This handy utility can even restore data after an installation of your new Operating System or a format of your computer. For me, this is a must-have tool. Norm has previously covered how to use Recuva to recover long lost files. In this tutorial, we will cover the Recuva portable, a portable app that you can bring along in your USB. Some of the useful features in Recuva include:

Recover from damaged or formatted disks. It is worth to try a recover program even if the drive is not working properly. The best option in this case is using other computer to scan for lost files. Recover deleted emails. Recuva, as other programs of this kind, look for the header of a file trying to identify the content. It can even used to restore lost emails. Restore Unsaved Word documents. When you are working with Word or other Office programs, it stores temporal backups even without your knowledge. Recuva can identify them and restore your work. Delete files you want to erase forever. It is easy to find files even as they have been deleted. The program helps you to erase a file so cannot be recover using other programs.

The utility can be used to recover any sort of documents, pictures, music or video.

  1. Download Recuva Portable
  2. Unzip the downloaded file. This is what you are going to get:

Recuva can work in both 32 bits and 64 bits system. Depending on your system architecture, double click the icon most suitable for your system.

The Recuva Wizard will appear and ask you for the kind of files you want to recover. The more specific you are the faster you will find a file. Here you can see the kind of document the utility can recover. For example it can find emails only created by Thunderbird, Outlook Express and Windows Mail, so if you are using other email client, don’t use this option.

Select File Location. If you are dealing with a complex situation, a hard drive that has being formatted or you are not sure where the files are located, the best way to go is using the first option:

Recuva will ask if you want to enable “Deep Scan”. In this case it will take more time to find files, but you will also be more likely to locate the files that you are looking for.

Recuva starts to work:

Finally it will show you the files:

You just have to select the entries and click the Recover button. That’s it. What other programs do you use to restore your lost files?