Recuva Free Data Recovery Review 2023

Theo Lucia

Aug 04, 2023 • Filed to: Windows Computer Solutions • Proven solutions

1. What's Recuva?

Piriform Recuva is one of the most popular free file recovery software that can recover deleted pictures, music, documents, videos, emails from PC/Mac, external hard drives, USB drive, CD, and more. It can restoredeleted files from the recycle bin even emptied the recycle bin folder. It is an easy-to-use effective file recovery software program.

Is Recuva Safe to Use?

Yes. It is safe to use Recuva for data recovery on your computer. Recuva is a legitimate program that is safe to download and install without viruses or malware. What the data recovery program does is merely scan your hard drive for the deleted data. It won't change or damage your files or devices.

2. Is Recuva Free?

Recuva is often known as free data recovery software. Indeed, Recuva offers a free full version that allows users to search and recover deleted files without limits. However, there is a Recuva Professional version priced at $19.95. What's Recuva Professional? And how is it different from the free version in data recovery?

Recuva Professional VS Free

Recuva Professional is an upgraded version of Recuva Free. The main differences between the two versions are:

• Recuva Professional has a higher recovery rate. I have tried both the professional and free versions of Recuva. Although the free version doesn't have any limit, some files that can be found by Recuva Professional won't appear after quick/deep scanning with the free version;
• Virtual disk support is exclusive to Recuva Professional. Only the Recuva Professional can recover files from virtual hard drives. More than that, it can create and restore a new virtual disk.
• The automatic update is only available for Recuva Professional users. Users of the free version will have to be stuck with the old version. 

To conclude, you may fail to find the deleted files you need with Recuva Free since it is not powerful as Recuva Professional. If so, you may switch to another free data recovery program to purchase the Recuva Professional.

3. Does Recuva Work?

Recuva enables you to find deleted files from hard drive, external storage, USB drives with quick and deep scan. It can also find data from the formatted drive and scan inside files and restore the documents that contain a particular text string. Moreover, free data recovery from CD, MP3 Player, iPod is supported by Recuva. However, Recuva can't work for two kinds of files. 

• Overwritten files. If your deleted files have been overwritten by new data, Recuva won't be able to recover them.
• Securely deleted files. When a file is securely deleted by PC/Mac cleaner software, the information of the file is also been deleted from the file system, too. In such cases, Recuva won't work. 

How to Recover Data Free with Recuva Free Files Recovery

To get started with Recuva free file recovery program, you can visit the website Recuva and download the version of Recuva you want. Install it on your computer and follow the next steps to learn how to use Recuva Free to get your lost data back on the Windows computer.

Step 1 Launch Recuva free data recovery program. A wizard is launched for you to select a file type you want to recover and the location of the file. Click "Next" to process.

Step 2 Recuva will start a quick scan of your hard drive. It takes several minutes to finish a quick scan. When the scanning finished, you can get the results of the scan. In my test,  the quick scan of Recuva can only find a bunch of system files that I don't need. To recover the deleted files, I will need to start a deep scan.

Step 3Click Advanced mode. Select a local disk, make sure Deep Scan is selected and click Scan to start.

Step 4 It will need hours of scanning to detect the deleted files. Once the scan is complete, select the files you need and click Recuva.

It's very easy to scan deleted files with Recuva. However, the scan result can't be guaranteed. It might be unable to find the deleted files you need after hours of waiting. 

Recuva Unable to Determine File System Types

When trying to recover files with Recuva, some users got the error message: Unable to determine file system types. 

The error indicates that your drive is corrupt and the files on the drive are recognized as RAW. Since Recuva is unable to recover RAW files, the error message pops up. To recover your files, you can:

1. Get a recovery program that can recognize RAW files

Some data recovery programs can recognize the RAW drive and help you recover the files from the RAW drive, such as Recoverit Data Recovery. It can recognize USB drives, SD cards, computer hard drive that has been RAW. Free download Recoverit and use it to scan files from the RAW drive. How to Recover Data from RAW Drive

2. Quick format your hard drive

A quick format can initialize the file system and let Recuva recognize the hard drive. The hard drive will seem empty after a quick format, but the files are still recoverable on the drive. After the quick format, you can try to recover the files with Recuva again.

To quick format a hard drive, open Windows Explorer, right-click on the RAW drive and select Format. Tick Quick Format and click Start to begin. 

Recuva Review - Verdict

Like many of the free file recovery software out there, Recuva is not a one-stop solution that users sometimes mistakenly treat it to be. There are pros and cons to consider, and here we list some of them.

Pro:
Firstly, Recuva is a freeware, and as such is already a step ahead of the competition. For free software, Recuva delivers recovery tasks in a timely and efficient manner.

• It has two modes for data retrieval: Wizard mode and Advanced mode. It caters to different users; the former a viable option for novice users because it takes you through a thoroughly guided recovery process. Advanced mode is designed for users who have the more technical knowledge and want to accelerate the task.
• Aside from its pretty simplistic UI, it is renowned for its multiplatform support. It is universally supported by most Windows and some Mac devices.
• The recovery speed is also praise-worthy.
• The option to deep scan is another great feature that enables the user to examine files from the deepest crevices of the system, even those that are from the corrupted or damaged parts of the disks.
• Most of all, the supported file types are many, which is very important in choosing the best recovery software. If you are going to recover files, you might as well use the tool that can read and scan even file types that you never knew existed.

• Some recovery may not be possible if you are using the free version of this software. Recuva has a great offering for its free version, but if you want to make the most out of it, then it is better to purchase the paid Recuva Professional.
• If you are a beginner, take note that using Recuva entails some risk because of its ability to overwrite files in the system. It might remove even the important files you want to keep, so be sure to read before trying the recovery or have a technically capable person check for you.
• There are also instances when the files may turnout unrecoverable. This is only because the files are a copy of another file from a different folder or location. The deep scan may help with this problem.

The Recuva is very useful and efficient, but you will find a more successful recovery tool in their paid version, which also contains the full package being offered by the software. 

Recuva Data Recovery is one of the most efficient data recovery tools out there, but there is no guarantee that it will solve virtually all of your data loss issues. There are many alternatives to try, should you feel it does not meet your expectations. One premium recovery software you can also try is Recoverit Free Data Recovery.