Want to know about the list of the best Linux data recovery tools? If so then this article is for you. The data recovery programs recover the deleted files or lost data if data is deleted by mistake then you have the option to recover it.
For a long time if you have deleted the data then no worry still, there is an option to recover the data from the file and the data remain on the hard disc.
Table Of Contents
What is Data Recovery?
Data recovery is the process of retrieving inaccessible data, corrupted, damaged, formatted data from secondary storage files. They can range from storage media like Hard drives, SSD, USB drives, DVD/CD, RAID subsystems and other electronic storage devices.
How to Choose the Best Linux Data Recovery Tools?
Before getting started the question comes to mind how to choose the best Linux Data Recovery Tools – most of the recovery tools work in a similar way like if you want to recover the corrupted data ,the ease of use, UI interface, speed and so on. So in this article we are trying to provide the top 12 linux data recovery tools
Best Recovery Tools For Linux
Now, there are lots of Linux data recovery tools present on the market but among these, we don’t know how to choose the right one so here are the best recovery tools for Linux, you can choose one that suits you.
TestDisk
TestDisk is powerful free data recovery and open source software for Linux. This software helps to Recover the recover deleted partition. It also helps to make non-booting disks bootable again when an error is occurred by defective software, viruses, human error. This is command-line utility is very easy to understand.
Main Features
- Recover deleted partitions
- Fix partition table
- Rebuild NTFS boot sector
- Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
- Fix MFT using MFT mirror
- Locate ext2/ext3/ext4 Backup SuperBlock
- Partition backup for EFI GPT partitions
- rewrite the corrupted MBR
Install TestDisk: https://www.linuxfordevices.com/tutorials/linux/file-command-in-linux
Mondo Rescue
Mondo is another great utility. It’s a command-line-based tool that has a unique inbuilt feature that works really great on multiple various types of the file system. This Linux hard drive recovery utility application is used to backup, restore, and recover the data from all types of storage devices tape drives too. It also supports tapes, disks, USB devices, network and CD/DVD as backup media, multiple filesystems, LVM, software, and hardware RAID.
Main Features
- Partition management like Resizing, partitioning, formatting, etc.
- Supported file- RAID, LVM, ext2, JFS, ext3, ReiserFS, VFAT, XFS, and so on.
- Backup and restore between RAID, non-RAID ,Linux and Windows devices including the MBR
- Verify the reliability of data.
- Back up a system being operated on various format and retrieve it again another one.
Install Mondo Rescue : http://www.mondorescue.org/
ddrescue
This is an open-source command-line utility that was developed by GNU. It helps to copies data from one file or block device (hard disc, cdrom, etc) to another. The data are rescued very efficiently (only the needed blocks are read).
Main Features
- Basic operation is fully automatic.
- Interrupt the rescue at any time and resume it later at the same point.
- supported by your kernel (ATA, SATA, SCSI, old MFM drives, floppy discs, or even flash media cards like SD).
- Data is rescued very efficiently
- Automatic merging of backups
- Data recovery capabilities
Install ddrescue : https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/
Redo Rescue
Redo Rescue is one of the Backup and Recovery tools that can help to backup and restore an entire system in minutes. It also has a point-and-click interface anyone can use easily. This utility you can plug into any device as a bootable CD/USB. This tools allow you to restore data in any operating system like Linux.
Main Features
- Userfriendly interface
- Selectively restore partitions and remap them to different locations on the target drive.
- Runs from live CD/USB.
- Verify the integrity of data.
Install Redo Rescue : https://sourceforge.net/projects/redobackup/
PhotoRec
PhotoRec is a file data recovery tool designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives, from hard disks, CD-ROMs. Also the lost pictures from digital camera memory. This recovery utility ignores the file system.
Main Features
- Open source multi-platform application
- Recovering lost partitions on a wide variety of file systems
- Making non-bootable disks bootable again
Install PhotoRec : https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
Boot Repair
This application solves the boot problem if want to recover files from your hard disk then you can use CD or USB.
Main Features
- Repair booting when the OS doesn’t boot anymore
- Repair booting when GRUB is broken (eg. “GRUB rescue” error)
- Eeinstall GRUB bootloader easily
- Allow generate a generic MBR compatible with Windows
- Allow restoring the original boot sector (MBR) if saved by clean-ubiquity
Install Boot Repair : https://launchpad.net/boot-repair
Foremost
Foremost is a forensic data recovery tool for Linux that recovers files based on their headers, footers, and internal data structures. This method is commonly known as craving. The given file format allowing for a more reliable and faster recovery.
Main Features
- Recover specific filetypes, including (jpg, gif, png, bmp, avi, exe, mpg, wav, riff, wmv, mov, pdf, ole, doc, zip, rar, htm, and cpp).
- Configuration file (usually found at /usr/local/etc/foremost.
- Retrieve data from different internal and external storage devices like hard drive, Pen Drive, Memory Card, CD-ROM, DVD, Blu Ray disc & Flash drive.
- Restore deleted, corrupted multimedia files.
Install Foremost : http://foremost.sourceforge.net/
Scalpel
Scalpel is another file system recovery utility for Linux, Windows, and Mac operating systems. The tool finds out the deleted files and recover them fastly. Apart from file recovery, it is also useful for digital forensics investigation.
Main Features
- Minimum carve sizes
- Multithreading on multicore CPUs for fast excecution.
- Asynchronous I/O that allows disk operations to overlap
- Support for headers/footers
Install Scalpel : https://github.com/sleuthkit/scalpel
SystemRescue CD
SystemRescue is the best rescue toolkit for a Linux system that helps you bootable repairing your system and data after a loss. It helps to creating and editing the hard disk partitions. These utilities come with GParted, fsarchiver, filesystem tools.
Main Features
- Command-line partition (GNU Parted)
- GUI implementation using the GNU Parted library
- Enables read/write access to MS Windows NTFS partitions.
- Recover deleted partitions and files.
- Test the memory of your computer
- Remote backup utility
- Samba NFS, ping, nslookup- to backup your data across the network
Install SystemRescue CD : http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/
Knoppix
Knoppix is a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection. Other than it supports for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and so on.
Main Features
- GNU/Linux software
- Automatic hardware detection
- Can be used as an educational disc, rescue system, or a Linux demo disk
Install Knoppix :https://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
GParted Live
GParted is one of the tools for recovery if you want to recover a failing system or partition then this live CD will resolve your issue. The GParted Live is a small bootable GNU/Linux distribution for x86 based computers.
Main Features
- Debian based Live CD
- manage partitions of all various types
- Comes packaged with testdisk
- no learning curve.
Install GParted Live : https://gparted.org/livecd.php
SafeCopy
The SafeCopy is one of the best Linux data recovery tools that recovering data from damaged and bad sectors on a hard drive. It allows copying from devices that vanish temporarily in case of errors, like USB drives that remunerate in case of device resets.
Main Features
- Written in C language,
- Can be execute low-level I/O operations.
- Works in the background without slowing the computer to a deadlock.
- Fix errors in several storage media like DVD/CDs, Floppy drives, Hard drives, USB drives, etc.
- Intuitive and quick to use as ddrescue
- Supports generic direct hardware access with O_DIRECT, as well as reading from /dev/raw devices.
Install SafeCopy : http://safecopy.sourceforge.net/
Conclusion
That’s it, here the end up the list of tools for data recovery that fulfill your needs. These all tools work great in the Linux system but if yore looking for specific file recovery features then you need to check one by one tool definitely you will get solutions out of these tools. Keep in mind these tools try to recover data or files that have been deleted but are not sure to recover all your data so make sure to backup your data regularly.
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