What Types of Drives or Disks Can I Recover Files From?

If your operating system can see the device as a block storage device (locally or via Disk Drill’s NAS connector), Disk Drill can usually scan it. Below is a practical, vendor‑verified breakdown with the right caveats so you know what’s actually supported.

Quick Review. Supported Device Classes

• Internal & external HDDs/SSDs (IDE, SAS, SCSI, SATA, NVMe, USB, Thunderbolt) on macOS & Windows. File systems include FAT16/32, exFAT, NTFS/NTFS5, ReFS, HFS/HFS+, APFS, EXT2/3/4, BTRFS, and RAW devices.
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• USB flash drives and other removable media.
• Memory cards (SD/SDHC/SDXC, microSD, CF, etc.), including pro camera cards; Disk Drill 6 adds an Advanced Camera Recovery module for fragmented video.
• Mobile devices:
  • iPhone/iPad (iOS/iPadOS): recovery on macOS and Windows (extracts from the device and backups).
  • Android: best results when rooted (internal storage) or from the device’s SD card (macOS only).
• RAID arrays (Linux software RAID, Windows RAID & Storage Spaces, macOS software RAID, Fusion Drive) with automatic virtual reconstruction.
• NAS appliances over the network via SSH (Disk Drill’s NAS & Linux via SSH section) — supports EXT2/3/4 and BTRFS now; XFS is planned.
• Virtual disks & disk images: scan VMDK directly; scan DSK, BIN, DAT, RAW, DD; DMG/IMG/ISO; VHD/VHDX by mounting in the Disk Drill.

1) Internal & External HDDs/SSDs

Disk Drill can scan internal system disks, external USB/Thunderbolt drives, and removable SSDs/HDDs attached to Windows or macOS. Supported file systems include:

• Microsoft: FAT16/32, exFAT, NTFS/NTFS5, ReFS
• Apple: HFS/HFS+, APFS
• Linux: EXT2/3/4, BTRFS
• RAW (no recognized FS)

In addition to file‑system–aware recovery, Disk Drill can scan a drive by file signatures—it looks for known byte patterns (magic numbers, headers/footers, and container structures) across the device to carve files even when partitions or metadata are missing or corrupted.

2) USB Flash Drives & Other Removable Flash Media

USB thumb drives and similar removable flash storage are supported like any other volume (same file‑system list as above).

3) Memory Cards: SD, microSD, SDHC/SDXC, CF/XQD/CFexpress

Disk Drill supports all common camera and mobile card formats, and in Disk Drill 6 the Advanced Camera Recovery module significantly improves outcomes for fragmented video (a common pro‑video failure mode).

4) Mobile Devices (iOS/iPadOS & Android)

• iPhone/iPad (macOS + Windows): Disk Drill for Mac can recover content from iOS/iPadOS devices and their backups (photos, videos, contacts, messages, chats, etc.).
• Android (macOS only): Modern Android storage usually requires root to access internal memory at block level. Disk Drill (Mac) can scan rooted internal storage and SD cards attached to the device or a reader.

5) RAID Arrays (Workstations, Servers, & NAS Member Disks)

Disk Drill provides automatic RAID reconstruction for common setups:

• Linux mdraid & BTRFS RAID: 0/1/5/6/10, JBOD, plus BTRFS (single, 0/1/5/6/10)
• Windows: RAID 0/1/5/JBOD and Storage Spaces (simple, two‑way/three‑way mirror, parity, dual parity)
• macOS: software RAID 0/1/JBOD and Fusion Drive (HFS+ CoreStorage and APFS)

You connect the member disks to a PC/Mac, Disk Drill virtually rebuilds the array, then you scan that virtual volume. Manual (hand‑entered) layouts are not yet supported, but are on the roadmap.

For Fusion Drive and CoreStorage, Disk Drill for macOS can automatically assemble SSD+HDD pairs into a single scan target when both members are present.

6) NAS Appliances (Over the Network)

You can recover directly from many NAS devices via SSH in Disk Drill’s NAS & Linux via SSH panel. The app can auto‑discover SSH‑enabled NAS units, connect, and present the RAID/LVM volume as a scan target. Current deep‑scan FS support here includes EXT2/3/4 and BTRFS; XFS is explicitly noted as “coming soon.”

7) Virtual Disks & Disk images

Good options when a drive is unstable or you’re working from a copy. Disk images you can scan directly in Disk Drill:

• .dmg – Apple disk images
• .raw – Raw disk images
• .dd – Forensic DD images
• .img – Sector-by-sector disk images
• .iso – Uncompressed disk images
• .dsk – Byte-to-byte disk images
• .bin – Generic disk images
• .dat – Legacy binary disk images
• .vmdk – Virtual VMware disks
• .vhd – Virtual Disk files
• .vhdx – Virtual Disk files
• .s01 – Segmented forensic images (SMART/EWF)
• .e01 – EnCase Expert Witness images
• .l01 / .101 – EnCase Logical Evidence images
• .ex01 – EnCase Extended (EWF2) evidence images
• .lx01 / .ix01 – EnCase Extended Logical Evidence images
• .hdd – Parallels virtual disks
• .sparsebundle – Apple sparse bundle disk images

8) Encrypted Volumes (FileVault, APFS‑Encrypted, BitLocker)

• APFS/HFS+ encryption (FileVault): Disk Drill detects encrypted APFS volumes and will prompt for the password or recovery key before scanning.
• BitLocker: Disk Drill detects BitLocker‑protected volumes, requests the unlock key, and then scans the decrypted content.

What Disk Drill Can’t Do – Optical Discs (CD/DVD/Blu‑ray) and Floppy Disks

Optical media are not supported for “undelete”/deep scans.
Disk Drill cannot recover deleted files from CD, DVD, or Blu‑ray discs. Once data is burned, optical media don’t expose the kind of writable, block‑addressable space a data‑recovery tool needs to reconstruct deleted content. You can copy whatever sectors are still readable, but you can’t “undelete” in the hard‑drive/SSD sense. For damaged discs, your best bet is to make a sector‑by‑sector ISO (if possible) or consult tools/labs that specialize in optical media.

Floppy disks (3.5″/5.25″).
Disk Drill does not support floppy disks and will not detect physical floppy drives (USB or internal). Direct scanning, deep scanning, or file‑system recovery from a floppy drive is not available.

Practical workaround (optional):
If you must attempt recovery from a floppy, create a sector‑by‑sector image of the disk using a third‑party imaging tool (e.g., an .img/.dsk file). You can then point Disk Drill at that disk image and run a signature‑based scan. Results vary and original file names/paths may be unavailable, but it’s the safest path when a physical floppy isn’t supported.