How to recover erased data from external hard drive for free? 3 free tools are provided here to retrieve deleted files from external devices, including CMD, Windows File Recovery, and AOMEI FastRecovery.
External hard drives are small, portable, and super popular for storing and moving tons of data like years of photos, music albums, videos, and more. They can hold an incredible amount these days!
The downside? The more you store, the bigger the risk if something goes wrong. One accidental deletion (or emptying the Recycle Bin) could erase files from your drive unless you have backups. Don't worry, and this guide shares three practical ways to recover deleted files from an external hard drive.
To answer the question, can you recover deleted data from external hard drive, it is necessary to learn the difference between data deletion and data wiping.
📃Data Deletion:
You can simply request the operating system to erase any files from the external hard drive using the Delete key, Shift + Del, etc. Not all traces of data are completely wiped throughout the data deletion process, and you can recover deleted files from Recycle Bin, even if it's emptied.
💾Disk Wipe:
Hard drive data wiping occurs when using security tools to overwrite data from your external hard drive to prevent data recovery. It will overwrite every sector of the hard drive with new data (like fill sectors with zero zeros, ones, or random data), making the erased data difficult to recover.
No matter how you erased data on your external hard drive, try the three methods below to get the deleted files back.
The simplest and time-saving way to recover erased data from external hard drive is to rely on professional data recovery software. Here, AOMEI FastRecovery is highly recommended.
Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to your computer. Run AOMEI FastRecovery on your computer after installing, find the external hard drive, and click Scan.
Step 2. Wait for the scan process to finish. It will organize and display all recoverable data by Type or Path. You can sort them by date modified, path, size, etc.
📍📍📍Note: Click the Deep Scan button if the Quick Scan fails to locate the desired files. Deep Scan searches every sector of the disk to find more files.
Step 3. Make sure you have selected all the needed data to recover, and click Recover to get the lost files back. Finally, choose a new destination to save the selected files.
If you wonder how to recover deleted files from external hard drive without software, you can try Windows Command and Windows File Recovery.
Please keep in mind that while this method can recover deleted data from external hard drives, it does need a more hands-on approach.
Step 1. Connect your external hard drive to your computer. Type in cmd inthe Search bar next to the Start menu and click Run as administrator to continue.
Step 2. Input the command ATTRIB -H -R -S /S /D X:*.* and press Enter. Replace the X with the drive letter of your hard drive.
Now, you can get the data recovered from the external hard drive. Close the window of CMD, and have a check in your external hard drive.
The official Microsoft command-line software - Windows File Recovery is also a nice try to get lost files on external hard drive back. You can make use of it to recover deleted files from external hard drive.
📍📍📍Preparation to utilize Windows File Recovery: Before the recovery process, you need to check the file system of your external hard drive. Click This PC > Locate and right-click your external hard drive > Select Properties to view it in the File System section.
Now, you can recover lost files from external hard drive with the steps below.
Step 1. Search for Windows File Recovery in the Microsoft Store and click Get to install it on your PC. Then, click Open to access this software.
Step 2. Choose a recovery mode based on the file system and scenarios.
|
File system |
Scenarios |
Recommended mode |
|
NTFS |
Deleted recently |
Default |
|
NTFS |
Deleted a while ago |
Segment, followed by Signature |
|
NTFS |
After formatting a disk |
Segment, followed by Signature |
|
NTFS |
A corrupted disk |
Segment, followed by Signature |
|
FATandexFAT |
Any |
Extensive |
Step 3. Select the switches and follow the prompts to enter command line, such as winfr D: E: extensive /n *paper*> Click Y to continue.
|
Switches |
Definition |
Supported mode(s) |
|
/n |
Filter the scan range: scans for a specific file with its file name/path/type, etc. |
All |
|
/y: |
Recover specific extension groups. |
Signature |
|
/k |
Recovers system files. |
NTFS Segment |
|
/u |
Recovers undeleted files, for example, from the Recycle Bin. |
NTFS Segment |
That’s all for the three effective ways to recover erased data from external hard drive. The easiest method is to rely on a reliable data recovery software like AOMEI FastRecovery, with a high success rate and fast speed. It still offers users different features, such as filter, preview, crashed PC recovery, etc., making the recovery process simple and efficient.
As it is mentioned at the very beginning of this guide, you may lose your data unexpectedly if you haven’t backed it up. Therefore, it is suggested to regularly backup files on external hard drive. If this guide helps you, please share it with others.