Now Recover Deleted Files And Formatted Hard Drives With Microsoft's Own Tool

  • A new data recovery app is available in Microsoft store that can recover deleted files or documents from the system, as well as removable drives

  • However, it depends on minimal system usage or completely zero usage after the file is deleted

A new data recovery app has been released by Microsoft. This can come to use for most people, as many of them accidentally delete an important file. The app retrieves files or gets back documents even from drives that had even been fully formatted or might have become corrupt.

Windows File Recovery can be downloaded from the Microsoft store for free to recover lost data. The app is basically a command-line tool more than a native Windows app and can be used on local hard drives and removable media such as USB drives and memory cards.

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Microsoft Logo Microsoft

A Little Hard Work Needed

Windows File Recovery tool
Windows File Recovery tool

As a tool, the Windows File Recovery may not match everyone's UI expectations. One should understand how it works, and one should work on it to get back files from NTFS, FAT, exFAT and ReFS formatted drives.

However, recovery from cloud storage and network shared files is not possible, says Microsoft, while the app requires Windows 10 build 19041 or later editions to work (You can check your version of Windows 10 here).

In the app store, Microsoft describes the app like this:

Accidentally deleted an important file? Wiped clean your hard drive? Unsure of what to do with corrupted data? Windows File Recovery can help recover your personal data.

For photos, documents, videos and more, Windows File Recovery supports many file types to help ensure that your data is not permanently lost.

Recovering from a camera or SD card? Try Signature mode, which expands beyond NTFS recovery and caters to your storage device needs. Let this app be your first choice for helping to find what you need from your hard drive, SSD (*limited by TRIM), USB drive, or memory cards.

Windows File Recovery is available for download here.

Important Note

The website notes that the chances of recovering a file once deleted depend on minimal system usage or completely zero usage. This is because, in the Windows file system, the space used by a deleted file is marked as free space, but the file data still exists and can be recovered, if that free space is not overwritten.

Using the computer more will create more files and may over-write that space from which one wants to recover a file.

There are also other recovery software such as Ease US recovery tool among others.

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