File recovery software refers to a type of program that is capable of retrieving files that got lost because of computer malfunction, malware, or accidental deletion. File recovery software is very important as hard drives and other storage devices can get damaged or corrupted. When files are deleted from a storage device, the computer simply flags that information for rewriting and does not actually delete the files. File recovery software is able to find these hidden files in the user’s storage device and flag them as permanent files so that users can access them in the same way they did before the files were deleted.

Recuva
Recuva is a free file recovery software that Piriform provides. It is able to retrieve the user’s files from virtually any digital storage device including hard drives, USB flash drives, MP3 players, and memory cards. Recuva is also capable of retrieving deleted emails from Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Windows Live Mail. It can also rebuild unsaved documents in most word processing programs including Microsoft Word and Open Office. Users may use Piriform to permanently delete files. Recuva is available in over 37 languages, includes support for every modern version of Windows, and can also be run from a portable device.

Pandora Recovery
Pandora Recovery is another free file recovery software made for the Windows Operating System that allows users to recover lost or deleted files. With Pandora Recovery, users can search their hard drive or alternate storage device for deleted files, browse through a list of search results, preview lost files, and recover those lost files within minutes. Pandora Recovery can recognize any file system format and can recover files whether they are encrypted, archived, compressed, or hidden. Pandora Recovery also includes a variety of tips and wizards to help the user find missing files.File Recovery

Restoration
Restoration is a free file recovery software that is completely standalone and can be run from any storage device without being installed on the host computer. Restoration is able to recover most, but not all, deleted files and allows users to run both general searches as well as search for specific deleted files. Restoration has a very simple user interface and lists deleted files so that users can quickly browse recoverable files and restore them. In addition to recovering lost files, Restoration also has the ability to delete files in a way that prevents simple file recovery methods from restoring the information.

FreeUndelete
FreeUndelete is a file recovery software from OfficeRecovery that is completely free for personal use. FreeUndelete is able to find and restore lost files on both FAT and NTFS file systems and stores recovered files in a separate, pre-designated location on the user’s hard drive or portable media device. This prevents the file copy from overwriting the original.

DiskDigger
DiskDigger is a free file recovery program that can perform both local and deep scans of the user’s computer or storage device in order to recover deleted documents, pictures, and other files. DiskDigger supports virtually every file type and works with both FAT and NTFS file systems. DiskDigger can sort and filter recoverable files by name, size, date modified, or directory and allows users to preview their files before recovering them. DiskDigger can run on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.