You have plenty of files to use them for different purposes. Your files are safe when the storage device is working good. Someday you noticed that one or some of your files are deleted permanently due to either accidentally by yourself or any other software violation or hard disk itself. You are not also found in recycle bin. Oops, you lost data permanently. It will be a most weird experience. Don’t be panic, you should try some steps that may remove your tension and recover lost data. Once I have experienced like that but after a long research, I found my all lost data.
Almost everyone faced this problem. You delete some files which remain to recycle bin and not being sure you deleted important files as well.
If you deleted or formatted any drive accidentally, In these cases, you must have to find a tool or software which can help you to retrieve deleted files or recover the formatted drive. But first, you read this article from first to last.
Table of Contents
How Can I Recover Deleted Files
There are two types of recovery-
- Software recovery: Probably you deleted data from your hard drive, pen drive, SSD etc and also cleared recycle bin. And hardware access is still good not lagging performance. In this case, you have to use professional software recovery.
- Hardware recovery: If the hard disk is damaged physically then Hardware recovery is required. This may be caused by power supply problem or internal read-write head is clasped and many more causes.
1. Software Recovery
To recover lost data, first, you have to utilize time and space. The addresses of every files and folder are indexed by the operating system. When you delete any files or folder from a hard disk drive, then initially it is deleted from index list but space allocated for that files or folder is still healthy to be recovered. But Operating system always reading or writing data from hard drive, if you replace or operating system uses this space by replacing that files, then there is no chance of recovery of your files. So, More use of the computer hard drive or operating system after deleting files, the more chance of lost data permanently. So, shut down your PC and read all the stuff about recovery now. Don’t overwrite any files on that drive.
Software Recovery can be done for different needs:
1. Recovery of Accidentally deleted files/restore deleted files: This type of recovery is done to the Hard disk drive. It is easy to recover data from hard disk drive because of its internal structure. It stores binary data magnetically by using same directional or opposite directional pole.
2. Formatted hard drive recovery: If you format entire drive to make it blank but mistakenly you have also lost important files that were stored on that formatted drive, then this type of recovery has to be accomplished. But you have to remain it still blank. Don’t overwrite any files on that drive.
3. Mobile phone recovery: You captured a lot of images and videos. In need you had to delete those photos or videos, recovery of mobile phone storage memory would be done. But this is not the easy way like hard drive because of its functionality.
4. Memory Card Recovery: Memory card also called SD(secure digital) card is made of solid state chips. It is used in different types of device such as Mobile phone, Digital camera, Tab etc. Recovery using software is possible rather than hardware recovery.
5. USB Data Recovery: All types of USB data storage device helps us to store or transfer data. USB flash drive, USB pen drive, USB external Hard drive are the example of USB data storage. Using software, data can be restored. Hardware recovery is not available for USB data recovery.
6. External Hard drive recovery: For extra storage memory, we used to buy an external hard drive. It is either disk type or solid state type. For the disk type external hard drive, It is easy to recover lost data type.
7. SSD data recovery: It is made of solid-state memory chip that has no moving parts. If any file is deleted from SSD, it is deleted permanently dislike Hard drive. It is usually used as a Hard drive, memory card, and external storage device. Data loss on SSD is a common issue nowadays. Data recovery process for SSD is different from the traditional memory storage device like a Hard drive.
Steps of Software recovery
- You may back up that drive from which you are trying to recover. It is optional for a safety issue. Some essential software is used to clone the entire drive you may use to ensure safe searching without loosing deleted data.
- Now scan the entire drive or clone drive with a few recovery software. There are a lot of software with different features available to scan freeware or paid.
- Use the programs what type of data you want to recover. Select them in a bulk module and recover them. You can create a list of files or entire drive as you want. All files would not be the same potential. Some are healthy but rest are weak or not recoverable.
2. Hardware Recovery
To recover hard drive data, Conditions are not always favorable what we think. Sometimes software recovery is not possible due to a hardware problem. If all hardware is working well then software recovery is possible otherwise Hardware recovery must be done.
The internal construction of different types of memory devices is not same. The hard disk has moving plate spinning, USB devices have transistor based memory element. So every memory has its own system.
Hardware recovery of all the memory devices is not possible quietly. It’s only possible to do hardware recovery of Hard disk whether it’s fully or partially because of its structure.
Now I’ll discuss damaged hard drive recovery. Let’s go.
Before Hardware Recovery of Hard drive, we have to check each part of the Hard disk then to recover.
Keep in mind, If any parts of the hard disk are damaged then hard disk may not work properly. You have to replace them.
Symptoms of Hard drive hardware problem:
- If not initialized in Windows.
- Platters not spinning anymore
- Very hot drive
- The presence of grinding noise heard from outside.
Try to connect the hard drive to another PC (manage anyhow). Remove from current PC and attach to another PC with SATA cable or SATA to USB converter and it must be USB 3 version. There will be a running operating system and your hard drive will be attached to a secondary device.
Now, you’ll have to consider this parts of Hard drive given below –
PCB: Printed Circuit Board in short PCB is used to connect all the essential equipment required to operate a device like a Hard disk. There are many electronic devices along with the controller that is connected to each other. It receives digital data from the computer and it understand 0s and 1s. Then it read/write them to platters.
PCB may be broken, It can be replaced by spending less money relatively.
Spinning Disk: Hard disk contains rotating circular plates. The speed varies from 5600 to 7200 rpm(revolutions per minute) depending on device and company. It is made of glass and coated with a magnetic surface. Data is stored on that magnetic layer.
Sometimes disk can not spin properly, then read/write operation is violated. The disk can be replaced with another hard drive to recover its data.
Read/write head: Read/write head is used in the Hard disk to read from disk or to write into a disk. It’s the only thing on the disk surface that can read or write. It is located on the actuator arm. It is moved here and there with the help of magnetization.
Suppose Your data was written already but you can not retrieve data properly. In this case, there can be problems with reading/write head and maybe it is unable to read right now.
If you want to be sure, Platters need to be replaced into another hard drive of same brand and size. Hope, you’ll be sure whether the problem is in the head or not.
Firmware: Sometimes Hard disk comes with the faults from the manufacturer because it is not supported by all operating system. This type of errors exists in Firmware. The problems would be as –
- Your PC fails to boot from hard drive
- Your PC hangs at the time of booting process.
These problems are normally coming from the manufacturer because they didn’t test this before selling.
If It has come to you with warranty, Replace this. Otherwise, it is useless on your PC. To recover lost data, you can use recovery software after connecting this hard drive to another PC as a secondary device.
Notes to be remembered
- Please have patience because initially, scan process will take longer time depending on the processor and size of the drive.
- Keep in mind, Don’t store any files on the recoverable drive other chances will be gone.
- Perform regular basis backup of your valuable data on DVD or other media so you can restore data.
- Recovered files would not be same as original files. It can be different in the sort of size, name, formats.
Conclusion
Deleting files take smaller time but retrieving lost data takes larger time and sometimes money needs to be spent to recover lost data. So, we need to be more conscious to delete files. Be more careful while removing from recycle bin. Don’t empty recycle bin in bulk operation, check each file individually. Let your important files be safe on computer memory by taking care files and hardware regularly. You can check this article if you are interested to know about retrieving deleted texts from your iPhone.
