How to Recover Deleted Files from External Hard Drive

Amy Dennis

May 20, 2022 • Filed to: Answer Hard Drive Problems • Proven solutions

Most of the systems come with an internal hard drive, but due to the need for large data, people often use the external hard drive. The hard drive acts as the brain of the computer and without it, the system will not work.

People save a lot of data on an external drive and want to save it for future use as well. However, sometimes due to any reason, the external drive can get damaged or failed which may put your data at risk. Also, like other storage devices, the hard drive is fragile to data loss as well.

You generally use external hard drives to store large files, back up data, and save important business files. But, what if your hard drive suddenly stops working or fails?

This is where you need to recover files from the hard drive. Let's find out the ways to recover deleted files from external hard drive. In this article, we will also discuss the various external hard drive recovery tools.

Take a look!

Part 1. Reasons Why You Need to Do External Hard Drive Recovery

There are many reasons why you may need external hard drive data recovery. Following are some of them:

• Hard drive failure

Anyone can face a hard drive failure issue at any time. There are many reasons for hard drive failure, which may damage all your important data stored in that drive. Also, you may lose the data permanently when your drive gets failed. So, it is better to recover the external hard derive from time to time.

• Accidentally formatted an external hard drive

Sometimes, you may accidentally delete important files from your hard drive. This is where you want to recover data from the external hard drive.

• Less storage

When you want to save large data on a daily basis, you need free space in your hard drive. This is why you want to back up the data or want to recover the useful data from the drive.

Part 2. Features of Different Types of Hard Drive Failure

Whether your hard drive gets failed due to general wear and tear, human error, software bugs, or malware, it may cause you a big loss. Keep in mind that the hard drives are susceptible to failure and feature different symptoms in different failure cases.

Take a look at the different types of hard drive failures:

Mechanical failure

Hard drives are the mechanical components of a system, which is prone to wear and tear. It is especially true for old hard drives, as they get easily broken due to a hit or a little pressure. Frequent computer crashes and unusual noises can be the signs of mechanical drive failure.

Following are the symptoms of mechanical failure:

• Complete system freeze
• Clicking sounds from the hard drive
• Files become invisible or corrupt
• Black screen during the booting process

Electrical failure

To communicate, the hard drive uses electricity. And, any failure in the electronic circuit it can cause an electrical failure. This is how the PCB board of the drive can lead to loss of access to your data. The reasons for electrical failure are surge in power voltage, lightning strikes, and power lines.

Following are the symptoms of electrical failure:

• Sudden startup failure
• The system can't detect the hard drive
• You are not able to sign up with the hard drive

Firmware failure

The firmware is a type of software that does the maintenance functions on a hard drive. It also allows the hard disks to communicate with the system. And, any corruption to the firmware can affect the functions of the hard drive.

Firmware failure can occur due to any reason and can cause a potential threat to your data.

Following are the symptoms of firmware failure:

• Corrupt files
• Inaccessible hard drive

Overheating

Most of the time, due to a faulty CPU fan, the hard drive gets overheated. It is because the ventilations gets jammed, and high voltage give rise to high temperature. And, these reasons may heat up the entire system as well, which can lead to hard drive failure.

Following are the symptoms of overheating:

• Frequent reboots/freezes
• Fans are slow
• Clicking sounds in system hardware
• The system gets heated soon

Part 3. Best Software to Recover Files from External Hard Drive

When you want to recover files from an external hard drive, then you can use the best recovery tool. There are many tools that are available, but you should consider using one which is reliable, safe, and secure.

Here is the list of our best data recovery software that you can use to recover deleted files from the external hard drive.

Wondershare Recoverit

The number one software to recover data on our list is Wondershare Recoverit. It will Backup all your data and can recover the data from an external hard drive in one click. The best part is that it is easy to use and is safe to install on any system, be it Windows or macOS.

Further, you can recover many types of data using the Recoverit tool. You can either purchase one of the Recoverit plans (available for Windows or Mac), and there's an option to download for free.

Features of Recoverit Data Recover:

• Support all types of files, including audio, video, documents, and more
• Easy-to-navigate interface
• Save recovered files
• You search file by name, date, and size for fast recovery
• A full comprehensive recovery algorithm can recover everything you need
• Compatible with almost all devices and system

TestDisk

Number second on our list is TestDisk. It is a free and open-source tool to recover data from a hard drive. It is specially designed for recovering memory partitions that are caused by human errors. If you want to recover data from an external drive, you can use this tool. But, while using it, you need to be careful with steps.

Features of TestDisk:

• Support all file formats
• Can recover files from hard drive
• It doesn't require proper installation

R-Studio

R-STUDIO is a cost-effective disk recovery software that you can use to recover data from external hard drive. It was developed by R-Tools Technology, Inc. for data recovery professionals. This tool comes with a user-friendly interface and is all-in-one data recovery software. It is used to recover damaged data beyond readability.

Features of R-Studio:

• Inbuilt file viewer
• Support many types of data files
• Save the recovered data

Part 4. How to Perform Hard Drive Data Recovery?

When you accidentally lost data from a hard drive, you want to recover it. The best tool to recover deleted files from a hard drive is Recoverit – Data Recovery.

Following are the three easy steps that you will need to follow to use Recoverit – Data Recovery tool.

Free go to the official site and download as well as install Recoverit - Data Recovery on your system. Also, connect the external hard drive to the system.

Now follow the following steps:

• Launch the Recoverit tool on your system and choose the external hard drive to get started with the recovery process.

• Now, the software will start scanning of the selected hard drive to searching your lost or deleted files. Keep in mind that the scanning will take few minutes.

• After the scan gets completed, you are able to preview recovered files, like photos, videos, music, Office document files.

In the end, select the files that you want to recover and click on the "Recover" button to save them.

So simple! You are finally can recover files from the external hard drive.

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed the ways to recover files from the external hard drive. If you want to recover deleted files from a hard drive, then you can use the above-mentioned method. Also, consider using Recoverit – Data Recovery tool to recover or backup deleted files from the system. Try it once!