Programs for hard drive recovery. Rating of the best programs for restoring a damaged hard drive
Important things depend on the condition of the hard drive - the operation of the operating system and the safety of user files. Problems such as file system errors and bad sectors can lead to the loss of personal information, failures to load the OS and complete failure of the drive.
The ability to recover an HDD depends on the type of bad blocks. Physical damage cannot be repaired, while logical errors must be corrected. To do this, you will need a special program that works with bad sectors.
Before running the healing utility, it is necessary to carry out diagnostics. It will allow you to find out if there are problem areas and whether you need to work on them. We have already written in more detail about what bad sectors are, where they come from, and what program scans the hard drive for their presence in another article:
You can use scanners for built-in and external HDD, as well as flash drive.
If, after checking, the presence of errors and bad sectors is discovered, and you want to eliminate them, then special software will again come to the rescue.
Method 1: Using third-party programs
Often users decide to resort to using programs that would handle errors and bad blocks at the logical level. We have already compiled a selection of such utilities, and you can familiarize yourself with them using the link below. There you will also find a link to a lesson on disk recovery.
When choosing a program for HDD treatment, approach it wisely: if used inappropriately, you can not only damage the device, but also lose important data stored on it.
Method 2: Using the built-in utility
An alternative way to resolve errors is to use the chkdsk program built into Windows. It can scan all drives connected to the computer and fix any problems found. If you are going to fix the partition where the OS is installed, then chkdsk will start working only the next time you start the computer, or after a manual reboot.
To work with the program, it is best to use the command line.
Please note that none of the programs can fix bad sectors at the physical level, even if this is stated by the manufacturer. No software can restore the surface of a disk. Therefore, in case of physical damage, it is necessary to replace the old HDD with a new one as quickly as possible before it stops functioning.
Naturally, accidental and intentional deletion of files destroys previously recorded information, which can be restored using special utilities. But you can also find cases of quick or complete formatting of hard drives, when data is believed to be deleted irrevocably, not to mention damage to the hard drives themselves. What to do in this case? This is where hard drive recovery programs come to the rescue. You can download mostly simple utilities for free. However, even they help, as they say, to bring the disk to life. Let's look at the most popular ones, including both free and paid utilities.
How does the process of deleting files from a hard drive work?
Before considering the main topic, let’s make a short digression into the theoretical part and see how information is deleted. In Windows systems, there are two ways: deleting to the Recycle Bin and without it. In the first case, the files are simply moved to a reserved area on the hard drive, so restoring them from the Recycle Bin is as easy as shelling pears.
In the second case, the first character in the name changes to unreadable ($). If during work in the clusters where such a file is located, no overwriting was performed, the information can also be restored.
The situation is worse with quick or complete formatting of disks and partitions, as well as with situations when the hard drive begins to “crumble” or is simply subject to physical damage. Many users mistakenly believe that it is impossible to recover files in this case, saying that only professional experts can do this. Nothing like this! If you use, for example, the same programs to restore Seagate Barracuda hard drives, which at one time had many problems, anyone, even an untrained user, can carry out this process. And it’s completely elementary.
Programs for restoring hard drives after formatting: can it be done?
In the case of a quick format of the hard drive, the partition tables are overwritten, and with a full format, the disk surface is also checked and bad sectors are then corrected. In this case, we are not talking about factory low-level formatting at all.
This is precisely what allows many developers to create programs for restoring hard drives, which seem to perform the reverse process. This gives the same recovery effect. But first things first.
The best hard drive recovery programs
As for the most famous utilities today, a sample list might look like this:
- Victoria HDD;
- R.Saver and R-Studio;
- HDD Regenerator;
- Acronis Recovery Expert and Active Partition Recovery Pro;
- Hetman Partition Recovery;
- Zero Assumption Recovery.
Naturally, it is impossible to provide a complete list, since today hundreds of such software products can be found. But let’s look at the above utilities in a little more detail.
Victoria HDD
If we consider the most popular programs for recovering hard drives and disk partitions, the leadership certainly belongs to one of the most powerful utilities of our time called Victoria HDD, developed by Sergey Kazansky.
The program has five levels of hard drive testing, is capable of identifying and displaying faulty areas, eliminating errors, plotting surface condition graphs, measuring performance, etc. The operating modes also look interesting. The application can be run in a regular graphical shell, or you can use a somewhat unusual DOS mode. By the way, it is with such a test that the most powerful effect is achieved.
R.Saver and R-Studio
These two programs for recovering hard drives from flash drives work just fine and are very similar to each other. They can even be used as portable versions.
The main advantage of these utilities is that they support almost all file systems known today and are capable of recovering data on any type of media, including even formatted or damaged memory cards.
HDD Regenerator
This utility is relatively new among all programs. It is designed specifically for restoring bad sectors and, as the developers themselves say, even for resuscitating the surface of the hard drive.
The latest technology of so-called magnetization reversal is used here, which allows you to completely restore the hard drive and the information that was previously recorded on it. It works, however, only in DOS mode, which causes some confusion among many. In addition, the technology itself looks almost unrealistic, because some people cannot imagine how a surface can be remagnetized using software. Nevertheless, everyone who has encountered it expresses only admiration - the application is able to revive even completely “dead” disks.
Acronis Recovery Expert and Active Partition Recovery Pro
Here are two representatives of the family of HDD recovery utilities. The peculiarity of these applications is that they support a large number of file systems and hard drives.
In addition, they provide a mode for creating bootable media, with which you can fix many problems if starting the operating system from a problematic hard drive is impossible.
True, the first utility is paid, the second is not. But the second application is also interesting because it can be launched from both DOS and Windows.
Hetman Partition Recovery
Another USB device or memory card and the information stored on it is interesting because it can work with all types of virtual partitions. It goes without saying that data can be recovered even after full formatting.
But the most important thing is that the program can work both in manual mode and in “Wizard” mode, which allows any user to automate the entire recovery process.
Zero Assumption Recovery
Finally, one more small and fairly simple application, abbreviated as ZAR. This program is designed primarily for restoring FAT and NTFS file systems, although it can also be used for Linux. For Windows system users, it is perfect.
But here it is worth considering that in this case we are talking exclusively about recovering information (even from bad sectors). In this case, the program does not make any corrections on the hard drive itself after analysis.
Conclusion
Of course, only the most basic programs were considered here. When choosing a program, you should be guided by the situation itself, that is, choose which operation should be used (recovering information or eliminating failures on the hard drive itself), and only then make a decision about using one or another utility.
The problem of recovering a hard drive and the information stored on it is one of the most pressing problems at the moment. Due to the seriousness of the issue, it is advisable to always have on hand a tool that could troubleshoot the operation of the railway. This can be either a comprehensive program for HDD recovery or a utility capable of diagnosing specific functionality of the disk.
HDD Regenerator is a program for recovering bad sectors of a hard drive and creating recovery bootable disks. Its main advantages include a simple interface without unnecessary hassles, the ability to monitor the status of the HDD, and support for different file systems. The disadvantages are that the official version of the product costs almost $90 and that using this program you cannot recover information after formatting the hard drive. It only eliminates bad sectors and then only at the logical level.
R-Studio is a universal program that is perfect for both restoring a hard drive after formatting and restoring its damaged partitions. It works with a huge number of file systems and is one of the most effective programs for recovering lost data. Its advantages also include an intuitive interface. Well, the main disadvantage of R-Studio, just like HDD Regenerator, is the paid product license.
The program compares favorably with other analogues due to its Windows Explorer-style interface, which allows its users to easily and quickly deal with the problem. Starus Partition Recovery also has the ability to view files before restoring them and has a built-in Hex editor, which will come in handy for experienced users. The price of such convenience is 2,399 rubles - which is the main disadvantage of the program.
Acronis Disk Director
Another paid, but very convenient and effective program for restoring a hard drive after damage. It has extensive functionality and allows the user to do whatever he wants with the hard drive, from restoring damaged information to optimization. Fast, powerful, paid.
Free program for diagnosing and restoring hard drive partitions. Its main task is low-level testing of the HDD and assessment of its performance. Its main disadvantages are that the program is no longer supported by the developer and has a complex interface that will be difficult for an inexperienced user to navigate.
Conclusion
Using most of the programs reviewed, you can easily manage hard drive partitions, recover lost and deleted data, and also diagnose HDD operation. Unfortunately, almost all of them are paid, but have trial versions or demo modes. Therefore, you can try and evaluate the performance of all programs and choose the one that you like the most.
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How to recover deleted documents using Recuva?
Other questions about the Recuva program
Now let's talk about scan and recovery time. It, of course, depends on the file size and disk space, but it is a little tiring due to its length. And the program does not always restore; sometimes crashes occur. But it's still worth a try. The program also has a function that can completely delete files (without the possibility of subsequent reincarnation).
This software is free, its overall rating is not as good as that of its competitors, but let's take a closer look at it.
First of all, we can note the simplicity of this software - even not very experienced users can understand the menu. And to return data after formatting a flash drive, you can use a special wizard that, using step-by-step instructions, will help you achieve the desired result.
Now let's talk about scan and recovery time. It, of course, depends on the file size and disk space, but it is a little tiring due to its length. And the program does not always restore; sometimes crashes occur. But it's still worth a try. The program also has a function that can completely delete files (without the possibility of subsequent reincarnation).
