Top 5 Methods to Recover Data from PS4 Hard Drive

PS4 is one pretty popular gaming console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It has attracted a large number of home game lovers since its first release in 2013. However, like any other storage media, data loss issues occur from time to time.

Accidental deletion, sudden power outage, formatted hard drive errors, connectivity loss, etc. could all lead to PS4 hard drive data loss. It will be a time-consuming job to re-download and re-install lost games. Fortunately, it’s possible to recover save data from PS4 hard drive. Keep reading to learn all the practical ways.

Reboot PS4 Console

Don't be nervous! Sometimes, your files aren't lost, they're just hidden due to a temporary error preventing the game from reading the files. In this scenario, the easiest method to tell is to restart your PS4 console first and check if your files are back.

If not, your files are deleted, try the following methods to recover data from PS4 hard drive. Then, which one should you use?

• Try data recovery software like MyRecover to recover saved data from PS4 external hard drive. The external disk in PS4 console may be formatted with exFAT file system, which can't be used to store installed games but keep media files or create backups.
• Try cloud backup, external backup, PlayStation store to recover data from PS4 internal hard drive. They are usually formatted using Sony's encryption system, which is not recognized by most computers. So it's not suggested to try any software but backups.

Recover Saved Data from PS4 External Hard Drive using Software

If you want to recover data from PS4 hard drive on PC, you can connect the external hard drive to PC and let the data recovery tool to scan your disk and find the lost data. MyRecover is recommended here. It’s one professional Windows data recovery software developed by AOMEI, the benchmark of the data recovery industry.

🔥 Main Features

● Various Data Recovery Situations: system crashes, accidental deletion, virus attacks, disk formatting, etc.
● High Speed & Success Rate: With advanced scanning algorithms, MyRecover can find and recover deleted or lost data with fast speed and high success.
● Support different PS4 data formats, such as MKV file recovery, AVI, MP4, MPEG-2 PS, AVCHD (.m2ts, .mts), and XAVC S™ (.mp4), MP2 (MPEG2 Audio Layer 2), MP3, AAC LC, AC-3 (Dolby Digital), LPCM, JPEG (Exif2.2.1), TIFF, GIF, BMP, and more.
● Any Kind of Disk-based Storage Media: SSD, HDD, USB flash drive, external hard drive, SD card, etc., formatted with exFAT, FAT32, NTFS, and ReFS file systems.
● Highlight Features: file filter, search, preview, crashed PC recovery. Among them, the crashed PC recovery feature even allows you to recover deleted files from hard disk without OS.
● Cost-Free Data Recovery Up to 500MB.

✅ Free Download

Click the download button to get MyRecover and let it help you recover data from PS4 external hard drive with a few clicks.

How to recover data from PS4 hard drive step by step

Step 1. Open your PS4 and take out the hard drive > connect the external hard drive to PC using an HDD Enclosure or SATA to USB converter cable. Launch MyRecover > Hover the mouse over the drive and click Scan to scan.

Step 2. It will automatically search your data with two advanced scanning methods and list them in the following window. Quick Scan aims at finding deleted data, while Deep Scan searches for other lost data. 

To locate data on PS4 hard drive quickly, try the following two ways:

• Sidebar Directory: Expand Deleted Files, or Other Missing Files and go to the original location of your PS4 files on the external hard drive.
• Filter and Search: Click the Filter feature, displayed as a funnel-shaped button, select Type > Videos, and type a specific file extension (e.g. mkv) to narrow it down. To be precise, directly type the file name.

Once found the files you want to recover, you can click the Recover button to recover data from PS4 external hard drive immediately. You are allowed to recover deleted files during the scanning process.

Step 3. When the scanning is complete, you can check the result and find deleted or lost files > Choose the data you want to recover > Click the Recover button to recover data from PS4 external hard drive.

🔗This versatile data recovery software works with all Windows operating systems. So whether you are using Windows 7, 8, 10, 11, or Windows Server, it can help you recover deleted files from external hard drive, not only for PS4. 

Recover Save Data from PS4 Hard Drive from Cloud Backup 

One of the benefits of PS Plus is that game data is automatically saved to the cloud. If you have a PS+ account, you can try to recover save data from PS4 hard drive from cloud.

Step 1. Go to Home menu and choose Settings.

Step 2. Choose Application Saved Data Management. 

Step 3. Click Saved Data in Online Storage > Click Download to System Storage option.

Step 4. Browse your saved game data and select the files you want to recover. Or click Select All.

Step 5. Click the Download button and wait for the download to complete.

Recover Save Data from PS4 Hard Drive via External Backup

If you have backed up your data to the USB storage, then you can insert the USB drive into your PS4 console to recover lost games and apps, save data, screenshots and video clips, settings.

Please note that all saved data on PS4 console will be erased. In addition, this can't be undone and erased data can’t be restored.

Step 1. Insert the USB drive into your PS4 console.

Step 2. Go to Settings > System > Back Up and Restore.  

Step 3. Select Restore PS4.

Step 4. Browse and select the backup file you'd like to restore.

Step 5. Select Restore > Yes to confirm.

Recover PS4 Games from PlayStation Store

You can go to PlayStation Store to re-download all lost games.

Step 1. Log into the account you used to purchase the games.

Step 2. Go to PlayStation Store on PS4.

Step 3. Browse and find your lost games in the Purchased section.

Step 4. Download games to PS4 local storage or external hard drive.

Final Words

That’s all about how to recover data from PS4 hard drive.

• If you are a PS Plus user, you can simply recover data from the cloud.
• If you have backups on USB drive, you can insert it into PS4 console and perform a restoration.
• If you do not have backups, you can let ADR for Windows help you scan the hard drive and find missing files.