Microsoft’s new Windows file recovery: Retrieve deleted documents

Microsoft is releasing its own Windows file recovery tool designed to retrieve files you mistakenly deleted.

What is Windows file recovery?

Windows file recovery is a command line app that will recover a variety of files and documents from local hard drives, USB drives, and even SD cards from cameras. Recovery of files on cloud storage or network file shares is however not supported.

You will need to use the file recovery tool as soon as possible on deleted files to ensure they have not been overwritten. You will be able to use Microsoft’s new tool to recover MP3 files, MP4 videos, PDF documents, JPEG images, and typical Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents.

Default mode for NTFS file systems

The tool has a default mode that is designed primarily for NTFS file systems. It will recover files from a corrupted disk or after you have formatted a disk.

A second signature mode will likely be the more popular option allowing users to recover specific file types across FAT, exFAT, and ReFS file systems. This signature mode may also take longer to retrieve files.

Windows file recovery will be a useful tool for anyone who has accidentally deleted an important document or wiped a drive clean by mistake. Microsoft already provides a previous version’s feature in Windows 10 that lets you recover documents you may have deleted. You have to specifically enable this using a File History feature that is disabled by default.

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