If you’ve lost data on your hard drive, have accidentally deleted files, experienced corrupt data or even a damaged sector, it may be tempting to use free data recovery tools. After all, it’s free – what have you got to lose?

When you choose free recovery tools rather than calling a data recovery service provider you can trust, there is actually a lot to lose – including your data. Let’s look at some of the problems with this free software that might claim to safely retrieve all your files.

Your Free Data Recovery Tools May Actually Delete Your Data

If a file is accidentally deleted, it still exists on a hard drive – until other data overwrites it. When you install a data recovery program on your hard drive to try to retrieve deleted files, the software program writes itself onto the drive in a random fashion – the same as any other data would. If the software files overwrite your deleted data, you won’t be able to retrieve it.

A professional retrieval service can often recover overwritten files, but it takes more time and money, and the chances of success decrease. Retrieving deleted files that have not been overwritten is possible for a professional data recovery service with the right diagnostic and data recovery tools. Is it worth taking the risk?

Using Free Tools on a Damaged Drive Could Ruin the Drive

If your hard drive shows signs of an impending crash – if it’s clicking, whirring or making other loud noises upon boot-up — or if your BIOS refuses to recognize the drive at all, it means your drive has experienced or will experience mechanical failure.

Repeatedly rebooting the drive or attempting to write on the drive by installing a free data recovery program, could cause even more damage to the drive. The more damaged a drive is, the greater the chances your data will be gone forever.

Free Data Recovery Tools: You Get What You Pay For

If the free software permanently deletes your lost data, ruins your hard drive beyond repair, or renders your data completely irretrievable for whatever reason, you have no recourse. You didn’t pay for the service, and the developer probably makes no guarantees for success. Using free data recovery tools could actually leave you in a worse situation than when you started, with no chance of ever seeing your lost data again. 

24 Hour Data Provides a Damage Free Diagnostic

In our secure clean room lab in Plano, we provide every customer with a damage-free diagnostic at no cost. As we begin the discovery process to see what went wrong with your drive, we guarantee we won’t damage the drive further. If a simple logical recovery is all that’s required, we can have your data back to you in as little as 48 hours after providing the quote.

Even if a complex physical recovery is required, our diagnostic process won’t leave your drive in worse shape than when we started. Once we receive your go-ahead, we’ll extract the data in our certified clean room environment, and provide you with your mission-critical recovered files on new storage media.

Nothing to Lose with a Professional Data Recovery Service

Many people think there’s no risk to using free data recovery tools. But, as you can see, the risk of completely losing your data increases dramatically when you try to recover it yourself.

With 24 Hour Data’s no data, no charge, guarantee, there’s no risk to using our service. Our industry high success rates mean it’s likely you’ll get your data back promptly.

If your data is important to you, don’t risk using free data recovery tools. Call a professional data recovery service immediately.