How to Recover Deleted Files from External Hard Drive?

External hard drives are one of the most commonly used storage devices today. Thanks to its size and portability, you can easily store large amounts of data and carry it around wherever you go. But like all storage devices, users do experience issues and data loss even with external hard drives. Issues range from corruption, damage and of course the most common, accidental deletion of files from the device.

What happens when you delete files from external hard drives?

When you delete files from an external hard disk, they won’t get stored in the Recycle Bin; instead, they bypass the bin and get deleted. But that does not mean the file is lost permanently, it is still present somewhere on the hard drive and can be recovered.

If you have encountered such a deletion or loss, immediately stop using the external hard drive and make sure you do not add any new data onto the hard disk. This will prevent overwriting deleted data and up your chances of successful recovery. Hence, it is advisable that you act quickly if you want to recover deleted files from external hard drive.

Reasons for deletion of files from external hard drives

  • Human Errors: Human errors or accidental deletion is one of the most common reasons for data loss or deletion of files
  • Malware Attack: Worms, viruses, and malware can infect the external hard drive and cause loss of important files
  • Mishandling of Device: Using the same external device on different OS like Windows and Mac or ejecting external drive while copying or moving files might lead to file deletion
  • Other reasons: Other reasons include application error, hardware malfunction, improper removal, sudden power failure, accidental format, and many more

Which recovery program to use?

Yodot File Recovery is one of the best utilities to retrieve permanently deleted files and folders from external hard drive. The tool not only helps in recovering deleted files, but also helps users restore lost / missing files from external HD. Because of the read only mechanism that the software uses, your original files are not altered or modified during the recovery process.

The software supports recovery of all types of files like doc and docx files, excel sheets, PDFs, PPT’, photos and videos, etc. What’s more is that the Yodot file recovery works on multiple storage devices meaning, it can recover data from USB flash sticks, SD cards and your computers in addition to external hard drives.

The free download version of Yodot works with all Windows versions like Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 operating systems, and all Mac OS systems.

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How to recover deleted files from external hard drive using Yodot File Recovery Software

The software has a simple user interface through which even an amateur computer user can restore deleted files from external hard drive easily. If you come across any problem during the process, our tech support team, available 24*7 will be happy to help you. Now let’s go through the steps below to get an overview of the recovery process:

  • Connect the external hard drive to your system
  • Download and install Yodot File Recovery software on your Windows/Mac system
  • Open the installed software and click on Recover Files and then Recover Deleted files
  • The tool lists all the internal and external drives, choose your external drive and click Next
  • After the software scans your drive, view all the recoverable files and preview them
  • Select the ones you want to recover and finally provide a location to Save the recovered files and you’re done. The recovered files will be saved in a location that you specified.

Useful Tips

  • Avoid using your external hard drive to store new data after data loss mishap
  • Never eject your portable hard disk device during file copying or transferring process
  • Backup your important files before formatting, re-installing OS, file system conversion or other operations
  • The software allows you to compress retrieved files before saving to desired storage location

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