Questions asking how to recover lost or inaccessible data.
This tag is for questions that deal with all sorts of data loss and how to recover from that.
Sample use cases
- Device has crashed with corruption of important data
- You broke your device and want to get your data back
- Full Device Encryption but key forgotten?
- File carving: Recover accidentally formatted devices
- File carving: You recorded a cop but he forced you to delete it
Related tags
- backup: having a good backup makes a recovery (or rather "restore", see below) easy :) See the backup tag-wiki for more related tags in this direction.
- restore: if you have a good backup, a restore will be easier than a recovery
Recommended readings on this site
- Do any data-recovery solutions still work on Android 11? (actually, Android 8+)
- My Android phone is completely reset, whats the best way to recover the deleted data?
- Recover deleted content from userdata partition
- How to recover a deleted file from /data partition?
- How can I recover a deleted file on Android?
- How to Restore Deleted / Formatted Files on HD Micro SD Card
- How do I backup data (SMS/contacts) from a device with a broken screen?
- How can I recover files from a phone that won't boot? / How to backup data on a non-booting, unrooted phone?
Further readings
- File Carving @ Wikipedia
- File Carving @ Forensics Wiki
- Scalpel is an excellent recovery tool using file carving techniques
- Data Recovery article on Wikipedia
- List of data recovery software
- How to Recover Deleted Files with Free Software
- One Way to Use a Linux Computer to Recover Files from an Android Device (uses ADB and TestDisk, so it should also work with other operating systems)
