8 Best External Hard Drive Recovery Software for Free (2024)

Normally, external hard drive recovery software is a tool to recover deleted, lost data from an external hard drive, even if the drive got corrupted or accidentally formatted. As files lost on the external hard drive won't be recycled to the Recycle Bin, you should turn to a reliable external hard drive recovery program for the external disk.

External Hard Drive Recovery Software | Top 8

External hard drive data recovery will be easy when you know what is the best data recovery tool to turn to. According to users' reviews, geek websites' tests, and our experience, here we collect the top 8 hard drive data recovery software for you to easily apply and recover data from external hard drives.

✒️Attention: As long as new content does not overwrite the data, external hard drive recovery software is useful. Thus, stop using your external disk immediately once you've got data lost and perform data recovery as soon as possible.

8 Best External Hard Drive Recovery Software:

1. #1. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard^[Hot]
2. #2. Ontrack EasyRecovery
3. #3. Recover My Files
4. #4. GetDataBack
5. #5. Recuva
6. #6. PhotoRec
7. #7. TestDisk
8. #8. Windows File Recovery

External hard drive recovery software testing statistics: 

📌Data loss scenarios	Accidental/intentional deletion, external hard drive formatting/corrupting, hard dive inaccessible
🔢Amount	8
🔑Easy of use	For beginners, experts, all levels of people
👩‍💻OS Compatibility	Windows, Mac, Linux
💾Device brands	Buffalo, WD, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung, Lacie
📊File formats	Documents, images, videos, audio files, emails, etc.

Whether you are using the latest Windows 11/10/8 or older Windows XP, you can download one of the above-recommended software for help. It will help you recover the deleted, formatted, or lost data from your external hard drive or recover files from an inaccessible drive.

📌1. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard - Highly Recommend

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can be an external hard drive recovery software that helps you recover data from your external disk. Besides external hard drives, you can also apply the best data recovery software to retrieve files from computer hard drives, USB flash drives, memory cards, digital cameras, and more.

✅This software is widely used to:

• Recover deleted files from the external hard drive, including photos, videos, documents, and audio files.
• Recover data from an external hard drive after a virus attack, OS crash, OS reinstallation, or file system becoming RAW
• Support external hard drives of Buffalo, WD, Seagate, Toshiba, Samsung, Lacie, Silicon, ADATA, and more
• Repair videos like MP4 and MOV, and repair images like JPG, JPEG, GIF, etc.

💻Best For: All levels of Windows and Mac users

⭐Ease of Use: Beginners Best Choice, intuitive UI design, 3-step recovery Jump to detailed tutorial >>

If you lost external hard drive data on a Mac computer, you may also download the Mac version of this software to recover data from the external hard drive on a Mac. Please share this recommendation with more external hard drive users and help them with data recovery.

📌2. Ontrack EasyRecovery

Ontrack is originally a data recovery service provider that mainly offers worldwide users hard disk repair and data recovery services. In recent years, Ontrack released its data recovery software so users can perform DIY data recovery at home.

Being similar to EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, Ontrack EasyRecovery also supports restoring lost files on both Windows and Mac computers.

✅Check out what you can do with this hard disk recovery software:

• Recover files from corrupted, deleted, or formatted drives
• Recover deleted files from hard drives and external hard drives, SSDs, USBs, memory cards, etc.
• Repair damaged and corrupted photos and videos (Premium and higher versions)

💻Best for: Windows and Mac users

⭐Ease of Use: 3-step recovery

📌3. Recover My Files

Experienced users may have heard of Recovery My Files which is a classic data recovery software. It's an old-fashioned data recovery software produced by GetData.

✅With this software, you are capable of restoring data and files from the following cases and devices:

• Recover from hard drive, external hard drive, camera card, USB, Zip, etc.
• Recover files after emptying the recycle bin
• Recover files after formatting, disk crash, partitioning error, etc.
• Recover documents, photos, videos, music, etc.

💻Best For: Windows users only

⭐Ease of Use: Not for beginners, complex interface

📌4. GetDataBack

Similar to Recover My Files, GetDataBack is also a classic data recovery software that supports users to perform DIY data recovery on their own. Produced by runtime software, GetDataBack has different 64-bit and 32-bit Windows OS versions.

So, what can this hard disk recovery software do for you? Let's see:

• Support data recovery on NTFS, FAT, exFAT, EXT, HFS+, and APFS devices
• Recover data lost due to formatting, partitioning, virus attack, power or software failure

Best for: Windows, Mac, and Linux users

Ease of Use: 4+ steps of data recovery, Not for beginners

📌5. Recuva

Although Piriform Recuva is old in data recovery, it's still a powerful data recovery software among many disk recovery tools. This software still has many fans due to its excellent performance in file recovery.

With a low price, Recuva exceeds its competitors even though its interface is old and sort of complex for beginners.

✅ Let's see what you can do with this external hard disk recovery software:

• Recover files from a computer, recycle bin, digital camera card, MP3 player, etc.
• Recover pictures, music, documents, videos, etc.
• Recover from external storage devices like external hard drives, USB sticks, etc.
• Securely delete files, erase files

💻Best for: Windows users only

⭐Ease of Use: Not for beginners

After learning some basic features of the top 5 external hard drive recovery software, you may now pick one and apply it to bring your lost files back on the external hard drive, USB, or SD card.

📌6. PhotoRec

PhotoRec supports several platforms and has strong file recovery features. More than 480 file extensions can be recovered with this free and open-source data recovery tool. Images from a variety of digital devices can be recovered using it. Also, it supports various operating systems, including Linux, macOS, and Windows. However, it took the longest to test all data loss scenarios.

✅Check the following list to learn more about PhotoRec：

• Recover data from FAT, NTFS, exFAT,ext2/ext3/ext4, and HFS+ filesystems.
• Support various storage devices, including external hard disks and more.
• Uses read-only access to handle the external hard drive from which you are about to recover lost data.

💻Best for: Windows, macOS and Linux

⭐Ease of Use: Not for beginners

📌7. TestDisk

An additional free resource program for recovering deleted partitions is called TestDisk. In addition to fixing the partition table and recovering the boot sector, it can restore deleted partitions from hard disks. TestDisk is open-source software, so you can examine, improve, and edit it if you know how to work with it.

✅Check the following list to learn more about TestDisk：

• Support multiple file systems and TestDisk can help you recover files from deleted partitions.
• Similar to PhotoRec, this is also an opensource recovery freeware.
• Support data recovery on various storage devices, including external hard drives, SD cards, and more.

💻Best for: Windows, macOS and Linux

⭐Ease of Use: Not for beginners

📌8. Windows File Recovery

Microsoft offers Windows File Recovery, a command-line tool for restoring deleted files. It may be downloaded for free from the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 versions 2004 (May 2020 Update) and above. It can recover most file formats with Microsoft, including JPG, PDF, PNG, MPEG, Office files, MP3, MP4, and ZIP files, from your hard disk or other devices. 

✅Check the following list to learn more about Windows File Recovery：

• With Windows File Recovery, you can recover unlimited data from your computer for free. 
• Windows File History can be safely downloaded from the Microsoft App Store.
• Command line interface, and you can also filter files with Windows File Recovery

💻Best for: Windows, macOS and Linux

⭐Ease of Use: Not for beginners

In addition to recommending the best hard disk recovery software, we collected useful tips for protecting your external hard drive data and detailed steps to recover deleted files from Samsung external hard drives and other external hard disks. Now, you can share this passage on social media to help more readers recover an external hard drive.

How to Recover Data from External Hard Drives

The simplest method for recovering data from an external hard drive after losing files is to use the top data recovery software available for Windows and Mac. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, a professional hard drive recovery program, can be useful.

This external hard drive recovery software can be used to recover data from external hard drives that have been deleted, formatted inadvertently, infected with a virus, or lost for other reasons on devices from all major manufacturers, including WD, Seagate, Toshiba, Lacie, Silicon, and more. 

Follow the steps to recover data from external hard drives:

Step 1. Choose and scan the external hard drive

• Download and install EaseUS Data Recovery on your PC or laptop. 
• Connect the external hard drive to your computer.
• Run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and choose the external drive from External drives list. Then, click "Search for Lost Data". 

Step 2. Check the scan results

• EaseUS data recovery software will immediately scan the selected drive for all data, including deleted, corrupted, and existing data.
• You can use the Filter feature to quickly locate the files of one kind, such as Pictures, Word, Excel, PDF, videos, emails, etc.

Step 3. Preview and recover data

• Double-clicking a file from the scanned results to preview.
• Choose the files you want and click "Recover".
• Select a different drive to save the recovered files instead of the original one.

💡Tip: You can restore data on the local disks, external hard drives, and also the cloud storage.

Before you are going to recover data from external hard drives, watch this video first. It provides you with more details on external hard disk recovery.

After learning the full steps of external hard drive recovery, you can share this tutorial on social media to help more friends!

How to Protect Data on External Hard Drives

Data protection is always a better choice than a cure. To reduce the risk of losing files completely from any storage device, you need to both minimize the chance of data loss and get a data recovery tool to rescue data once it's lost without any backup. Generally, there are two ways to protect data on your external hard drive: grow a good habit of using the drive and back up your external hard drive regularly.

When do you need external hard drive recovery software:

In addition to common causes, like accidental deletion and formatting, that lead to data loss on an external hard drive. There are other cases when you need to perform external hard drive recovery. For example:

• Data on the external hard drive is lost due to virus attacks, OS crashes, OS reinstallation
• The external hard drive has a RAW file system and thus becomes inaccessible
• The external hard drive is detected in Windows but does not show any data
• The USB hard drive is not recognized

Good habits to protect an external hard drive:

1. 1. Keep your external hard drive away from fire, water, high temperature...
2. 2. Disconnect the external hard drive from your computer when it is not in use
3. 3. Don't edit files directly on the external hard drive
4. 4. Eject the device before disconnecting it
5. 5. Put your external hard drive in a disk enclosure

Ways to back up an external hard drive:

1. 1. Manually copy and paste the important files from your external hard drive to somewhere else
2. 2. Back up your external hard drive files regularly and automatically using backup software
3. 3. Sync the data on your external hard disk to cloud storage

Growing good habits is helpful to minimize the chance of accidental data loss on your drive. While backing up your disk is helpful to avoid complete data loss once you get files lost on your storage medium.

The Bottom Line

External hard drive data recovery is easy if you get help from data recovery software. Almost all the data recovery tools available support external hard drive recovery but vary in quality. Choose the one you trust and apply it to recover data from your external hard disk as soon as possible.

EaseUS hard disk recovery software is more practical and reliable than most data recovery software due to its powerful data recovery capacity and excellent tech support. Anyone who encounters problems while using EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can reach us for online support by emailing [email protected].

Besides data recovery, as a responsible data recovery software provider, we also suggest you back up your vital data regularly. Nothing can be better than having a regular backup of your files.

Help us spread the word! If you enjoyed this post, share it on your social media accounts.

External Hard Drive Recovery Software FAQs

Here are 4 additional questions about recovering data from an external hard drive. Check here for the answers.

1. How do I recover my external hard drive?

• Download and install EaseUS Data Recovery on your PC or laptop. 
• Connect the external hard drive to your computer.
• Run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and choose the external drive from the External drives list.
• Double-clicking a file from the scanned results to preview.
• Choose the files you want and click "Recover".

2. What is hard drive recovery software?

Recovering lost, erased, or corrupted data from hard disks, USB drives, SD cards, and other storage devices can be a lifesaver using data recovery software.

3. What is the best data recovery software for 2023?

• EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
• Recover My Files
• Ontrack EasyRecovery
• GetDataBack
• Recuva
• PhotoRec
• TestDisk
• Windows File Recovery