The best free data recovery tool: 13 undelete tools compared

We’ve all deleted files and folders by mistake, or formatted a drive, and subsequently realized that we wanted or needed some or all of the lost data. The good news is that, depending on your use of the hard drive after deletion, most or all of the data still might be there, potentially salvageable with the right data recovery tool.

But which is the best free data recovery tool? This post will compare the performance a number of these tools in order to answer that question, for both FAT32 and NTFS drives. After a head-to-head test, we were able to categorize these programs into 1st tier programs that you would want to use, and offer the best performance, 2nd tier programs that you might try if you need to, and 3rd tier programs which you shouldn’t bother with.

The tools: including version tested

1. Wise Data Recovery (3.16)
2. Free File Undelete (1.0)
3. Freerecover (2011-03-14)
4. DataRecovery (2.4.6)
5. File Recovery (4.x)
6. FreeUndelete (2.1)
7. Glary Undelete (2.4)
8. Pandora Recovery (2.1.1)
9. Restoration (3.2.13)
10. Undelete 360 (2.1.5.24)
11. Recuva (1.43.623)
12. Recovery Toolbox File Undelete (1.1.2.0)
13. ADRC Data Recovery Tools (1.1)

Excluded:

• MiniTool Power Data Recovery: (b/c free version arbitrarily caps data recovery size)
• EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition: (b/c free version arbitrarily caps data recovery size)
• Eassos Recovery Free: (b/c free version arbitrarily caps data recovery size)

Click here to jump to the verdict section (and download links).

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The testing process:

in reality, there were 2 tests, one for FAT and one for NTFS partitions. We created 2 zero-formatted partitions on the same drive; each was about 2.5 gigs in size; one was FAT formatted and the other NTFS. We copied the same basket of files onto both. There were 3 folders at root and 20 other folders within them, containing a total of 764 files. The biggest files were a 1.09 meg AVI video file and the LibreOffice installer executable (221 megs). 717 of the files were image files. The total size for all files/folders was 1.84 gigs.
We then deleted these files and emptied the trash. Although real life data recovery is likely to be complicated by the subsequent writing of files onto the same partition, we did not do this, opting to make life a little bit easier for ourselves and the data recovery tools.
Next, we ran all thirteen programs, pointed them to the now-blank partitions, and restored whatever files and folders that each program was able to restore onto a new, fresh partition.
Exclusions: because we had so many good options to test, we excluded a handful of programs that capped the amount of data that can be restored in the free version. These are listed above.

The metrics: how we evaluated the programs:

We looked at the following metrics, and gave them priority according to the order they are presented below

• % of data recovered: a pure percentage of total size. This would be very sensitive to large files failing to be recovered and less sensitive to a number of small files failing to recover.
• % of files recovered: i.e. the number of files recovered vs. the number of files originally deleted.
• # of corrupt files: i.e. a video that is originally 900 megs being recovered at 500 megs or so, would be considered corrupt, as would a 100K image that for whatever reason was recovered at 2.5 GIGs. We saw both these examples in the data, but most of the data consisted of little files that we identified because they had the wrong file size.
• # of duplicate files: duplicates (i.e. restoring a file more than once in multiple places) are not a big problem, but are a minor annoyance. Some programs produced a whole lot of dupes, while others didn’t.
• Preserving the directory structure: we noted whether the directory structure was preserved, or whether all the files were dumped in a single folder. Many programs did both, or preserved some directory structures but not others. We labelled these ‘mixed’ below.
• Scanning time: especially for FAT partitions, as NTFS seemed in general to be quite rapid in scanning.

Is this test ‘scientific’?

• Yes: insofar as all the programs were tested under the same conditions
• No: insofar as if you re-do the test we did, I cannot guarantee that you will get the same results depending on the nature of your data and hard drive. Or they may be the same.

What I am trying to say is that although you may get a different result if you re-did these tests, in general, however, the programs we designate as ‘first tier’ are probably the best in their class.

The results:

We created 3 segmentations: 1st tier, 2nd tier, and 3rd tier programs. For FAT, few programs successfully restored any files at all so there will only be a first tier category.

FAT – 1st tier:

	Recovery time secs	Data recovered MB	% of data recovered	Files Correctly Recovered	% Files Correctly Recovered	# of dupe files created	# of corrupt files created	Total size of corrupt files MB MB	Preserve directory Structure
1. Recuva	116	1374.7	73%	38	5.02%	0	1	0	No
2. Wise Data Recovery	604	1374.7	73%	39	5.15%	89	68	304	Mixed
3. Restoration	932	1374.7	73%	39	5.15%	279	44	2071	Mixed

Four out of 13 programs only restored files on FAT. The best three are listed above, while the fourth (ADRC Data Recovery Tools) performed significantly worse (12% of data vs. 73% for the programs above) and was excluded.
What is remarkable is that these programs restored almost exactly the same files. Recuva is probably the best bet for restoring files from FAT partitions. Restoration kept restoring the same files over and over until it displayed an ‘error writing to disk’ message, and as you can see it produced a lot of  duplicate and corrupt files.
Note that while other programs STATED thay they support and work with FAT drives, they didn’t in our test.

NTFS – 1st tier:

	Recovery time secs	Data recovered MB	% of data recovered	Files Correctly Recovered	% Files Correctly Recovered	# of dupe files created	# of corrupt files created	Total size of corrupt files MB MB	Preserve directory Structure
1. FreeUndelete	140	1882.3	100%	757	100.00%	7	1	0	Yes
2. Recovery Toolbox File Undelete	193	1882.3	100%	757	100.00%	7	0	0	Yes
3. Wise Data Recovery	207	1873.8	100%	756	99.87%	7	0	0	Yes
4. Restoration	282	1882.3	100%	757	100.00%	1364	0	0	Mixed
5. Recuva	125	1848.8	98%	697	92.07%	0	34	10	No

This is the 1st tier NTFS list of programs, consisting of 5 programs that restored all the files deleted or close to it. The three programs in the FAT 1st tier above are all represented here as well. So, there you have it, if you are looking for the best free file restoration/undelete programs, the 5 programs above are it.

NTFS – 2nd tier:

	Recovery time secs	Data recovered MB	% of data recovered	Files Correctly Recovered	% Files Correctly Recovered	# of dupe files created	# of corrupt files created	Total size of corrupt files MB MB	Preserve directory Structure
1. PC Inspector File Recovery	106	1657	88%	754	99.60%	7	1	0	Yes
2. Glary Undelete	125	1650.6	88%	724	95.64%	0	0	0	Yes
3. Undelete 360	590	1650.6	88%	724	95.64%	0	0	0	No
4. Pandora Recovery	366	1649.3	88%	724	95.64%	0	39	11	Mixed

Don’t get me wrong: the programs in this 2nd tier for NTFS partitions are excellent. In most cases, the % of data recovered went down because they failed in restoring one or two large size files. Still, large size files are tough because the larger the file the more likely it is that the conversion will fail for whatever reason (esp. if the disk is being used and written to).

NTFS – 3rd tier:

	Recovery time secs	Data recovered MB	% of data recovered	Files Correctly Recovered	% Files Correctly Recovered	# of dupe files created	# of corrupt files created	Total size of corrupt files MB MB	Preserve directory Structure
1. Free File Undelete	72	748.3	40%	724	95.64%	0	0	0	No
2. ADRC Data Recovery Tools	40	27.0	1%	35	4.62%	0	1	569	No
3. Freerecover	1	0.0	0%	8	1.06%	0	0	0	No
4. DataRecovery	224	0.0	0%	5	0.66%	11	98	5129	Mixed

These programs in the third tier are simply not as good as the above. I recommend skipping them.

The verdict (and download links)

The best free general undelete / data restoration / data recovery programs are the following. If you want more in-depth performance metrics check out the tables above.
1. FreeUndelete (NTFS only)
2. Recovery Toolbox File Undelete (NTFS only)
3. Wise Data Recovery (NTFS and FAT32)
4. Restoration (NTFS and FAT32)
5. Recuva(NTFS and FAT32)
Download links:

• FreeUndelete
• Recovery Toolbox File Undelete
• Wise Data Recovery
• Restoration (the Softpedia download link provided her has a more recent version than the author’s page, which allows for click and shift selecting multiple files in the results section)
• Recuva
• PPC Inspector File Recovery
• Glary Undelete
• Undelete 360
• Pandora Recovery
• Free File Undelete
• ADRC Data Recovery Tools
• Freerecover
• DataRecovery