Deleted a file from your computer thinking you never need it again but soon realized that you actually do want it back? Luckily, there are free software programs available using which you can recover files that are even deleted from the recycle bin.

Listed below are 8 free programs (for Windows) that recovers deleted files (click on the screenshots to go to the respective program’s homepage).

1. Recuva

Click to go to Recuva homepage

Features:

  • Recovers Files emptied from recycle bin
  • Recovers Images and other files that have been deleted from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players
  • Brings back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses

2. Undelete Plus

Click to go to Undelete Plus homepage

Features:

  • Recovers files that have been emptied from the Recycle Bin
  • Recovers permanantly deleted files within Windows using the Shift + Delete
  • Recovers files that have been deleted from within a Command Prompt
  • Does image recovery from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Secure Digital cards

Supports all Windows file systems for hard and floppy drives including FAT12/16/32,NTFS/NTFS5

3. PC INSPECTOR™ File Recovery 4.x

PC INSPECTOR™ File Recovery 4.x

Features:

  • Finds partitions automatically, even if the boot sector or FAT has been erased or damaged
  • Recovers files with the original time and date stamp
  • Supports the saving of recovered files on network drives
  • Recovers files, even when a header entry is no longer available. The "Special Recovery Function" supports the following disk formats:
    ARJ AVI BMP CDR DOC DXF DBF XLS
    EXE GIF HLP HTML HTM JPG LZH MID
    MOV MP3 PDF PNG RTF TAR TIF WAV
    ZIP

Supports FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS file systems

4. Glary Undelete

Glary Undelete

Features:

  • Brings back files emptied from the Recycle Bin, in a DOS window, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down
  • Recovers files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses
  • Undelete files on removable devices (SmartMedia, Secure Digital, MemoryStick, etc.)

Supports FAT, NTFS, NTFS + EFS file systems

5. Recover Files

Recover Files

Features:

Recovers files removed from the Recycle Bin, network drive, compact flash card, portable drives, in a DOS window, or from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down.

Supports all NTFS and FAT partitions.

6. DataRecovery

DataRecovery

Features:

  • Undeletes accidentally deleted files even from recycle bin.
  • Undeletes NTFS compressed files
  • Undeletes EFS encrypted files
  • Runs from floppy disk

Supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS undeletion.

7. NTFS Undelete

NTFS Undelete

Features

  • Recovers files directly from hard drive, and it will work even if you empty Recycle Bin
  • Provides an ISO image with NTFS Undelete. You will have to use another computer to burn that image to a CD or DVD. Then just run NTFS Undelete directly from CD
  • If your deleted files are not located on the system disk, then you can use NTFS Undelete Windows Installer to install the software

8. PhotoRec

PhotoRec

Features:

  • Recovers lost files including video, documents and archives from Hard Disks and CDRom and lost pictures from digital camera memory
  • Works even if your media’s filesystem has been severely damaged or re-formatted

Supports FAT, NTFS, EXT2/EXT3 filesystem, HFS+

Update #1: Found a similar list that has some more tools here.

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