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Recover your deleted files on Windows, including Office documents, archives, and media files, quickly and easily. Disk Drill for Windows is a simple free data recovery software that restores deleted files from hard disks (HDD), external USB drives, or any kind of storage media.
If you have lost or deleted important data from your device, this free data recovery software for Windows can get it back fast. Its intuitive user interface makes it easy to recover your lost files. Some of its features include:
Free data recovery of up to 500 MB
Free data protection with Recovery Vault
Free byte-level backups of your storage media
Preview lost files before performing a recovery
Easily predict successful recoverability of your files
Using Disk Drill data recovery software for Windows 10 & 11 you can recover deleted data from virtually any storage device. The list of supported ones includes your computer’s internal hard disk, external USB drives, SD and CF cards, other memory cards, digital cameras, solid state drives (SSD), flash drives, virtual hard drives, RAID arrays, disk images, etc. Also runs on Windows 8, 7, XP or Vista.
Dell®, HP®, Acer®, Asus®, MacBook Pro®, MacBook Air®, Apple iMac® and more
HP®, Samsung®, Seagate®, Toshiba®, WD®, LaCie®, Intel®, Adata® and more
SanDisk®, Samsung®, Kingston®, Corsair®, Patriot®, PNY®, Verbatim®, Silicon Power® and more
SanDisk®, Transcend®, Toshiba®, Lexar®, Integral®, SP®, PNY®, Kingston® and more
Samsung®, HP®, Sony®, GoPro®, Canon®, Sigma®, Nikon®, Epson®, Panasonic® and more
Samsung Galaxy®, iPhone®, Lenovo®, Huawei®, OnePlus®, Google Pixel®, LG® and more
* If TRIM is disabled. Learn more >
** Note: iOS and Android data recovery of images, documents, archives and other deleted files from iPhones, iPads and Android devices is only supported in Disk Drill for Mac at the moment. This will become available in Disk Drill for Windows soon. Let us know if you are interested in helping us beta-test this feature.
Disk Drill, a professional Windows data recovery solution, can restore all file types that have been deleted or lost on virtually any of your devices. Its powerful and sophisticated scanning algorithms can identify and reconstruct hundreds of different file types including all of the popular video, audio, photo and document formats.
Disk Drill is a free data recovery software for Windows 10 & 11, as well as those of you using older versions of the operating system. It is an easy to use yet powerful tool that will assist both novice and experienced users in getting back lost files in just a few simple steps. Here’s what you need to do.
Disk Drill is a free download. The software installs easily with just a few clicks; as with any other system software, you will be asked for your administrator’s credentials. Disk Drill Free edition lets you recover up to 500 MB of data as well as giving you permanent access to the extra data protection tools.
Select the disk or device that contained your lost data from the list displayed in the application’s main window. Press “Search for lost data” on the right. This will initiate all supported recovery methods, but depending on the particular recovery situation, there’s a way to choose other scanning options such as a partition search or a deep scan. Scanning the whole drive with all available recovery methods provides the most complete results and finds more recoverable data.
Once the data source is selected, you are ready to begin the recovery process. Click the Search for lost data button to initiate the scan and find your deleted files. The scanning step can take a variable amount of time based on the type of the scanned media and its condition.
As scanning proceeds, you will see a status bar showing its progress at the top of the app’s window, as well as the number of files found and their total size. You can pause and resume the scan at any time. For the best results, let the scan complete in one run, you can see which files have already been identified at any moment of the scan and even initiate the recovery while the app is still scanning in the background.
Our Windows data recovery tool allows you to preview the files it has found before you commit to recovering them. Files identified by the tool are listed by file type in the app window to make it easy to locate the needed ones. Choose from Pictures, Video, Audio, Documents, Archives, and other files. Click on the appropriate category to see the files that have been found during the scanning process.
You can search within recoverable files by their names or other parameters using the search box at the top of the Disk Drill’s window. Narrow down your search to *.JPG or *.DOC files, or any other extension. You can also filter scanning results by the type of file you are attempting to recover and select the ones to be restored. Choose the files to recover or click the Recover all button.
If the files you expected to find are not listed under the found ones, go through “Reconstructed” and “Reconstructed labeled” sections of the scan results. Here you will find the files that Disk Drill has restored byte-by-byte based on its proprietary database of file signatures. We always recommend previewing the found files to determine if they should be included in the recovery.
Once you review the found files, click “Recover”. Now, you will choose the recovery destination. We do not recommend using the same disk that was scanned for lost files, this can overwrite the recoverable data.
Disk Drill is a flexible data recovery tool that can help you restore your deleted files in virtually any data loss scenario. Here are some of them.
Accidentally deleted files is a very common user scenario. We hear about it roughly ~200 times per day. Recover all of your lost files quickly and easily with our simple and reliable data recovery software - Disk Drill.
If you were too fast to empty your Recycle Bin and immediately realized that you have just lost your important data in it, Disk Drill can help recover the files you thought had been permanently deleted.
Connect a crashed hard disk to another computer that runs Disk Drill, and let our data recovery software rescue the files and folders on the storage device.
Formatting the wrong external drive by mistake can result in a huge loss of data. In many cases, Disk Drill can recover all of the lost files and folders from the formatted drive.
An infection with a computer virus or malware can hit your precious files unexpectedly at any time. Use our versatile data recovery tool to restore files deleted by malicious software.
Losing a disk partition can result in a devastating loss of data. The powerful scanning algorithms of Disk Drill can recover all of your lost files and folders.
If you are faced with a file system that suddenly appears as RAW to your Windows OS, let our file recovery tool save your data so you can reformat the device for future use.
Memory card corruption can lead to the loss of many documents, pictures, videos, or other files. Just connect the card to your computer and let Disk Drill find and recover your data.
Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP
Windows Server 2025/2022/2019/2016/2012 R2/2012/2008 R2/2008/2003 R2/2003
FAT16/FAT32/exFAT, NTFS, NTFS5, ReFS, HFS, HFS+, APFS, EXT2/EXT3/EXT4, BTRFS and any RAW disk
Disk Space: 1GB minimum free space
CPU: 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x86-64) compatible CPU 1.0 GHz or faster
RAM: at least 4GB
PROTECT
A distinctive feature of Disk Drill is the free data protection tools intended to keep your important files safe. You can configure Recovery Vault to protect specific files and folders by retaining metadata for any accidental deletions. The Vault is essentially an extended Recycle Bin that generally does not require additional storage space on your hard disk and provides a one-click recovery method in case you need to restore deleted files. Additional data protection features let you create byte-level backups which include deleted files and can be used for data recovery purposes.
Not all data loss scenarios are equally serious. Some can be remediated with the help of advanced data recovery software, like Disk Drill, while others are impossible to solve even by well-equipped professionals in data labs.
The Recycle Bin folder in Windows is a special temporary storage area for deleted files, and its purpose is to guarantee complete recoverability. As such, the recovery chances of any files found in the Recycle Bin are as high as they get.
In many cases, deleted files still remain on the storage device from which they were deleted long after their deletion, making it possible to recover them using data recovery software. One of the exceptions is the deletion on a solid-state drive (SSD) with the TRIM feature enabled.
Regular formatting is usually quick because it merely marks the partition as empty without actually deleting the files stored on it, which means that you can recover them using data recovery software. Of course, that won’t be possible if you format a partition securely, overwriting its content with zeroes or new data at least one time.
When files become corrupted, they may be impossible to open, but that doesn’t automatically make them impossible to recover. It all depends on the extent of the corruption and the nature of the corrupted file (for example, it’s much easier to recover a corrupted image than a corrupted .EXE file).
There are many nasty strains of malware that can make important files disappear or become impossible to open. Addressing malware-caused data loss is sometimes possible using the combination of anti-malware and data recovery software, but the success rate is hard to estimate without having more information about a specific malware infection.
It’s not possible to recover data from physically damaged storage devices that can’t be recognized by Windows without repairing the hardware damage first, which is something that can rarely be done at home.
The latest version of Disk Drill can estimate recovery chances to give you a general idea of how likely the found files can be recovered intact. We recommend using this feature to focus your attention on files with high recovery chances first.
It can be confusing to find the best free Windows data recovery tool among the many competing products on the market. To help you make the right decision, we have put together this table of some of Disk Drill’s main analogs along with a comparison of their features. Choose the one that best suits your data loss situation and start recovering deleted data on your Windows computer in a matter of seconds.
 Disk Drill |
 Recuva |
 EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard |
 Recoverit Data Recovery |
 Stellar Data Recovery |
|
|
User experience and price |
|||||
|
Rating (5 star)
|
|||||
|
Mac version of app
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Price
|
$89.00 |
$19.95 |
$99.95 |
$69.95 |
$79.99 |
|
Ease of use
|
Easy |
Moderate |
Easy |
Easy |
Moderate |
|
Recovery speed
|
Fast |
Average |
Fast |
Fast |
Slow |
|
Phone support
|
✘ |
✘ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Email support
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Live chat
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Tutorials built in app
|
✔ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
|
FAQs
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Supported filesystems |
|||||
|
FAT16 / FAT32
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
exFAT
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
NTFS / NTFS5
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
HFS / HFS+
|
✔ (signature scan only) |
✘ |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (Toolkit edition) |
|
APFS
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (signature scan only) |
|
ReFS
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (signature scan only) |
|
BTRFS
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (signature scan only) |
|
ext2 / ext3 / ext4
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (signature scan only) |
✔ (Toolkit edition) |
|
Scans |
|||||
|
Supported file formats (as stated)
|
400+ |
50 |
1000 |
1000 |
300 |
|
Recovery chances
|
✔ |
✔ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
|
Quick scan
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Deep scan
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Signature scan
|
✔ |
limited support |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
NAS & Linux via SSH scan
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
✔ |
✘ |
|
Allocate existing scan
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
partial |
partial |
|
Scan to locate lost partitons
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
|
Automatic scans
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
✔ |
partial |
|
RAW devices scan
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
partial |
partial |
|
RAID capability
|
✔ |
✘ |
partial |
partial |
✔ (Toolkit edition) |
|
Bad devices scan
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
partial |
partial |
|
Additional capabilities |
|||||
|
SMART device status
|
✔ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
✔ (Professional edition) |
|
File preview
|
✔ |
partial |
partial |
partial |
partial |
|
Hex preview
|
✔ |
✔ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
|
Preview during scan
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
✔ |
partial |
|
Create and load disk images
|
✔ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
✔ (Professional edition) |
|
Save and load scan sessions
|
✔ |
✘ |
✔ |
✘ |
partial |
|
Mount results as a virtual drive
|
✔ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
|
Additional protection features
|
✔ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
✘ |
As you can see from the table above, each data recovery software offers a slightly different mix of features and capabilities, which are available at different price tiers. Here’s a brief summary of what we think about the compared solutions. Read more
Preview and recover specific file types to save time. Recoverable data is conveniently grouped by file types, so you don’t need to sort through other data that is not in scope for recovery.
Unformatted and RAW file systems can be recovered with Disk Drill’s deep scanning technology. Restore your files before reformatting the storage media for future use.
Latest release: Disk Drill 6.0 for Windows
Runs on Windows 10-11 (64-bit)/11 (ARM)
Updated on by Disk Drill Team
Follow this procedure to recover deleted data on a Windows computer:
Data recovery software works by taking advantage of the way present-time operating systems handle data deletion. When an OS deletes a file, it does not immediately remove it from the storage device. It marks the space previously occupied by the data as available for use. Until this space is reused, and the data there is overwritten, data recovery software, like Disk Drill, can restore it.
Top 11 Data Recovery Software for Windows:
There are a number of methods that may get your data back for free. Deleted files may be in the Recycle Bin. Maybe, you have backups of the lost data somewhere. If you don’t have backups and have emptied your Recycle Bin, taking advantage of Disk Drill’s free 500 MB trial is a great way to recover your lost data at no cost.
You can try to restore deleted files on Windows using this method:
Disk Drill is totally safe to use and will not cause any harm to your computer or its data. The scanning process is conducted in read-only mode so there is no chance of accidentally causing any damage to your storage media. We recommend recovering your data to a different disk than the one that lost data to ensure that no file corruption occurs.
Yes, it is. Windows handles file deletion in a way that in most cases lets you recover accidentally deleted files as long as they have not been overwritten by newer data. This means that as soon as you suspect you have lost any data you should stop using the affected disk until after you have performed the recovery.
Disk Drill data recovery software for Windows offers 500 MB of data recovery for free. You may be able to obtain freeware products that can recover some of your data, but they do not provide the same professional-grade features of a paid program. When you are faced with performing data recovery on important information or irreplaceable files, it pays to use a quality tool.
Most data recovery tools for Windows cost under US$100 for a fully licensed version. Disk Drill enables you to try the software and recover 500 MB of data before making any financial investment in the application. The free download also lets its users benefit from the unlimited free data protection tools built into the program.
Disk Drill is available as a free download which enables users to recover up to 500 MB of data before committing to a licensed version of the product. In combination with the free unlimited preview of recoverable data, this lets you test the features of the program and its recovery capabilities before spending any money on it.
Data recovery is defined as the process through which data that is inaccessible because it has been deleted, damaged, formatted, or otherwise lost is recovered and made accessible again.
A data recovery service is a service offered by companies that focus on the recovery of lost data from various devices. Using specialized tools and techniques, data recovery experts are able to recover even permanently deleted or corrupted data.
The time it takes to complete a data recovery job depends on the size and type of the recovered storage device, the amount of lost data, the cause of data loss, and other factors. A simple data recovery job can take just a few minutes to complete, but a complex one may take hours.
The 4 main types of data recovery are:
Restore Deleted Files
And Protect Your Data
REQUIREMENTS
Windows 10-11 (64-bit)/11 (ARM), 51.1 MB
Use Disk Drill 2.x-5.x for Windows XP+
AVERAGE USER RANK
NEWEST RELEASE
Also available for Mac OS X 
