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Top 10 Hard Drive Recovery Software for Windows and Mac PC

"I have a hard drive with valuable information on it, but I cannot seem to access it, I mean the driver is either damaged or formatted, these files are really important to me, is there any way I can see what is on my drive and get it back? Please help." There are a lot of factors could cause data loss on your hard drive, for example, accidental deletion, software corruption, virus and malicious programs, hardware damage and other problems. To ordinary people, hard drive recovery is a pretty professional skill. Actually, many specialists cannot figure out how to do it exactly.
Hard Drive Recovery

Fortunately, that does not mean you cannot get back your lost files. There are plenty of ways to examine lost data and see if any of them is recoverable. Within a little time, you may be able to get some data back from your hard drive with the right tools and some care. Generally speaking, a right tool could determine whether hard drive data recovery will be successful and how many files you can recover. Therefore, we are going to show you the best hard disk recovery software on market based on our lab testing and hundreds of users' reports.

Part 1: What does Hard Drive Recovery mean?

Hard drive recovery is a process of getting back lost data from iPhone or Android device and retrieving a hard drive to its last good status. You may want to perform this process, when an operating system or hard drive crashed, corrupted or damaged. It enables a hard drive to get rid of temporary failure and return to normal working condition along with the deleted files.

Part 2: Best hard drive recovery software to recover lost data

As mentioned above, good hard drive recovery software is crucial to get back lost files from hard drive. From this point, we recommend you to try Apeaksoft Data Recovery. Its key features include:

1. Easy to use. Data Recovery is able to get back lost files from hard drives, flash drive, memory card, digital camera and other storage media in one click.

2. Available in a variety of situations. No matter your files lost due to accidental deletion, virus, system crash, or hard drive format, this data recovery tool could get your files back.

3. Support a wider range of data types. It works for all images, documents, audios, video formats, email, etc.

4. Preview for selectively recovery. After scanning, you can preview the recoverable files and select specific ones to restore.

5. Quicker and lighter. This hard drive recovery tool is lightweight and could restore lost files quickly and safely.

6. Moreover, Data Recovery is compatible with Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP.

In short, it is the best solution on how to recover data from hard drive. In this part, we use a Windows 10 as the example to show you the how-to.

How to recover files from hard drive with Data Recovery

Step 1. Get Data Recovery installed on computer

Download and install the latest version of Apeaksoft Data Recovery on your computer. Launch the best hard drive recovery tool and you will be presented the file type window and hard drive scan.

For data, you can checkmark what you want, like images, videos, music, documents, emails, etc.

For drive, this software will detect your hard drive automatically, so you just checkmark the disk you want to recover data. (Disk fails to boot?)

Scan Data

Step 2. Scan lost files from hard drive

There are several data types on the interface you can select, such as Image, Audio, Video, Email, Document and Others. Make a decision based on your demands or you can check the box next to "Check all file types" to select all data categories. Then locate to the next section, and select where the deleted files stored originally. The data recovery tool will start working as soon as click on the "Scan" button.

Preview

Step 3. Recover hard drive in one click

After scanning, you will be taken to the result window and the data will be classified by formats. For example, if you recover images, the result files will be saved in different folders titled JPG, PNG, GIF and more. You can go to each folder to find your lost file or use the Filter feature to quickly locate them. Tick the checkbox in front of each file you want to get back, and click on the "Recover" button. When it is done, you can go to the original hard drive and check your files as normal.

Recover

Very easy, right? The above steps are based on Windows users. If you are running Mac, just visit this page to get data recovery on Mac.

Part 3: Other hard drive recovery software you may want to know

In this part, you can learn about more hard drive data recovery software.

1. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a simple way to retrieve data from hard drive. Its key features include:
1. You can select all data, office documents, folders, emails, photos, audios, and videos from hard drive with this hard drive recovery tool.
2. It supports a wider range of operating systems, like Windows, OSX, Linux, Virtual Machines.
3. This disk data recovery tool works for not only FAT, ExFAT, and NTFS file system recovery, but also RAW drive recovery.
4. And users could recover hard drive, like emails from MS Outlook and Outlook Express.

Pros

1. The interface is intuitive.
2. It offers free trial.
3. Users could preview files before recover them from hard drive.

Cons

1. You need to register the software with your information.
2. It cannot scan for special data types.

Stellar

2. Alsoft DiskWarrior

Alsoft DiskWarrior is a HD recovery application for Mac. Its main features include:
1. You can get back all data from hard drive or certain disk in a single click.
2. It is not only able to recover data from hard drive, but also able to repair the cryptic errors reported by Disk Utility.
3. You can preview how the disk will appear after it is recovered.
4. Even though the hard drive is failure and not visible, this HDD recovery could handle it as well.

Pros

1. This hard drive recovery tool could repair and rebuild Mac directories to improve system reliability.
2. It is available to both traditional hard disk and SSD drive.

Cons

1. Users cannot recover certain data categories but only entire disk.
2. It takes more time to recover lost files.

Alsoft DiskWarrior

3. Kroll Ontrack EasyRecovery

Kroll Ontrack EasyRecovery is another option to get files off a hard drive. Its basic features include:

1. It could retrieve files from formatted hard drive, lost partition, RAW drive, optical media, and more.

2. The data types are supported by this hard drive recovery include multimedia files, documents, email and other.

3. It allows users to preview files before restoring them.

4. And users could make a disk image for recovering data later.

Pros

1. This HD recovery is impressively fast and through hard drive recovery.
2. It is rich in technically advanced options.

Cons

1. The interface is a bit unclear, especially for beginners.
2. You cannot create an image for failed disk.

Kroll

4. Prosoft Data Rescue

Prosoft Data Rescue is a versatile hard drive recovery application. Its basic features include:

1. It has two versions, one for Windows PC and the other for macOS 11.

2. Users could perform a deep scan, if the quick scan feature cannot find the lost files.

3. It could scan hard drive, corrupted partition, bootable USB drive, CD, external drive, removable media, SD cards and optical storage to get back lost data.

4. Supported data types include commonly used images, audios, videos, documents and archives formats.

5. It could scan a single partition and extract recoverable files.

Pros

1. The interface is straightforward.
2. You can save the session with file scan results for use in later.

Cons

1. It cannot scan a single folder or certain data types.
2. This program spends longer time to get back data.

Prosoft Data Rescue

5. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is another professional application to help you get rid the trouble of file loss. Its principal features include:
1. It has the capacity to get back deleted files on Mac and Windows easily and quickly.
2. Users could retrieve formatted files from hard disk, memory card and other devices.
3. This HD recovery tool is able to restore lost data from partition that deleted accidentally.
4. It supports a variety of data categories, like images, audios, videos, emails and other documents.

Pros

1. Two modes are available, the standard quick scan and deep scan.
2. The interface is user friendly.

Cons

1. It is a little expensive.
2. Scanning for lost files can be pretty time consuming.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

6. Wondershare Data Recovery

Wondershare Data Recovery is one of the popular data recovery tool for hard drives. Its features include:
1. It could retrieve lost files from memory card, hard drive, flash drive and other storage medium.
2. It suppoirts data recovery of music, images, documents, videos, and more other data.
3. With this hard drive recovery tool, you can get files deleted by mistake, system crash, format, improper partition and more.
4. It could perform deep scan if you cannot get back lost files with the standard quick scan.

Pros

1. It offers multiple price plans to meet different demands.
2. It is available to Windows PC and macOS 11.

Cons

1. This data recovery is time consuming and even freezing during scan.
2. Not all files can be previewed.

Wondershare Data Recovery

7. Remo Recover

Remo Recover is a paid hard drive recover program. Its main features include:
1. This data recovery application has two versions. The Media Edition is a dedicated image recovery tool; while the Pro version supports to recover a wider range of data.
2. It is a desktop program, so you need to install it on your computer and register the service with your information.
3. The interface is rather simple and you to find what you want easily.
4. This hard drive recovery tool could recover lost files from FAT, ExFAT, ext2, ext3, HFS+, and NTFS filesystem.

Pros

1. Though the interface lacks in aesthetics, it is easy to navigate.
2. It works for a wider range of file formats.

Cons

1. The prices are more expensive.
2. Its data client is based on Windows.

Remo Recover

8. Disk Drill

Disk Drill is a well-known free hard drive recovery application. Its features include:
1. Recover most files from hard drive or extra storage, such as flash drive, media device, camera memory card and more.
2. Scan and retrieve recently deleted files in one click.
3. Offer extra tools to manage, protect, and clean up computer.
4. Compatible with Windows PC and macOS 11.

Pros

1. It is easy to use and integrated an intuitive interface.
2. The hard drive recovery speed is high.

Cons

1. It cannot recover data from formatted or failed drive. And as time goes by, the success rate of data recovery fails quickly.
2. Some features need to purchase.

Disk Drill

9. Recuva

Recuva is one of the best free hard drive recovery software. Its features include:
1. Offer a free version and a low-cost $19.95 Pro version for hard drive recovery on Windows.
2. Available to Windows 10/8/8.1/7/XP and Vista.
3. The portable version makes installation unnecessary.
4. Provide both standard scan and deep scan.
5. Work on lost files recovery from hard drives, USB drives, memory cards, DVD disks, media devices, even though the medium is damaged, corrupted or formatted.

Pros

1. This hard drive recovery program is lightweight.
2. It comes in both install-able and portable versions.

Cons

1. It tries to install other programs when installing and recovering.

Recuva

Conclusion:

In this post, we have shared top 10 hard drive recovery applications to meet various demands. For example, if you want to recover files from your computer, Prosoft Data Rescue is a good option. For the Mac computer with failed drives, DiskWarrior could repair errors and get back lost files on your hard drive at the same time. If you have enough budgets, you can try the paid hard drive recovery software, such as Wondershare Data Recovery, or Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery. For students, best free data recovery software, like Disk Drill and Recuva, is the perfect choice. On the other hand, we also recommended a versatile hard drive recovery tool, Apeaksoft Data Recovery. The easy to use features make it the best option for beginners and ordinary people. Now, you do not need to worry about data loss on hard drives.

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