How to Recover Deleted Files from External Hard Drive: Step by Step Guide

Introduction

Supposing like me, you always keep huge amount of files on hand, you already know how important an external hard drive is. But how to prevent accidental formatting or deletion of existing files when you just wanted to add new files? Fortunately, there is a method through which you can get the files back again even after such mishaps. This article provides a complete description on the steps to recover deleted data from the external hard drive. Just stay with me on reading!

Can I Recover Deleted Files from an External Hard Drive?

Yes, you can. Your deletion does not mean that data is erased forever. Operating systems work through pointers: each file has one to know where it is located. Deleting a file basically means your OS removes the pointer and the space is "freed up." The deleted file no longer gets displayed. If new data gets written to the sectors of the hard drive where data of the file is stored before the deletion, the old data will be overwritten and the file is irreversibly gone.

Same logic applies to a "quick format". Quick formatting does not actually delete files but just clears off the indexing information while real stored data is untouched. As long as those bits have not been overwritten your files are there even if you can not open them now.

What to Do Before Recovering Deleted Files?

What to do before retrieving your files?

If you want a successful recovery, you should do the following before trying to recover files. Here are what I consider to be the key measures:

• Stop using the external hard drive.
• Do not save new files to the drive.
• Avoid installing any software on the drive.
• Prepare another hard drive to store the recovered files.

How can deleted files be recovered from an external hard drive?

Having now learned that it is possible to recover data from an external hard drive and knowing what precautions to take, the next thing to consider is how one can safely and easily get the files back.  I'll cover 3 proven methods here, including free and paid options.

Method 1: Go to Your Recycle Bin for Quick External Hard Disk Data Recovery

It applies to files which have just been deleted and are still contained in the Recycle Bin.

Here are the detailed steps I followed to recover deleted files from an external hard drive's Recycle Bin:

Step 1: Plug the external hard drive into your computer as it enables you to see the combined contents of the Recycle Bin.

Step 2: Open the Recycle Bin, go to the "Manage" tab, select the items you wish to recover, and click "Restore the selected items."

Note: You can restore all deleted files and folders, or simply right-click on any specific item and select "Restore."

Files which have been deleted from external storage devices may be treated in a different way from those deleted from internal hard drives. If you cannot find the files in the Recycle Bin, you can try the methods I will describe next.

Method 2: Retrieve Data from Your External Hard Drive through the File History Feature

As you may know, while older versions of Windows used the "Backup and Restore" feature, newer versions utilize "File History", a feature that automatically backs up and restores data.

What impresses me most is that it doesn't just support all the previous versions of your files but also enables you to save data to an external hard drive; this way you can get your data from the external drive at any time without having to worry about losing it.

If you have enabled this feature and backed up your external hard drive data, follow these steps to restore lost files using "File History":

Step 1: Connect your external hard drive to the computer.

Step 2: Navigate to “Settings” > “Update & Security” > “Backup” > “More options”.

Step 3: Locate the “Restore files from a current backup” button.

Step 4: Select the folders or files you wish to recover, click Settings” (the gear icon) > “Restore to”, and then choose your external hard drive or another destination. Alternatively, you can simply click the green “Restore” button to restore the selected items to their default location.

Method 3: Retrieve Data from External Hard Drive with Recovery Software

If the two free methods mentioned above do not work, I recommend turning to professional external hard drive data recovery software. Among the many products available, RecoveryFox AI is the desktop program we most highly recommend, this top data recovery tool helps you retrieve all deleted or formatted data from an external hard drive without any data loss.

RecoveryFox AI is an advanced AI-powered data recovery software designed for a wide range of file recovery scenarios, including old hard drive data recovery, desktop data recovery, USB file recovery, Recycle Bin recovery, SD card photo recovery, and more. Using its AI scanning algorithm, the program searches thoroughly within data structures and achieves a recovery success rate of up to 98%, which helps you simply recover files that have been lost or deleted.

• It enables the recovery of many different file types, such as photos, videos, archives, databases, emails, documents, and so on.
• It can recover deleted files from a variety of storage media, such as external hard drives, SD cards, computers, USB drives, and so on.
• The software includes an AI scanning feature with a user-friendly workflow to make sure that data recovery is achieved.
• It is able to retrieve data from partitions that have been deleted, corrupted, in an unallocated state, or are otherwise lost.
• You can get a free trial from RecoveryFox AI which allows you to scan and preview without any limitations.

Here’s how to retrieve files from an external hard disk via RecoveryFox AI:

Step 1: Connect your external hard drive to your Windows computer.

Step 2: Start up RecoveryFox AI and choose the external hard drive on which the deleted files were stored.

Step 3: The program will begin an automatic scan, so stay for a few minutes.

After the quick scan, it automatically switches to the AI scan without requiring any manual intervention, unless you choose to pause the scan to review the files already detected. However, I do not recommend doing so, as the AI scan is highly useful for more complicated data loss scenarios, including older deleted files and certain formatted or lost-partition scenarios, even though it may take longer to wait.

Step 4: Use the options available to filter and preview the different files found.

When the scan has been completed, you will have the opportunity to see the different files retrieved as well as having the option to use the filter feature to narrow down the results. Depending on the type of lost data, you can filter files by file type, file name, file size, or date, and click the "eye" icon to preview the files.

Step 5: Recover and save the files.

The last thing to do is to choose the files you want to recover and indicate a new storage location as the destination, thereby ensuring that the recovery process does not overwrite any other data that could be recovered. For instance, if the missing files were originally on an external hard drive, you should save the recovered files to the internal hard drive of your computer or to another external storage device.

How Can You Prevent Data Loss on An External Hard Drive?

After performing multiple external hard drive data recoveries, I believe that rather than searching for effective recovery methods, it is better to take preventive measures against data loss from the start. Therefore, I recommend the following:

Maintain multiple backups.

• Safely eject the external hard drive after use.
• Avoid disconnecting the drive during file transfers whenever possible.
• Periodically monitor the hard drive's health.
• Always store important files in multiple locations, especially critical photos, documents, and project data.

Conclusion

For Windows users who have accidentally deleted files, are facing problems with an externally formatted hard drive, or have lost partitions, RecoveryFox AI offers "Quick Scan" and "AI Scan" modes, supports scanning of external hard drives, and allows you to preview the files it has detected before recovering them.

No matter which method of recovery you decide on, you should always remember this basic rule. That is, do not save the recovered files back to the same external hard drive from which you lost the data.