What is Microsoft Windows File Recovery Tool and How to Use It?

When was the last time you accidentally deleted a file and instantly regretted it? It happens with everyone. We lose access to important files and folders for all sorts of reasons and then we are left wondering with a complex question. How to recover? Microsoft has released the Windows File Recovery tool to answer this exact question. Now you may wonder – what is Windows File Recovery Tool? How does it work?

The tool was recently released and can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store. It’s a command line tool, so you’ll need to use Command Prompt. No GUI (Graphical User Interface) means there are no menus or buttons to click. It works on internal and external storage drives, meaning you can also recover deleted files and documents on your flash and external hard drives or SSD.

Download Windows File Recovery

We will discuss everything there is to know about the Windows File Recovery tool, including some examples.

Let’s start.

Prerequisites

It only works on Windows 10 computers. There is no support for older versions such as Windows 8 or 7. Even on Windows 10, your computer must be updated to version 2004 or higher for the tool to work.

How do you check your windows build version?

Press Windows key+R to open Run prompt and type winning (short for Windows version) Before pressing Enter.

This will open a dialog where you can check your Windows version.

Search Parameters

Microsoft says its Windows File Recovery tool will work on all devices, including external USB flash drives, hard drives, and memory cards.

The tool’s development team has developed it to retrieve files even after deleting the data on your drive. This is wonderful and also alarming. While I was happy to be able to recover files and documents now, I had no hope of recovery. I’m worried about cleaning my hard drive before selling my laptop. Someone can still recover the data.

The command line tool will work on NTFS, FAT, exFAT and ReFS file systems. This covers all the popular ones and should be enough for most of us.

You can also search for files and documents by name, file type, file path, and keywords.

Note: Windows File Recovery on SD cards, Flash or USB drives in case of FAT and exFAT < 4 GB depolama alanında çalışır. NTFS durumunda, flash sürücüler > It will run on 4GB of storage.

How Windows Deletes Data

Let me explain to you how to quickly manage data or files in Windows. Any file you delete on your Windows 10 computer is moved to the Recycle Bin. While they’re sitting there, these files continue to occupy storage space on your drive.

When you delete a file from the Recycle Bin, it is still not deleted, but Windows marks the space (sectors) as empty and ready to store new data.

When you store or save new data in the same location (industry), the files are overwritten. This makes it difficult or nearly impossible to recover deleted files as they are no longer available in the industry.

Fly: Try to use the hard disk as little as possible and do not store new data without recovering the old one. You do not want to overwrite accidentally deleted data.

How to Use Windows File Recovery Tool

Download and install it like any other app. Start it from the Start menu with administrator rights. You should see Command Prompt (CMD) open with a black background. You can also use PowerShell if you know how.

There are three modes to recover deleted files:

1. Default mode useful for recently deleted files on NTFS system.
2. Segment mode takes longer but can help recover old files deleted even from corrupted or formatted drive.
3. Signature mode works on NTFS, FAT, exFAT, ReFS file systems, allows searching by file type and is also useful for external drives.

Not sure which mod to use? Start from Default until you find what you’re looking for.

Microsoft says CMD tools work on SSDs, but the effect may be limited due to the way SSDs work. Don’t get your hopes high. Files are usually deleted immediately on SSDs.

Here is the basic command:

winfr source-drive: destination-drive: /switches

The source and destination drive must be separate as with all file recovery applications. The source is where the file was deleted and the destination is where you want to save it. All recovered files will be saved in a new ‘recovery_date and time’ folder.

If you know the file location and name, issue the following command. Of course, you will need to change the username and full filename from the command below.

winfr C: D: /n \users\username\documents\articlename.docx

Press ‘y’ to continue when prompted. You can recover the entire folder this way. Note the backslash at the end of the folder name.

winfr C: D: /n \users\username\documents\

Below are a few commands for Segment mode including the /r command before /n as seen above in Default mode. You can recover all JPEG images and DOCX document files simultaneously by using wildcard * instead of filename.

winfr C: D: /r /n *.jpeg /n *.docx

Here is an example of using keywords in Segment mode.

winfr C: D: /r /n *inventory*

Signature mode is specified with the /x /y command.

Let’s try to recover both PDF and PNG files.

winfr C: D: /x /y:pdf,png

Not sure which file types are supported? Run the command below to find out.

winfr /#

Microsoft has shared even more commands in the official support document, which you can check out.

Recovery Status

Microsoft’s recovery tool is like a boon to many Windows users. It is easy to use if you already know how to use the not difficult Command Prompt. Many users could certainly do with a graphical user interface. It should also come preinstalled on every copy of Windows 10, along with all the bloatware Microsoft has packed. This is a utility and deserves a place. Otherwise, most users will never find out unless they run into problems.

Next: Want to backup drivers on Windows 10 computer? Find out how you can do this so you don’t have to download and install them when something goes wrong.