Microsoft offers a little-known data recovery tool: completely free to download

You can also use Windows File Recovery minimalistically with the command line. This works even if a file has been deleted and the Windows Recycle Bin has been emptied or a memory card has been reformatted. Windows File Recovery can scan your HDD, SSD, USB flash drives and memory cards and recover many common file types. According to Microsoft, these include JPEG, PDF, PNG, MPEG, MP3, MP4, ZIP and Office files. The prerequisite for using the tool is at least Windows May Update 2020 (Windows 10 2004) or Windows 11.

To use Windows File Recovery, access the command line as administrator. To do this, search for CMD on your PC and right-click and select “Run as administrator”. Give the command winfr On, see whether the tool was installed successfully and receive a list of all parameters. For example, to restore all files deleted from the Downloads folder to a destination folder on the D: drive, select the command:

winfr C: D:\destination folder /regular /n users\\Downloads\

Windows File Recovery offers two modes: “regular” (Quick Scan) and “extensive” (Deep Scan).