How to Recover Files from Hard Drive on Windows 10/11 or Mac

How can I recover files from my hard drive for free?

“I saved two important folders in my hard drive last week, but I haven't been able to find out where they are stored today and I suspect I might have accidentally deleted them. What am I going to do? How can I recover my data from a hard drive free of cost?”

The data in your computer is usually located on your hard drive, and once the files in it are deleted or lost for various reasons, the consequences will be unimaginable. Anyone can face the risk of hard drive data loss caused by various issues, if your data has been removed by accident, please continue reading this article to get the proper navigation on how to recover files from hard drive.

Main causes of hard drive data loss

Hard drive data loss events occur every day, in order to restore computer data more efficiently, you need to understand the possible causes of file loss:

• Accidental deletion of files in hard drive.
• Hard drive formatting.
• Hard drive corrupted due to a logical error.
• Drive has been attacked by a malicious virus.
• Unexpected shutdown.

If your hard drive files are lost due to these reasons, don't worry, we are going to show Windows PC users and Mac users how to recover data from hard disk, there are 5 effective ways in total.

How to recover files from hard drive on Windows 10/11

If you are a Windows PC user and accidentally lost your hard drive files, please learn the following 3 effective solutions to recover data.

Way 1. Restore deleted files from recycle bin

Users usually use the Delete key or right-click to select the file and click Delete to remove the files from the hard drive, at this time you can also retrieve the deleted files from the Recycle Bin. If you accidentally deleted files, follow the steps below to check your Recycle Bin and recover your data.

Step 1. Open the Recycle Bin from your desktop and browse through the files in it, you can find the deleted files by right-clicking on the blank space, and clicking View > Details.

Alternatively, you can search for deleted file names in the search bar in the upper right corner of the Recycle Bin to find out.

Step 2. Right-click on the files you need to recover and click on the Restore option. 

Way 2. Recover files from the File History

So what if you accidentally empty the Recycle Bin and cannot restore deleted files from Recycle Bin? Don't worry, you can use the Windows tool - File History, which is built into Windows 8 and above systems, through which users can save a copy of their files and then recover any deleted files from file history. Continue reading to learn how to recover files from hard drive on Windows 10.

Step 1. Go to Control Panel and select the System and Security option.

Step 2. Find File History in the list of results and click on it.

Step 3. Select Restore personal files from the menu bar on the left.

Step 4. You can see the deleted files in the interface, select the one you need to recover, and click the Recycle button below.

Way 3. Recover files with the easy Windows File Recovery software

What if you haven't set up File History before and still lose important files? You can recover deleted files from hard drive with the help of data recovery software. MyRecover provides users with the easiest hard drive data recovery service.

The tool can preserve the directory, name, and format of the files, and users can easily recover permanently deleted files without having to check and search for the desired files one by one. Users can easily use it even if they don't have any IT expertise, you can learn about several advantages of MyRecover:

✔ Suitable for a wide range of data loss scenarios.
✔ Quickly retrieve deleted data and be able to retain its file name, path, and format.
✔ Scan and recover more than 200 kinds of data.
✔ Support data recovery for HDD/SSD/SD card/USB, etc.
✔ Compatible with Windows 11/10/8/7 SP1/server.
✔ Super high data recovery success rate.

Download MyRecover on your PC, and learn how to recover deleted files from hard drive with ease. 

Step 1. Launch the program on your computer. Hover the mouse over the drive saved deleted files before, and click Scan.

Step 2. Even if the scanning process is in progress, you can directly recover the detected files or wait for the complete scan results.

Step 3. Select the files you need to recover from the scan results and click Recover x files to perform hard drive data to restore.

How to recover files from hard drive on Mac

How to recover files from hard drive on Mac? Don't worry, here are 2 easy ways to get rid of your worries.

Way 1. Restore deleted files from Trash

If you accidentally delete an important file, you still have a chance to get it back from the trash, the specific steps are as follows:

Step 1. Click the Trash icon at the bottom of your desktop to browse or use the search bar to find the file you need.

Step 2. Right-click on the hard drive files you need to recover and click the Put Back option to restore them to their original location.

Way 2. Recover files with Time Machine

If you've ever used macOS's built-in backup tool, Time Machine, it's easy to restore files that you've backed up and deleted from your hard drive. This method is only effective for users who have created backups using the tool.

Step 1. Connect the device that contains the Time Machine backup to your PC, and then open the Finder window.

Step 2. Find the Time Machine icon in the menu bar and tap on it.

Step 3. Scroll through the arrows and timeline to find the item you want to reply to, select it and click Restore.

Sum up

Whether you are a Windows or Mac user, you can learn an effective solution on how to recover files from hard drive in this post. If you just accidentally deleted the files, then first check if it is stored in the Recycle Bin or Trash. And if it has been permanently deleted, try the simplest data recovery software - MyRecover, to help you recover your lost data in all situations.