Did you accidentally delete an important file? Have you formatted the entire external USB drive by mistake? Do not despair because file recovery is finally possible on Windows 10 through an official tool released by Microsoft called Windows File Recovery. The tool after an automatic scan is able to restore files deleted by mistake, from hard drives, USB sticks, SD cards and other types of memory and thus allows you to recover photos, documents, videos and other types of files without problems. If you are interested let’s see how to recover deleted files on Windows 10 with Windows File Recovery .
Windows File Recovery the free file recovery tool available on Windows 10
The Windows File Recovery tool for recovering accidentally deleted files is available for free on the Microsoft Store, but in order to use it, you must first have updated your operating system to at least Windows 10 1904 or later . The supported and recoverable formats are JPEG, PDF, PNG, DOC, DOCX, MP3, MP4, ZIP, RAR and many others.
The official Microsoft Windows File Recovery tool as I wrote to you in the previous paragraph can be downloaded and installed from the Microsoft Store and even if it comes without any graphical interface and is used as a command line you do not have to worry as using it is very simple just that you follow the instructions that I describe in the next paragraphs of this guide.
How to install and use Windows File Recovery on Windows 10
To install Windows File Recovery as a first step, start the Microsoft Store located on the Windows 10 Start menu and then search for the tool through the search lens and then click on the Get button located at the top right and wait for the installation to finish.
At this point you have to open a command prompt window as administrator then press the right mouse button on Start (Windows flag icon located at the bottom left of the taskbar) and from the menu that opens select the Windows item PowerShell (Administrator) .
At this point from the window that appears on the Windows desktop you have to launch the command that starts the recovery tool to do this type winfr path-to-scan: destination-folder / option .
To make the meaning of the Windows File Recovery commands easier for you, let’s assume that you have to try to recover deleted JPG files if you want you can use this command.
winfr C: “E: \ Recovery-folder” / n * .JPG
The meaning is very simple to decrypt with the winfr command you said to start the tool and search in disk C: all the files in JPG format and restore them in the recovery folder created in disk E: while with the command option / n instead you said to search only for that type of file format.
The main options are:
- / r– Segment mode , recommended for searching for files on disk formatted in NTFS mode, also useful for recovering data whose references are now lost.
- / nto specify the type of file you want to restore by adding its extension (for example: / n * .mp3
- / x– Signature mode (recommended for scanning to FAT drives, exFAT, USB sticks, SD cards); if you are using Segment mode, you cannot use Signature mode and vice versa.
- / y– to search for files of a particular extension .
- /? – to see the guide.
As I explained in this previous guide, restoring deleted files from any device the good search result and recovery of deleted files depends on many factors. The most important is the time elapsed after the deletion and the amount of files that were added during this time can also make a difference.
I remind you that in some cases it may happen that the recovered files are not usable because the recovery is incomplete or impossible. You can find more info and the complete guide on the official Windows File Recovery page.
