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Microsoft Introduces Windows File Recovery Tool: How to Use on Windows 10?

You might accidentally delete your files while partitioning the drive or restoring your computer. This is where Microsoft’sOfficial Data recovery tool comes handy, which will help you to recover all of your lost data with ease. 

You don’t have to use any type of third party software for the data recovery process. In addition to that, the application will also help you to back up your entire system’s data and then restore it as per your needs. 

Necessary Requirements

In order to install the application, you need to look upon the specific system requirements. This will help you to know about system compatibility. All you need is Windows 10 (build 19041) or higher. After that, a target drive for storing the backup. If you don’t have the secondary drive on your computer, then you can easily use a USB storage device. 

After that, you need to get an idea about the storage file formats. Windows Recovery tool supports NTFS, FAT ReFS, and exFAT storage formats. In case, you are willing to restore files from another storage format other than NTFS, then you need to run some codes in the signature mode with the help of ‘X’ parameters. 

Different Modes of File Recovery Application 

The Windows File recovery application has three different modes Default, Segment, and Signature. The Default mode works much more quickly and the Segment mode is comparatively slower than the Default mode. 

The Signature mode searches for various types of file types such as ASF, JPEG, MP3, PDF, PNG, ZIP, and other files. The ZIP files might consist of documents and format based on Microsoft Office such as DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX. 

In order to find the file format, just open the file explorer, right-click on the drive, and choose “Properties”. In this dialogue box, you will find the label named “File System”. Besides that, you will see the name of the file format. 

Installation Procedure of Windows File Recovery 

Go to the Microsoft website and download the application. Make sure that the file format of the application is in .exe format. Now, find the application in the “Downloads” directory, double-click on it, and start the installation process. When it is finished, grant the administrator access to run the application on your computer. 

Working Procedure of Recovery Modes

The different modes of the Windows Recovery software work in different ways. Their functions are also different from one another. 

  • In case, if you have accidentally deleted any file while formatting one of your drives, then you should use the Default mode to retrieve that particular file. 
  • When you are scanning a disk drive that is in NTFS format, it might result in a corrupted drive. In such cases, you can try out the Segment mode. 
  • Apart from NTFS, you might also want to scan some other disk drives which are in FAT, exFAT, or ReFS, then use the Signature mode. 

The Default and Segment mode will only work on the disk file systems that are in NTFS formats. Just begin your operation in Default mode. Try Segment and Signature mode when the Default mode doesn’t work.

File Recovery Procedure 

Double-click to open the Windows File Recovery software from the Start menu of your OS. Then, open the Powershell or the Terminal and run it as an administrator. Type “winfr” to see all the options present in there. Now, you have to run the commands that will help you to recover the files.

The syntax is “winfr sourcedrive: destinationdrive: [/switches] ”. This will help you to restore all the deleted data from the system drive (C:) or external drives. If you want to restore a single file say xyz.pdf, write “winfr C :E: /n \Users\Windows\Documents\ImportantFiles\xyz.pdf”

If you are planning to restore an entire file folder, then type this command in the terminal. 

“winfr C: E: /n \Users\Windows\Documents\ImportantFiles\”. You have to run these commands in Default mode. 

If this command doesn’t work then turn on the application in Signature mode, type it to run it again. For restoring any pictorial formats such as JPEG, PNG, or others, then open the terminal and type “winfr F: E: /x /y: JPEG,PNG”.

What type of Files can you recover in Signature Mode?

In the Signature mode, you can recover files that are based on media and document file formats. In ASF, you can retrieve WMA, WMV, asf. In the case of JPEG pictures, you can retrieve jpg, jffi, jfi, and others. You can also get back your lost audio files that are in mp3 format. The facility of retrieving mp4, m4a, m4b, MOV, 3gp, and documents in pdf formats are also easily available. 

With the Help of winfr…

After opening the Windows Terminal, just type “ winfr ” or “ winfr /? ”. You will find all the details of the user prompts, information on recovery of non deleted files, extension inclusion list, number of sectors in the volume, bytes in clusters, and others.

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