You need to recover some files that you have accidentally deleted from your computer and by doing some research on the Net you have discovered Recuva: a program considered among the best free solutions in the sector, so you would like to find out more closely how it works. Well, indeed very well: what you are reading is exactly the tutorial that is right for you!
In fact, in the following lines, I will explain in detail how Recuva works and how to use it to recover deleted files from hard drives, USB sticks, memory cards, smartphones, tablets and other electronic devices. Clearly, don’t expect it to work miracles: even Recuva has technical limits, but if you have a little luck and act in time, following the instructions I’m about to give you, you should be able to obtain satisfactory results.
What do I mean by “act on time”? Well, simple: when you delete a file on any drive, it is marked as “deleted”, but in reality it remains in its place until the portion of memory where it is hosted is not occupied by other data. Recuva, therefore, goes to look for all the files marked as “deleted” and, if still recoverable, it will restore them. If you act in a timely manner — before the portions of memory where your data resides are overwritten — and avoid using the drives that you want Recuva to scan before performing the above operation, your chances of success will be very high . Having said that, let’s ban the talk and immediately move on to action by seeing how to use this very useful software!
Index
- Requirements and supported devices
- How to download and install Recuva
- How Recuva works
- How Recuva portable works
- For more information
Requirements and supported devices
Before getting to the heart of the tutorial and explaining how Recuva works , it seems only right to explain to you the requirements necessary for the program to function correctly, as well as the devices from which it is capable of recovering deleted files.
It is only available for Windows , is not compatible with macOS or Linux, and is distributed in two different versions: the basic one , which is free, and the Professional one which is paid and costs 19.95 euros and includes extra features, such as support for virtual hard drives, automatic updates and premium support.
Considering that Recuva is an extremely light software, from the hardware point of view there are no particular requirements to be respected: the program, in fact, “runs” even on very old computers.
On the software side, the same goes: just have any version of Windows from 98 onwards (therefore, practically, it works with any version of the Microsoft operating system currently in circulation).
Also, if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows , a 64-bit version of the software will automatically be installed during setup , otherwise the 32-bit version will be installed . However, be aware that 32-bit versions may not be able to use enough memory (regardless of how much memory is installed on your computer) to use the deep scan feature.
As for supported devices , Recuva recognizes internal hard drives, external drives, memory cards, USB sticks, iPods, smartphones and tablets (connected via USB to the computer and set to be seen as mass storage) and other drives formatted using NTFS, FAT and exFAT file systems . macOS file systems are not supported.
How to download and install Recuva
Are you ready to find out how to download and use Recuva? Well, then the first steps you need to take are to connect to the program’s website , click on the Download Free version button located in the center of the page, then on the Free Download button and, finally, on the Download button located in the Free Recuva section .
When the download is complete, open the rcsetup[versionnumber].exe file obtained and, in the window that appears on the screen, click on the Yes button . Then choose the Italian option from the drop-down menu at the top right to set the use of the Italian language for the software, then click on the Install button located in the center to start the Recuva installation process.
If you want to disable the addition of shortcuts to the program on the desktop or in the Windows context menu, click on the Personalize item and uncheck the relevant items. The same goes for the automatic software update function.
At the end of the setup, press the Start Recuva button to close the current window and access the main program screen.
How Recuva works
Now that you’ve installed and started Recuva, you’re finally ready to use the program. By default, Recuva starts in Wizard mode, thus proposing the user a wizard through which to recover data from disks, memory cards, USB sticks and other devices. To continue, you must connect the device from which you want to recover the data to the computer.
If the device you intend to operate on is an Android smartphone or tablet , use the supplied USB cable to physically connect it to the computer, then expand the notifications menu (by swiping down from the top of the screen), tap on the item related to the USB connection and press the option to activate USB Storage mode , in order to allow Recuva to access all the files on the internal memory. If, on the other hand, the device is equipped with expandable memory, simply extract the microSD from the latter and connect it to the computer ( it is not possible to act on the iPhone ). More info here .
Good: now click on the Next button of Recuva and choose the type of file to recover, placing the check mark next to an option between All files , Images , Music , Documents , Videos and Compressed .
At this point, press the Next button and indicate the device from which you intend to recover the files: you can choose between I’m not sure (if you want to recover files from all the drives connected to the computer), On multimedia card or iPod (to recover data from memory and MP3 players ), To My Documents (to recover files from local document folders only), To Recycle Bin (to recover deleted files via Windows Recycle Bin) or To a specific location (if you want to indicate the specific path where go to search for deleted files by pressing the Browse button ).
Once you have made your choice, press the Next button and choose whether to start the standard Recuva scan immediately, by pressing the Start button at the bottom right, or to perform a thorough scan, by checking the box next to the Activate scan option thorough and then clicking on the Start button .
In case you were wondering, Recuva’s deep scan takes much longer than the standard one, but it increases the chances of finding deleted files. This happens because, while the standard scan simply checks the files marked as deleted in the MFT (the Master File Table, let’s say the index where all the files on a volume are catalogued) and tries to recover them, the deep one goes to search each block of the unit (cluster) for the headers that indicate the beginning of a file, in order to attempt to recover it. Of course, if a file is fragmented on the drive or has been partially overwritten by other data, Recuva won’t be able to put it back together, even by identifying it during the scan.
That said, my advice is to start with a standard scan, and then move on to a deep scan if needed.
At the end of the scan, identify the recoverable files among those found by Recuva: they are those marked by the green dot next to their name and/or which have a perfectly visible thumbnail (depending on the view mode activated). The files with the red dot , on the other hand, are unrecoverable. Those with the yellow dot , as you can easily guess, are recoverable but could be partially damaged.
In any case, once you have found the files of your interest, to recover them, select them by ticking the respective boxes, click on the Recover button at the bottom right, choose the folder in which to save them and press the OK button to confirm.
If you want to use Recuva in standard mode, press the Switch to advanced mode button located at the top right of the above screen or after starting the program, press the (x) located at the top to close the Wizard window.
Once this is done, you will find yourself in front of the “real” interface of the program. Therefore, use the drop-down menu located at the top left to select the drive to scan, click on the arrow located next to the Scan button to choose whether to scan by file (to find all deleted files) or scan the contents (to find files that have certain contents inside them), choose the type of data to be recovered from the field with the magnifying glass (e.g. Images , Music , Documents or Videos ) and press the buttonScan to start searching for files to recover.
The rest of the steps to take — those to recover the files found by the program — are the same as I showed you a few lines further up, when I explained how to use Recuva using the wizard.
How Recuva portable works
Would you like to try Recuva but can’t (or don’t want to) install programs on your PC? In that case, you can turn to the Portable version of Recuva which doesn’t need to be installed to work.
Until some time ago it could be downloaded directly from the program’s official website, but now it is no longer available and the only way to obtain and use it is through PortableApps , a free application that acts as a USB stick launcher for many programs portable of various kinds, suitable for carrying out the most diverse tasks.
To download the portable version of Recuva, therefore, visit this web page , while for what concerns the use of PortableApps refer to the instructions that I have provided you in my specific guide on how to install programs on the USB stick .
As regards the functioning of Recuva in this version, you can follow the indications that I have already given you in the previous chapter , there are no differences.
For more information
If you need more information about how Recuva works, I invite you to consult this page of the official website of the program dedicated to support , where you can find exhaustive documentation about the requirements, functions and limits of the famous software Piriform.
To browse the various topics and consult the in-depth articles available, click directly on the content of interest that you find in the center of the page, while to carry out a direct search you must type the reference keywords in the text field at the top right and select the relevant suggestion among those you see appear automatically.
You might also find it useful to visit this page of the official Recuva forum , where other users like you talk to each other to raise questions, find solutions to problems, etc.
