File recovery for Windows drives, SD cards and disk images

The Windows app looks for deleted files in two ways: it restores items from the Recycle Bin, and it scans the raw sectors of a drive or disk image for known file signatures. Whether a file comes back depends on whether its data has been overwritten.

Recycle Bin recovery

The app reads the Recycle Bin records and lists each item with its original path and deletion time. This is the fastest route and works when the file was moved to the bin.

Raw-sector carving

For files that are no longer in the bin, the app scans a drive or an image and recognizes the start of common formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, RAW photos, MP4 and MOV video, MP3 and FLAC audio, PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, ZIP, RAR, 7z, SQLite databases (including WhatsApp backups) and more. It needs Administrator rights to read a raw drive.

Safe disk imaging

For a failing or precious drive, make a sector-by-sector image first. Unreadable sectors are skipped and counted, and all recovery runs on the image, so the original drive is not stressed again.

What affects your chances

• Overwritten data cannot be recovered by any tool. Stop using the drive as soon as you notice the loss.
• Most SSDs use TRIM, which erases deleted data quickly, so recovery from an SSD is often not possible.
• Carving finds files stored in one piece. Fragmented files may come back damaged, and names and folders are not stored in the raw data, so carved files get generic names.

Web and phone versions

Browsers cannot read raw sectors or the Recycle Bin. The web and phone apps can find disguised files and export copies, but undeleting needs the Windows app.