2022 Best Free Linux Data Recovery Software for EXT2/EXT3
The EXT2, EXT3, and EXT4 are the most common Linux file system. When you lost your important data in Linux and want to get them back, you should find a reliable Linux data recovery tool. Here, I have listed the 5 best free Linux data recovery software with their pros and cons. You can pick any one of them according to your needs.
Part 1. What Is the Best File Recovery Tools for Linux
It is fair to say that most of us lose essential data in our computers either through virus attacks, accidental deletion, formatting, etc. Most people feel desperate because they thought these files were gone forever. In this post, we will discuss some of the best data recovery available for Linux systems. These tools can save your data on your Linux hard drives.
Top 1. Deep Data Recovery (Free & Easy)
Deep Data Recovery is recommended. It can easily unformat files or perform partition recovery to rescue your data. You can easily recover all of your deleted and lost files. Qiling free Linux data recovery software supports data recovery in any logical data lost scenario.
Pros
- Restore data after reinstalling the OS.
- Recover files deleted/formatted/damaged from Linux volumes.
- Retrieve data removed by using "Shift + Delete" keys.
- Support EXT2/EXT3 Linux hard drive data recovery.
Cons
Deep Data Recovery can not run on a Linux computer. You need to take out your EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 HDD and connect it to a Windows computer. You can also create a bootable disk on a Windows PC. Then, recover data without an operating system.
Top 2. R-Linux - Linux File Recovery Software
R-Linux is a free file recovery utility for the Ext2/Ext3/Ext4 FS file system used in the Linux OS and several Unixes. It is useful in recovering data removed by virus attack, power failure, or system crash. It has a Linux version and a Windows version. You can run this Linux data recovery software on Windows and Linux PC.
Pros
- Support Ext2/Ext3/Ext4 FS (Linux) only.
- Display S.M.A.R.T. attributes for hard drives to show their hardware health.
- Recover Linux data after the files were reformatted, damaged, or deleted.
Cons
- R-Linux cannot recover data over the network or reconstruct RAIDs, or provide object copy.
Top 3. TestDisk - Open Source
TestDisk is an open-source Data recovery tool mainly used to retrieve damaged partitions. This is a command-line based tool but is really easy to use. If you lost data on Linux caused by harmful software, virus, or even accidental file deletion, try this software.
Pros
- Recover lost partitions on Windows/Mac and Linux.
- Create partition backups for EFI GPT partitions.
- Recover various file types from a Linux partition.
Cons
You need to learn about the commonly used file command options in Linux. If you have little technology know-how, Qiling data recovery software and R-Linux is suggested.
Top 4. Ddrescue - Data Recovery Tool
Ddrescue is also a command-line utility. It is developed by GNU. You can run this data recovery software when a read error occurs. Besides, this software highlights the bad sector on a drive. You can recover Linux data from a drive with bad sectors.
Pros
- Recover necessary data efficiently in spit of disk errors and bad sectors.
- Enables users to stop/pause an ongoing activity and resuming at any time.
- Data is rescued very efficiently (only the needed blocks are read).
Cons
- You need to learn about the commonly used file command options in Linux.
Top 5. PhotoRec
PhotoRec is a free and open-source utility software for data recovery with command-line based utility. It was specifically created for recovering deleted photos and other graphic style media from SD cards and hard drives.
Pros
- Recover files even if the hard drive is badly damaged.
- Support a wide variety of file formats.
- Discover unseen or unexplored data to recover photos
Cons
- It is unable to retrieve all formats of files sometimes.
- You need to learn about the commonly used file command options in Linux.
Part 2. How to Recover Files with Qiling Linux Data Recovery Software
Qiling provides the best solution to do Linux data recovery on the Ext2/Ext3 drive. You can download the data recovery software and follow the guide below to rescue your lost files.
Step 1. Launch Qiling file recovery software on your Windows computer. Select file types and click "Next" to start.
Step 2. Choose the exact location where you lost the files and click the "Scan" button.
Step 3. The software will immediately start scanning the drive, and the deleted files will be displayed soon. If you find the files you need during the scan, you can stop the scan. In order to find the target file quickly, you can use the file format filter.
Step 4. Select files, such as Word, Excel, PDF, photos, videos, or emails and click the "Recover" button. You can browse for a different location to keep the recovered files.
Part 3. How to Protect Your Linux Data
To prevent your PC from data loss problems, the best choice is to back up data in advance. You can simply copy the data to another place. Or you can use file backup software - Qiling Backup. It enables you to back up the system, files, folders and restore them easily. It is a Windows application, but you can create a WinPE disk. Then, you can back up data without OS. Boot from your emergency disk and follow the steps below:
Step 1. For the first time you use Qiling Backup to back up files, click File backup on the Backup and recovery page.
Step 2. Since you're going to back up files and folders on your computer, you can select pictures, videos, documents and all other types of files to back up.
Follow the paths to locate the files, folders or directories you want to back up, select them all.
Step 3. Now you need to select a backup location to save and retain the backup.
Step 4. Qiling Backup allows users to save the backup files to every device that is handy for you, like a local hard drive, external USB drive, SD card, network drive, or a NAS drive, plus a cloud drive of the Qiling brand. We personally recommend users to choose the cloud drive prior to a physical drive to save important backups due to the greater accessibility, flexibility and safety.
Step 5. If you're interested in an automatic and intelligent backup schedule for the next file backup task, go on with the "Options" setting. There you can encrypt a confidential file backup, compress the backup image size, or customize a backup scheme to tell the software in what time to start the next backup.
Customize an advanced and automatic backup task here:
Step 6. Click "Proceed" to start the file backup process. Your completed backup files are visible on the list view area in a card style.
Conclusion
You have learned about the five free Linux data recovery software. And you can restore EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 data with simple steps. In the top list, Qiling data recovery software is my recommendation. You can not only restore data from a Linux partition but also recover lost files from Windows and Mac.
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