5 Best Linux File Recovery Software

At least once in life, most of us lose important data on our computer and then think we must not have deleted this, whether some important documents or lectures’ videos or a bunch of important projects.

Instead of cursing yourself for such mistakes, let’s do some work. Let’s try to recover the deleted data. Here I am reviewing 5 best Linux data recovery tools that can help you with file recovery on Linux.

What Is Data Recovery?

Data recovery is the process of rescuing and handling the data from damaged, failed, corrupted, or inaccessible secondary storage media when it cannot be accessed normally.

Often the data is being salvaged from storage media such as internal or external hard disk drives, SSD, USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, RAID, and other electronics. File recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage device or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system.

The most common reason for data recovery is the failure of the operating system. When the system fails to boot then we need to save or recover important data.

5 Best Linux File Recovery Tools

If we are using Linux and we need to recover data due to any of the reason whether physical damage or logical damage, we have many tools for file recovery on Linux. To not to get confused with many, here I am reviewing 5 best Linux data recovery tools. This article will help you choose the one that you need without going through a bunch of data recovery tools for Linux.

5. SystemRescueCd

SystemRescueCD is based on Gentoo Linux and can be used as a bootable CD-ROM or USB drive for repairing unbootable or otherwise damaged computer systems after a system crash.  The tool provides numbers of data recovery tools to rescue data, creating and editing partitions, Hard-disk testing, and many more features –  

Features

• GNU Parted and GParted to partition disks and re-size partitions, including FAT32 and NTFS
• fdisk to edit the disk partition table
• PartImage, disk imaging software which copies only used sectors
• TestDisk to recover lost partition and PhotoRec to recover lost data
• FSArchiver a system tool that allows you to save the contents of a file-system to a compressed archive file
• A CD and DVD burner: dvd+rw-tools
• Two bootloaders: GRUB and SYSLINUX
• Web browsers: Firefox, Midori, ELinks
• File manager: emelFM2
• Archiving and unarchiving abilities
• File system tools: file system create, delete, resize, move
• Support for many file systems, including full NTFS read/write access (via NTFS-3G) as well as FAT32 and Mac OS HFS
• Support for Intel x86 and PowerPC systems, including Macs
• Ability to create a boot disk for operating systems
• Support for Windows registry editing and password changing from Linux
• Can boot FreeDOS, Memtest86+, hardware diagnostics and other boot disks from a single CD

Many more…

Download SystemRescueCD

Download the image file and run it using CD-ROM or USB stick.

4. Gparted Live

Gparted Live is a small Linux distribution that provides all the features of the latest Gparted application. This small distro is not a permanent Linux distro but can be run with a bootable CD or from the USB stick to recover damaged partitions, create a partition, data recovery from lost partitions and many more.  

Features

GParted enables you to easily manage your disk partitions:

• Create partition tables, (e.g., msdos or gpt)
• Create, move, copy, resize, check, label, set new UUID, and delete partitions
• Enable and disable partition flags, (e.g., boot or hidden)
• Align partitions to mebibyte (MiB) or traditional cylinder boundaries
• Attempt data rescue from lost partitions

GParted works with the following storage devices:

• Hard disk drives (e.g., SATA, IDE, and SCSI)
• Flash memory devices, such as USB memory sticks and Solid State Drives (SSD’s)
• RAID Devices (hardware RAID, motherboard BIOS RAID, and Linux software RAID)
• All sector sizes (e.g., devices with 512, 1024, 2048, 4096-byte sectors and more)

Download Gparted Live

3. Avira Rescue System

Avira Rescue System is a set of free tools that include a utility used to write a bootable CD which can be downloaded as an ISO file. It has its own Linux-based operating system so it does not depend on the one on the host PC. It can be used to clean an unbootable PC and is able to find malware. The tool contains the antivirus program. It boots the machine into the antivirus program, then scans for and removes malware, also restoring normal boot and operation.

It is updated frequently so that the most recent security updates are always available. Avira Rescue System is basically a bootable antivirus program that scans the system for viruses but it also fixes the unbootable or damaged system.

Download Avira Rescue System

2. Trinity Rescue Kit

Trinity Rescue Kit (TRK) is a free and open-source Linux distribution with a command-line interface. TRK was designed for deployment as a live CD or live USB. The author of TRK, Tom Kerremans, includes in the distribution of various third-party software utilities for repairing damaged files, data recovery, resetting passwords, detecting computer viruses, and disk cloning.

TRK is specially equipped for repairing common problems in Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems. To reduce disk space required, TRK uses a bespoke help command, trkhelp, instead of the man pages typical of Linux distributions. Preview build 396 was released in March 2014. A fork of TRK called Mango (MAssive Network GhOst) was released by Juan Carlos Pineda, modified to simplify cloning computers.

Features

TRK 3.3 was based on Linux 2.6.26.

• 6 consoles (accessed using alt+F1, etc.)
• The ability to update itself (antivirus definitions/drivers) if burned onto a CD-RW
• Data Recovery Tools
• Clone Windows over a network
• Antivirus Scanner
  • ClamAV
  • F-Prot
  • AVG Anti-Virus
  • BitDefender
  • Avast!
• Read/Write to NTFS partitions through ntfs-3g
  • clonentfs allows copying of all used space on a drive
• Edit partition layout
• SSH Server
• Samba server
  • Share all local drives on the network as a user or a guest
• Logical Volume Management
• Proxy server support
• Bridging Capabilities
  • Allows tcpdump when traffic passes other computers

Download Trinity Rescue Kit (TRK)

1. Knoppix

Knoppix is the best and most used data recovery software or Linux distribution for fixing a broken system. Knoppix is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD / DVD (Live CD) or a Live USB, one of the first of its kind for any operating system.

Knoppix was developed by Linux consultant Klaus Knopper. When starting a program, it is loaded from the removable medium and decompressed into a RAM drive. The decompression is transparent and on-the-fly.

Although Knoppix is primarily designed to be used as a Live CD, it can also be installed on a hard disk like a typical operating system. Computers that support booting from USB devices can load Knoppix from a live USB flash drive or memory card. There are two main editions of Knoppix: the traditional Compact Disc (700 megabytes) edition and the DVD (4.7 gigabytes) “Maxi” edition. Each of these main editions has two language-specific editions: English and German. Knoppix mostly consists of free and open source software but also includes some proprietary software, so long as it fulfills certain conditions.

Knoppix can be used to copy files easily from hard drives with inaccessible operating systems. To quickly and more safely use Linux software, the Live CD can be used instead of installing another OS.

Content Included In Knoppix

More than 1000 software packages are included on the CD edition and more than 2600 are included on the DVD edition. Up to 9GB can be stored on the DVD in compressed form. These packages include:

• LXDE, a lightweight X11 desktop environment (default for 6.0.1 and later), or KDE 3, a more feature-complete desktop which is the default for 5.3.1 and earlier releases.
• MPlayer, with MP3 audio, and Ogg Vorbis audio playback support
• Internet access software, including the KPPP dialer and ISDN utilities
• The Iceweasel web browser (based on Mozilla Firefox)
• The Icedove e-mail client (based on Mozilla Thunderbird)
• GIMP, an image manipulation program
• Tools for data rescue and system repair
• Network analysis and administration tools
• LibreOffice, a comprehensive office suite
• Terminal server

Download Knoppix

Conclusion

There is even a longer list of Linux data recovery but according to me, these are the five that I find best and easy to use. If you use any other data recovery tool then share it with us in the comment below and also take a poll below to tell us which one of the above tool you find the best.