Any free software to rescue files?

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dukester

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#319357 17-Apr-2025 14:15

I have a USB drive that doesn't show up in file explorer as it has been corrupted and shows unallocated space. I have tried 4 file recovery programs, while they all recovered files, when you go to save them they wan't payment. I tried the microsoft file recovery program, short story, it didn't find any files. Is there any free software out there to do what I want?

CYaBro

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#3365006 17-Apr-2025 14:20

You could try https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

And Photorec from the same site.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

lurker

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#3365007 17-Apr-2025 14:21

photorec has been very successful for me in the past

lurker

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#3365008 17-Apr-2025 14:23

Also when mounting a disk becomes an issue in Windows I find running those utilities from a Linux distro to be most successful

4n6expert

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#3365017 17-Apr-2025 15:21

The absolute first thing you should do is to make a sector-level (forensic) copy of the device so that you have a copy of it in its current state, just in case any "file recovery" programs make it worse. That way you can at least get back to this starting point and try something else.

In fact, professional file recovery efforts would work on that image rather than the original.

Linux is the best way to create the image. Boot a Linux OS that does not attempt to automatically mount every device inserted (i.e. it has a "forensic mode" or at least automount is disabled) and make the image.

You will need to identify which block device it is, you could run "dmesg -w" while inserting it or try to identify it from "lsblk -f". (All this as root).

Best way to make the image is using "dc3dd", a specialist forensic version of dd that can do extra things like hash the data to verify a good copy.

Assuming the block device is /dev/sdx you would use: "dc3dd if=/dev/sdx hash=sha256 hof=/path/to/dir/with/enough/storage/image.dd bufsz=1M".

Once you have the image, you can try various things to see if you can get the data back. Make sure you don't change the image file.

xpd

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#3365019 17-Apr-2025 15:27

I've used Recuva with some success.

https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

XPD / Gavin

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#3365088 17-Apr-2025 20:10

Another vote for Recuva, I have used it with flash drives and hard drives.

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dukester

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#3365266 18-Apr-2025 11:46

CYaBro:

You could try https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

And Photorec from the same site.

Tried that one, it scanned the drive and found nothing.

dukester

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#3365268 18-Apr-2025 11:51

xpd:

I've used Recuva with some success.

https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

I actually paid to get that program, only to discover it doesn't see the usb drive which shows up as unallocated in drive management

SATTV

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#3365270 18-Apr-2025 12:10

If you have cloned the drive as reccomended above, I have had a lot of success with an Ubuntu boot disk.

It has been able to load and read drives that windows could not.

I hope that helps/

I know enough to be dangerous

rb99

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#3365273 18-Apr-2025 12:51

Had this a month or three ago and I think the only one that got anywhere for me was called DMDE. Not perfect but reasonable success. For me it recovered some files but they weren't under their original names.

https://www.techradar.com/reviews/dmde-free-edition

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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