time to time ceases to be detected by the computer - it either disappears or appears.

The operating system is very slow hard drive 100% loaded all the time without high load on RAM.

Various errors occur when writing and reading files.

Informs about drive failure operating system or programs that monitor the HDD status in real time (if installed).

The computer stops booting from the hard drive (provided that it boots normally from other media).

Blue screens of death often occur indicating errors typical of disk problems (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE, NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM, KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED).

Four most important rules for data recovery

How and with what help to recover data on hard drives, I’ll tell you a little later, but now a few words about what needs to be done before this and how to correctly carry out the recovery procedure.

The recovered data can be reset to another partition of the same hard drive or to another physical medium, but not to the same place from where it was read. Therefore, if your HDD is not partitioned, prepare a flash drive or another hard drive of suitable capacity.

As soon as you notice the loss of important data, stop all operations with the HDD and immediately begin recovery. This will prevent accidental overwriting.

Try to restore everything you need in one session without stopping the program. Moreover, without restarting the computer.

If one program does not help, use others until all the information is recreated.

Most often, all the user’s most important information is stored on the hard drives of the computer on which he constantly works. This provides quick access to data, which is especially convenient when files are required for daily work. However, any information stored on a work hard drive is the least secure. It can be corrupted by viruses, destroyed by an attacker, lost due to a failure of a program or computer hardware, deleted by an attacker who gained access to the computer, or even by a user who accidentally pressed the wrong button.

But the cost of lost files often exceeds the price of the computer itself and the software installed on it, since they can contain years of painstaking work.

Reasons for losing files

Most often, the necessary data becomes unavailable as a result of a computer hardware error or user carelessness.

And new ones solid state drives SSD and hard drives magnetic HDD may lead to file system failure resulting in bad sectors, which cannot be read, or due to the fact that an unexpected error occurred during the recording of information due to unexpected shutdown electricity or by disconnecting the disk “hot”, that is, turning off the computer without stopping the operating system.

Often, users delete their files themselves by mistakenly clicking the Delete button. In this case, first of all, you need to look at the Trash, but it also happens that it has already been emptied.

Do deleted files disappear completely?

Some users believe that deleting files from the hard drive using the Delete command leads to their complete disappearance (except when they are temporarily transferred to the Recycle Bin). In fact, this is not true. Neither Dos nor any Windows version files are never permanently erased immediately after clicking the Delete button. This is due to the fact that complete removal would require a considerable amount of time from the operating system, which would lead to inconvenience for the user.

The next time you delete a file that is several 100 megabytes in size (for example, a movie), notice that it disappears almost instantly. If the OS were to completely erase all clusters of this file, it would take much longer.

In reality, the operating system simply renames the file, marking it as deleted, and hides it from the user's view.

What is the difference between a remote file and a regular file?

The data of the deleted file also continues to be stored in the same place on the hard drive, but the system notes to itself that this place is now free for writing new information to it.

Thus, if you accidentally deleted required file, you can easily return it to its place using special utilities. However, if other data was written to the place of the deleted file, it will be impossible to return it. Therefore, under no circumstances write new data to the hard drive with “deleted” information stored on it.

Even formatting the disk is not so dangerous, since in this case the system simply creates new table file layout, which indicates that the surface of the hard drive is clean. The only option complete removal information is low-level formatting, when the entire surface of the hard drive is reset.

What to do if you have lost important information?

As you understand, the most dangerous action that can lead to permanent data loss is re-writing other information to the hard drive. Therefore, if you accidentally deleted important information, do not write new files to it under any circumstances. It would be best to disconnect the hard drive from the computer, since many programs and the operating system itself often make various service records to the hard drive. Particularly dangerous in this regard system disk WITH.

However, even if you did not just accidentally delete an important file, but encountered a hardware failure on your hard drive, there is no need to worry ahead of time. Most likely, all necessary information remained intact, since the actions of viruses are usually superficial and do not affect the entire surface of the hard drive, and software or hardware failure is often associated with damage to the FAT, while clusters with information remain intact.

To recover data, you should use one of several specialized programs.

Free file recovery utility PC Inspector File Recovery

The main advantages of PC Inspector File Recovery are ease of use and freeness of the program. You can download the program from the developers’ website www.pcinspector.de. Compared to the work of other utilities, which we will consider below, the effectiveness of PC Inspector File Recovery is not very high, since it simply does not see some files that other software successfully recovers.

PC Inspector File Recovery includes three types of search for lost data. After starting the program, a window will appear in front of the user where you can select one of the search engines.

Recovered deleted files – recovery of files deleted using operating system tools (the same case when the user accidentally clicks Delete and discovers that the Recycle Bin is disabled). Find lost data – data recovery after file system damage or disk formatting. Find lost drive – recovering data from logical drives that are invisible in the system.

Working with the Recovered deleted files program

After the user has chosen a data recovery method, the program begins to scan the system, after which the program will open a window indicating what information can be recovered.

The presence of two lists of logical drives that repeat each other is due to the fact that first the program specifies a list of logical drives for each physical disk “on fixed disk...”, and then a list of logical drives, as Windows sees them, “on Windows drive...”.

Most often, these two lists completely repeat each other, especially if the system has only one HDD. But if there are several hard drives, listings may vary slightly.

Select one of the logical drives where the information you are looking for is located and double-click on it to start scanning it. After 10-20 minutes, depending on the size of the disk and the power of the computer, a window will appear in front of the user with a list of information available for recovery.

To restore any file, just click on it right click mouse and selecting Save to, specify where to save the restored file.

Please note that even after completing all the steps described above, you may encounter that the recovered file will not work or open correctly.

Paid file recovery program Ontrack Easy Recovery

Ontrack Easy Recovery is one of the most effective recovery programs from a well-known developer. Distributed commercially, the cost of an annual license ranges from $466 to $2900, depending on the version. The official website of the program is www.ontrack.com.

The program can be installed on Windows or run from a previously created boot floppy disk. A boot floppy disk allows you to restore information on a hard drive without an operating system installed.

Compared to Recovered deleted files, Ontrack Easy Recovery works much more efficiently; it can even recover files that Recovered deleted files does not even see.

Ontrack Easy Recovery is very easy to use and has a very user-friendly and intuitive interface. When you start the program, the step-by-step wizard mode immediately starts, the first stage of which is to scan the system and then display the structure of drives and logical drives.

The program immediately marks deleted information and partitions invisible to the operating system that can be restored. Select a disk with information contained on it that is inaccessible to the system, and start scanning it. After this, the program will display a list of files that can be recovered.

File and directory names will be shortened to eight characters, and those with names written in Russian letters will be shown as unreadable characters. To indicate the data that should be restored, just check the box next to it.

After recovery, file names in Russian will most likely be replaced with dashes, but the data itself will remain functional.

Creating a bootable Windows Easy Recovery floppy disk

In order to create a boot floppy disk, you will need to go to the Make Emergency Boot Diskette program item. A bootable floppy disk will help you save your data if the FAT on your hard drive is damaged or your operating system won't start. The boot interface is no different from a program running in a Windows environment, only the names of files and directories will be shortened to eight characters.

Boot floppy Windows Easy Recovery allows you to restore data to second hard disk, to workable hard section disk where lost information is stored, as well as a floppy disk. In the latter case, you need to remove Windows Easy Recovery from the drive and install a blank floppy disk in its place and save the data to it. Windows Easy Recovery at this time will already be in RAM computer, so the program will not be stopped.

Preparing to work with Power Quest Lost & Found

Another effective data recovery utility is Power Quest Lost&Found. Working with this program requires two drives: the first one containing the lost data and the second one intended for saving the recovered files. For this purpose, two hard drives or a hard drive and a floppy drive can be used. The program does not allow you to save information to the same logical drive from which it was recovered.

This is due to the fact that any recording to the same hard drive where it is located deleted information, can lead to the fact that its restoration will be completely impossible. The program runs from a boot floppy disk, so it does not require an operating system to work with it. The Power Quest Lost & Found installation file is designed to create a boot floppy disk on which a DOS-like OS will be located. After the floppy disk is created, you need to boot the computer from it, where there are two hard drives, one of which contains the lost files.

Data Recovery Using Power Quest Lost

After launch, the program immediately begins scanning the system. The efficiency of its work is quite high. The surface of all hard drives is checked, and if damaged unreadable sectors are found on them, then after several checks the program will offer to skip them and continue working. After the scan is completed, the user will be able to specify the drive on which the lost data is stored.

Next, you need to specify the drive where the program will write the recovered data. If you choose to specify a floppy drive as your drive, you will need to remove the Power Quest Lost & Found boot floppy and insert a blank one. In this case, recovery of files larger than 1.44 MB will not be possible.

After scanning a disk with lost data, the program will display a tree structure of all directories and files stored in them on the hard drive.

The color indicates the probability of file recovery:

light green – possible;
yellow – possible;
red – unlikely;
gray – impossible.

The program is controlled exclusively from the keyboard, so you will need to know various key combinations to work. To do this, press F1 to access help. The most frequently used key assignments are indicated at the bottom of the window: Enter - move inside the directory, Space - select files and directories, Esc - exit one level up from a subdirectory or start recovery of selected files (Start Recovery). Data recovery may take several hours.

R-Studio - an effective and fast data recovery utility

An excellent solution for those who need not only the recovery of the files themselves, but also the directory structure, as well as file names in Russian, is the R-Studio program, which works with the FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, Ext2FS file systems. R-Studio is a commercial program that runs on Windows. There is a demo version of the program, the limitation of which is the inability to recover files larger than 64 kb.

An additional option of the program is to create disk images and restore them in case of problems. The main window of the program contains a list of hard drives with their logical partitions.

In order to start searching for information for recovery, you need to select the logical drive or entire drive of interest and select Scan. To start recovery, select the required files and click Recover. You can also select the required item in context menu via the right mouse button.

Data recovery utility Restorer 2000

The functionality and interface of Restorer 2000 is very similar to those of R-Studio. Restorer 2000 can also recognize files in Cyrillic and only supports small files in the demo version. The program works with FAT and NTFS file systems and allows you to create backup disk image files.

After starting the program, the main window appears with a list of hard drives and logical partitions. The scan starts after selecting the required disk or partition and pressing the Scan button. Detected areas that can be restored are displayed on the right side of the window and are named using question marks. To find out what data is in this area, you need to double click expand the contents of the site and view its contents.

GetDataBack is a commercial program that has versions for the FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS file systems. There is a free version of the program that allows you to restore individually various types files by opening them in their respective applications. The commercial version allows saving from the program itself. The disadvantages of the program include the fact that GetDataBack does not see lost partitions, so set full recovery It is not possible to scan data from them, but it is possible to specify the entire area of the hard drive for scanning. The program does not work with file names in Russian.

Steps to working with GetDataBack

The data recovery process with GetDataBack consists of several steps. At the first stage, you need to select from a list of FDD, HDD drives, logical drives and image files the one with which the program will work. In the next window, you should select the desired area of the hard drive and after the scanning process is completed, go to the third stage, where you can agree with the parameters proposed by the program (disk area or set its entire volume, specify the file system type) or specify them manually. After scanning the selected area, the program will show the result in the form of a directory structure. Names in Cyrillic will be changed to a character set. You can open the recovered files directly from the program window.

The efficiency of GetDataBack is much lower compared to the programs mentioned above. The utility is practically unable to recover files with names in Russian and disrupts the directory structure, making it much more difficult to find the necessary data after recovery.

Recovering logical partitions using Acronis Recovery Expert

Most data recovery programs work in the same way: they have no effect on hard drives and, extracting data from them, copy them to another medium. As a result, the user has to create the partition again and transfer lost data there, often affecting other partitions of the hard drive.

It is much more convenient for the user to restore the lost partition, along with the data stored there, in the same place where it was. This will return the system to the working state it was before the files were lost. You can recover lost logical drives Acronis program Recovery Expert.

How Acronis Recovery Expert works

Finding a lost logical Acronis disk Recovery Expert recovers it, along with all the data that was stored on it. However, due to the fact that the program, while restoring a logical disk, simultaneously writes to it, there is no guarantee that all files will be restored correctly.

As already mentioned, files that are invisible to the system are most at risk when they are written to disk again. Therefore, it is very likely that Acronis Recovery Expert will not only be unable to recover the lost partition, but will also further damage the state of the lost data and make it impossible to retrieve it using other programs.

Therefore, the optimal solution would be to initially try to recover data using other programs and save it on another medium. And only then try to restore the functionality of the logical disk using Acronis Recovery Expert.

Acronis Recovery Expert has a very clear interface. Before the scanning process, the user will be asked to select automatic or manual mode. In the first case, the program will do everything necessary itself, presenting the user with a list of lost logical drives that you can try to recover.

IN manual mode You will be able to view the structure of the disks and independently specify the search location.

Conclusion

Anyone, even the most experienced and attentive user, can face the need to restore files. To prevent loss of access to information from becoming a serious problem for you, you must install the most effective data recovery program on your computer in advance, and also create a boot floppy disk with it.

It wouldn’t hurt to purchase two hard drives or at least split the HDD into two parts - 40-50 GB for the operating system and the remaining space for data storage. In this case, the risk of data loss in the event of an OS crash will be minimal.

Data recovery from a hard drive is carried out in cases where it is necessary to obtain all the information that was previously located on it.

Its loss can occur for various reasons, which can be determined through diagnostics and running special programs.

List of reasons for losing information from a disk

In a number of reasons that lead to data deletion, four groups can be distinguished:

1. Consequence of wrong human actions:

Accidental formatting or erasing of information.
Incorrect storage area layout

However, very often, to solve this kind of problem, you can try using special programs for data recovery.

Advice! With a competent approach, this will not have any risk for the further recovery process, and therefore, if nothing works out for you, then specialized companies will still be able to help you. Next, we will look at the best data recovery programs.

Information becomes inaccessible due to physical damage to the hard drive and its individual components, namely the read-write head or the electric motor.

To recover data in such a situation, you will need the help of hard drive repair specialists.

Voltage fluctuations, surges or drops, as well as complete shutdown power supply may harm the devices on which data is stored.

According to Bell Labs research, data loss in 80-86 percent of situations occurs due to unstable voltage.

Windows users very often encounter problems with the operating system, after which it stops starting.

In such cases, most users think that all data from the hard drive is erased and the only way out of this situation is to contact a specialized service center.

But in reality, all data remains on the hard drive, and an operating system failure has nothing to do with it.

Programs for data recovery from disk

Utility for damaged disk is a great way to recover data yourself. These include the following programs:

Recuva. This program is provided absolutely free. It is characterized by ease of installation and use, as well as fast data recovery.
However, the software also has its drawbacks: when reconfiguring the digital media, images and documentation have no chance of recovery.

Undelete Plus. Such a program does not cope with all information storage devices. However, it is quite effective at recovering data from a hard drive.
Downloading and installing do not cause problems, and the utility brings back up to 90 percent of lost information. UndeletePlus is provided in Russian, which allows it to be used by a wide range of people.

R-studio. The utility copes well with the main reasons for deleting data, but is only available in paid access. So, it copes with tasks such as: returning data from disks, flash drives, memory cards and the like.
In addition, the software helps recover deleted data from damaged and reissued media. The program is offered from disk or from the Internet.

Recovery Software. Despite the single name, this program is a set of programs for each individual case. They are as effective as possible. This happens thanks to each individual disk.

So, here we can highlight:

A utility for working with all file systems.
Program for working with NTFS partition.
Applications for activities with FAT32.
A program with two components: File and Photo.
A utility for working with files.
Application for working with photos.
File Repair is a program that restores and edits distorted images and documents.

The program is ideal when you need to recover files and pictures. It can also be used when certain areas are damaged.

Stellar Phoenix. This program provides every user with excellent opportunities for recovering data, photos and videos. Its advantage is a pre-compiled menu with a list of all deleted data.
Thanks to it, the user can restore only what he needs.

Data Rescue PC. This program allows you to not only recover lost data, but also restore RAID. Boots from disk, which allows you not to worry about the inability to start if the operating system freezes.

Seagate File Recovery for Windows. An old, but very effective program that restores not only general data, but also a clear picture of each image.
In addition, it is capable of extracting information even after redesigning the entire system and its individual components.

HDD Regenerator. This application is easy to use and effectively recovers hard drives. In the event of a complete failure, the program will not be able to perform repairs, but will quickly diagnose and correct errors present on the disk.

The program returns and composes data even after severe damage and shifting of sections on the disk.
Its use consists of a series of sequential actions that will be understandable even to an inexperienced user of the Internet and special programs.

You should not worry about the impossibility of recovering information on the disk. In the absence of formatting, any utility can easily bring any file back to life. A file that has disappeared from the hard drive is present on the disk before formatting.

However, when viewing programs on the HDD, such a file is considered to have disappeared, which means that its place can be taken by new files and folders. When this action is performed, the file disappears completely.

Based on the above, we can conclude: first you should try to recover at least part of the deleted data, and only then “write” something new.

On additional programs and methods for recovering information can be seen in this video:

How to recover data from a hard drive

Data recovery on hard drives, flash drives or flash cards is a very popular topic

Modern hard drives are increasing in capacity and speed year after year, becoming more compact, technologically advanced, but... less reliable. Manufacturers do not care about quality: they strive to flood the market with their products and leave competitors “in the dust.” It is more profitable for them to exchange defective drives for new ones than to work on increasing their resistance to failures.

“What about the data? - you ask. “After all, they die along with the disk!” Data, friends, is our problem. We must think about how not to lose them. And if this happens, be able to save them. Today we’ll talk about how to recover data from a hard drive without resorting to the help of experts. And also about situations when you should not try to get them yourself, but it is better to immediately take the disk to a specialized service.

The easiest to restore are:

Files and folders deleted by the user past the recycle bin (by pressing Shift + Delete).

Information corrupted due to a file system failure.
Files erased by viruses.
Data in formatted partitions (with the exception of “low-level” formatting, in which all information on the disk is overwritten with zeros).

However, there cannot be a 100% guarantee of success in this matter. The files and folders that have been recently deleted have the greatest chance of survival, that is, the areas of the disk where they were stored were not overwritten. In the latter case, the chances of recovering information after a quick format are as high as possible, since in this case only the table of file allocation in the partition is erased, and the files themselves remain in place.

In the following cases, data recovery is impossible or the probability of this is very low:

If the disk drive was formatted at a low level (essentially overwritten).
If the information was deleted using a file shredder application.
When another information was written on top of the deleted information. For example, if the user accidentally formatted, say, drive C for Windows reinstallation, but I remembered that important files remained on it only after I installed new system.
In case of physical damage to the magnetic layer on which information is stored.
When files are damaged by encryption viruses, if there is no decryption key or effective decryptor. Searching for a key using the brute force method (brute force search) is, with rare exceptions, ineffective. The reason is that today there are more and more viruses that use strong 128- or 256-bit encryption. It is impossible to find a key for it with the current level of technology (and for 256 bits it is impossible in principle).

In the event of a hardware failure of the drive, if the electronics board has fallen or mechanical parts have failed, the probability of successful data recovery is about 50%. More precisely, it all depends on the type of breakdown and the qualifications of the technician. Unfortunately, it is not possible to recover information from a physically damaged disk using programs. Quite the contrary: attempts to turn on a disk that has broken down are fraught with irretrievable loss of data.

In what cases is it better to do nothing and take the device to a specialized service:

When the disk is not detected by the computer or periodically disappears (except for the case described below). Moreover, if it does not work at all: when connected, it does not show any signs of “life”, does not spin up, and does not get warm. External drive To check, you need to connect it to the computer as a regular internal one (via a SATA or IDE port, if available), since in case of failure only USB interface data is usually not damaged.
When the hard drive has been hit or dropped. In this case, you should not even try to turn it on.
If, when accessing the disk, messages appear about serious problems with it or the operating system crashes into BSoD ( blue screen death).
If there is a suspicion that the hard drive housing is leaking. By the way, under no circumstances should you open it yourself. A speck of dust that gets inside can damage the magnetic layer and irreversibly destroy the information on it the first time it is turned on.
In case of visible defects in the connection interfaces and the disk electronics board.
If there is a suspicion that liquid has entered the drive housing. This happens when a removable hard drive is placed in a bag next to a wet umbrella.

Data recovery services in service centers- the pleasure is not cheap. “Treatment” of the mildest cases costs about half the cost of the drive (this is if the drive itself can be brought back to life without losing data). In difficult situations, the cost is 2 or more than the price of a new disk. It depends on the amount of information and the complexity of the restoration work.

What to do if the hard drive is not detected by the computer, freezes or works with errors

This life hack only applies to hard drives that have been in use for at least six months.

On the bottom side of the hard drive electronics board there are contact pads that are connected to the magnetic head unit (BGM, a device for reading and writing information to the magnetic layer) with a flexible cable that goes inside the hermetic zone (disk case).

Over time, especially if the disk has been used in conditions of high humidity and significant heating, these areas are covered with a non-conducting layer of oxides - they become dull and dark, sometimes to the point of blackness. The oxide layer disrupts the contact between the HDM and the controller, which has an extremely negative impact on the operation of the disk: read/write errors, recognition problems, lags and other unpleasant things occur.

The solution to the problem is very simple: just remove the electronics board (for this you most often need a T6 screwdriver - a six-pointed star), clean the pads until they shine with a school eraser and wipe with alcohol. After such a simple procedure, many drives begin to work like new.

Programs for data recovery at home

- one of the most popular free utilities to recover data on a PC under Windows control. It is especially effective at restoring objects that have been removed past the recycle bin. It supports almost all types of files: graphics, music, videos, archives, documents, email messages and much more.

Recuva is capable of reading information not only from healthy, but also from logically damaged devices, as well as from formatted disk partitions. It recognizes any type of media - hard and optical drives, SSDs, flash drives, memory cards, drives mobile devices etc. Works with file files NTFS systems, FAT16-32 and ExFat.

How to use the program:

Download the installation or portable version of Recuva. Install or unpack it into a separate folder and run it with administrator rights.
If the program interface opens on English, you can switch to Russian for convenience: click the “Options” button and select “Russian” from the “Language” list on the “General” tab.

While in the main window, open the list of disk partitions and connected drives. Select the area from which you want to recover information.
In the search bar (marked with a magnifying glass icon), enter the path to the object you are looking for, or click on the arrow and select the type of file you want to restore. In our example, this is graphics. By the way, text documents can be searched by keywords. To do this, open the "Analysis" menu and select "View Content." The “File Mask” field should indicate the type of document (doc, pdf, etc.), and in the “Search Line” you should indicate the word or phrase that the program should search for. After filling out both fields, click the “Analyze” button.

A list of found documents (or files of another type, depending on what you specified in the settings) will be displayed in the main Recuva window. In some cases, you can see the contents before restoring text documents and pictures in the “View” field (to the right of the list). The “Summary” contains information about the file: name, size, status and number of overwritten clusters. In the “Header”, accordingly, there are header service data.
Each list item has a colored circle next to it. Green points to good opportunity recover deleted files. Yellow indicates a questionable one, and red indicates its absence (since a significant part of the file has been overwritten).
Select the objects you want to return from the list and click the “Restore” button. Select the folder where the program should save them. It is important that this is a different logical partition of the same disk or a different physical device.

DMDE

DMDE is a cross-platform recovery utility, backup and editing the contents of drives. Works on Windows, Linux and DOS. Supports the following file systems: FAT12-16-32, ExFAT, NTFS, NTFS5, Ext2-3-4, HFSX, HFS+, and RAW (unspecified). Capable of extracting data from healthy and damaged hard drives, solid state media and RAID arrays, as well as their sector-by-sector copies created in the program itself. Recovers not only deleted files, but also entire partitions that are no longer detected due to a damaged official information. Has RAID reconstruction functions.

DMDE comes in free and two paid versions- home and commercial. The difference between the free version and the paid home edition is the absence of a group file recovery function and a quantitative limitation - the program allows you to restore up to 4000 objects from the current panel.

All versions of DMDE work without installation - just unpack the archive into a separate folder and run the Dmde.exe file.

How to use the utility:

After the main DMDE window appears on the screen, click the “Select Disk” top menu button. Select the device or logical partition from which you want to recover information. Confirm your choice.

Next, select again required section and click "Open Volume".

In the left panel of the next window, select the “All found + reconstruction” option. Specify the file system reconstruction method and the search objects: all files, including deleted files, only deleted files, or all files excluding deleted files. If you want to get a list of only missing files, select “only deleted”, otherwise it may become too large.

After the program displays a list of everything found, right-click on the object of interest and select “Restore Object” from the menu.

On the first tab of the recovery options window, specify the location to save the object.

On the “Filters” tab, you can set a mask of file names, their sizes (from and to) and exclude empty folders from processing.

As a rule, you don’t need to change anything in the settings. After clicking “OK”, the program will immediately begin the recovery process.

If the recovered files cannot be opened or the utility did not find what you wanted, the developers recommend performing a full scan of the volume and repeating the operation.

Or return to the disk selection section and try to read other volumes.

— a powerful software package of recovery tools for rescuing data from all types of media, including deeply damaged ones. This utility is often resorted to in cases where nothing else has helped.

Features of R-Studio are support for all types of drives and file systems, including undefined (RAW). And also - an improved algorithm for searching and restoring damaged and partially overwritten files. Additionally, the program contains functions for RAID reconstruction and creating virtual disk images from which information can be read as from physical ones.

How to use R-studio program:

Install and run the utility with administrator rights. The main window will display a list of connected drives.
Specify the media or partition from which you want to recover data and click the “Scan” button.

In the scanning settings window, define the file types that need to be found (the “Known file types” button), the rest can be left as default. To continue, click "Scan".

After the scan is completed, go to the “Disk” menu and click the “Recover all files” option.

Specify the location to save what you found and, if necessary, other recovery options (shown in the screenshot below). Click “Yes” to confirm. Wait until the operation is completed.

R-studio is an effective, but paid and very expensive program. However, there are “corrected” versions of it on the Internet.

How to properly recover information

The location where restored objects are saved should never be the same logical partition from which they were read.
It is better not to postpone the data recovery procedure until later. The fewer disk operations, the higher the chances of success.
If the program's capabilities allow, create a virtual image of the partition or device on which the objects of interest are located, and restore from it. This will protect you from irretrievable data loss due to accidental overwriting or sudden drive failure.
If you are restoring from physical media, try to complete everything in one session. Repeated attempts may be less successful.