Hard Drive Data Recovery: A Complete Guide for Recovering Files From Hard Drive in 2022

Around 300 million hard drives ship each year, but not all end up serving their users equally well. Some hard drives start experiencing serious issues after just a few months of use, while others become corrupted by malware and buggy software applications. There’s, of course, also the fact that not all users use hard drives responsibly, which only increases the chance of hard drive failure and data loss.

No wonder then that hard drive data recovery is a commonly discussed subject among Windows, macOS, and Linux users alike. 

Just read these calls for help gathered from the web:

• “How do I recover data from a corrupted hard disk?” (Quora)
• “I’m having a very difficult time accessing my WD 1 TB My Passport external drive. PLEASE HELP WITH DATA RECOVERY.” (Tom’s Hardware)
• I stupidly formatted the wrong hard drive when there are two external hard drives connected on my computer … Do I have to use a data recovery program to get back my videos?” (CNET)

We say “usually” because there are many different kinds of hard drive issues that can cause data loss, and not all of them can be addressed at home, which is why you should always perform a hard drive diagnosis to determine the best hard drive data recovery approach possible.

Diagnosing Hard Drive Issues

Broadly speaking, hard drive issues can be divided into two broad categories:

• 💻 Logical damage: Hard drive issues that belong to this category have something to do with software and the way data is stored on and retrieved from the file system. It can occur due to buggy firmware, driver problems, malware, reformatting, power outages, and other causes. A hard drive that has suffered logical damage works as intended, but the data stored on it may not be accessible. In most cases, you can recover the data stored on a logically damaged hard drive using data recovery software.
• 🔨 Physical damage: On the other hand, hard drive issues caused by some kind of physical damage prevent the hard drive from operating correctly (or even turning on at all). Such issues include dead and torn heads, platter scratches and other damage, stuck motor, and environmental damage. These issues often manifest themselves by clicking sounds and other noises, and they must be addressed before data recovery software can be used to perform data recovery.

Here’s how you can tell if you’re dealing with logical or physical damage:

Recover Data From Hard Disk with DYI Software

When it comes to the recovery of formatted hard drives and individual files that have been accidentally deleted, hard drive recovery software is your best option. Before we explain how to recover hard disk data with it, let’s talk briefly about its capabilities.

During the data restoration process, data recovery software scans the drive, looking for pieces of data that can be undeleted. It then pieces the salvaged data back together in a readable format. Data recovery software applications can recover all types and brands of drives.

There’s a number of hard drive recovery software solutions for users to choose from. You should select a reliable solution that runs on your operating system and supports all the file formats you need to recover.

How to Recover Hard Disk Data on Windows

As long as you equip yourself with capable DIY data recovery software, recovering hard disk data on Windows should be a piece of cake for you, and you might even be surprised by how many files you can get back. But enough talking, let’s now take a closer look at how to recover data from hard disk on Windows.

1. Install Disk Drill Data Recovery for Windows: First, download Disk Drill for Windows and install it on your computer. The installer will ask for administrator privileges, so don’t be surprised when it does. Remember to install Disk Drill on a different drive than the one you’re trying to restore.
   
2. Launch Disk Drill & Initiate a Scan: With Disk Drill installed on your computer, you can go ahead and launch it. Again, it will ask for administrator privileges, which are required to access storage devices at the file system level. Once the main window appears, you should see a list with your storage devices, and your hard drive should be included among them. Select it and click Search for lost data to initiate a scan.
   
3. Select Your Files and Recover Them: Give Disk Drill some time to find the missing files and then use the filters in the left pane to locate the files you want to recover. You can hover your mouse over any file and click the Preview this item button to view the file before you recover them. To select files for recovery, click the small checkbox next to them. When you’re ready to recover them, you can click the Recover button. Disk Drill will help you select a suitable recovery drive.
   

How to Recover Files from Hard Drive on Mac

Although Macs are built on a completely different foundation than their Windows-based counterparts, you can use many of the same data recovery techniques to get back lost files, including DIY-style data recovery software applications like Disk Drill. So without any further ado, here’s how to get data from a hard disk on Mac.

Well, my MacBook Pro hard drive bit the dust today. I wonder if there’s any chance to recover the files, 😭😭😭

— Euterpe (@mntwinsforever) June 10, 2020

1. Install Disk Drill for Mac: Despite sporting a different design, the Mac version of Disk Drill has a lot in common with its Windows counterpart. You can install it just like any other Mac app, but you need to grant it Full Disk Access to access your storage devices for data recovery purposes. This tutorial explains how, and Disk Drill for Mac also displays similar instructions when you first launch it.
   
2. Launch Disk Drill & Initiate a Scan: You can now launch Disk Drill and initiate a scan by clicking the Search for lost data button next to your hard drive. The recovery process is completely automatic from start to finish, so you can go make a cup of tea and let it finish.
   
3. Select Your Files and Recover Them: After just a few minutes, you should see all recoverable files listed in the main window. You can preview each file by clicking the little eye icon. Use the scan result filters in the toolbar to narrow down the search results. Click the checkbox next to each file you want to undelete and begin the recovery process by clicking the Recover button in the lower-right corner. Make sure to restore the deleted files to a different drive than the one on which they were originally located.
   

How to Get Data from Hard Disk on Linux

Just because Linux users can’t choose from the same broad selection of data recovery software applications doesn’t mean they are without great options. PhotoRec, for instance, is a powerful data recovery solution that runs on virtually every Linux distribution and offers the ability to recover hundreds of file formats from all commonly used Linux, Windows, and macOS file systems. Here’s how to recover data from HDD using PhotoRec on Linux.

1. Install PhotoRec: Because PhotoRec is a popular data recovery application, you should be able to find it in your distribution’s repositories (PhotoRec is part of Testdisk, so look for it as well). If not, you can download it directly from its official website.
2. Launch PhotoRec: You can launch PhotoRec from your favorite terminal using the following command:

   $ sudo photorec

3. Begin the recovery process: Using the arrow keys, select the drive you want to recover and choose Proceed. Next, select either a specific partition or the entire drive if you’re not sure on which partition your files were located. PhotoRec will ask you to specify the file system type on which your files were stored. Finally, select where you want to save the recovered files and hit C on your keyboard to confirm. Unfortunately, PhotoRec always recovers all deleted files it finds, and there’s no way to recover only certain files.
   

Recover Deleted Files From Hard Drive Without Any Software

Hard drive recovery software is the only way to recover permanently deleted files, but not all inaccessible or accidentally deleted files are necessarily permanently deleted. Here are three solutions that you can try instead of using a software application like Disk Drill or PhotoRec.

Solution 1: Recycle Bin/Trash

Windows, macOS, and most Linux distributions have a special folder for deleted files, called the Recycle Bin on Windows and Trash on macOS and Linux. Deleted files are moved to this folder as a precautionary measure against accidental file deletion, and they stay in the folder for a certain amount of time or until the folder is manually emptied.

We recommend you check the Recycle Bin/Trash every time you accidentally delete an important file since it takes just a few seconds to do so. However, don’t expect the Recycle Bin/Trash to contain files that were located on external hard drives or hard drives that have been formatted.

Solution 2: Hard Drive Repair

If you encounter hard drive corruption, bad sectors, and internal errors that make it impossible to access certain files, you should try to repair the hard drive using the hard drive repair tool included with your operating system.

• Windows: The go-to hard drive repair tool on Windows is CHKDSK, and you can tell it to scan your hard drive by entering the following command in Command Prompt: chkdsk /r c: (replace “c:” with the letter assigned to the hard drive you want to fix).
• macOS: Apple’s Disk Utility contains a feature called First Aid, and you can use it to repair a storage device with a few simple clicks. First Aid performs various partition map checks and automatically attempts to repair any corruption or logical damage it encounters.
• Linux: Short for file system consistency check, fsck is a handy utility for fixing file system errors, and it’s available to all Linux users. Because each Linux distribution is slightly different, you may need to improvise a bit when following an online tutorial on how to use fsck, such as this one.

Solution 3: Backup

You can always recover all lost data if you have an up-to-date backup. Not only are backups reliable, but they also save time because you don’t have to download, install, and familiarize yourself with recovery software.

There are several different kinds of data backup solutions to choose from, including manual backups, automatic backups, and online backups. Each of these solutions has certain pros and cons, but they all get the job done and allow you to recover deleted and lost files.

If you don’t have a backup, now is the right time to come up with an effective backup strategy so you can at least avoid data loss in the future.

Recovering Lost Data With Hard Drive Data Recovery Services

As we’ve explained earlier in this article, you should never attempt to fix physical hard drive damage at home unless you really (REALLY!) know what you’re doing and have the right tools for the job. In virtually all cases, it’s better to ship the hard drive to a data recovery lab and have experienced professionals working in clean rooms figure out what’s wrong with it.

Here’s a brief comparison of hard drive recovery services and recovery software to help you decide which is right for you:

As you can see, both hard drive recovery services and recovery software have certain advantages and disadvantages, but that doesn’t change the fact that recovery software can’t overcome physical damage.

Conclusion

The next time you encounter a hard drive data loss problem (and we hope that it won’t be anytime soon), you’ll know how to perform a hard drive diagnosis to determine the best data recovery approach possible. Hopefully, you’ll have your data safely backed up and won’t need to use hard drive recovery software like Disk Drill or spend money on professional data recovery services.