Ever wondered what if your memorable photos get deleted from your device’s hard drive? In today’s technology world where capturing or saving pictures on any device has become too simple, losing those precious photos can be a distressful experience. Whether due to accidental deletion, formatting, corruption, or hardware failure, there are many reasons why potos usually get deleted.
Luckily, there are many photo recovery methods available online that you can try to recover deleted photos from hard drive. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore various techniques, tools, and best practices to provide you with how to recover lost or deleted photos from hard drive, ensuring a successful photo recovery.
Common Reasons for Photo Loss From Hard Drive
Before you apply methods to recover deleted photos on any device, including your hard drives, it is important to understand the exact cause of photo loss. Some probable reasons why photos get deleted from your hard drive are:
- Accidental Deletion: You may have mistakenly deleted photos while performing some routine file management task or browsing other pictures on your device.
- Formatting: Formatting the hard drive without proper backups deletes all its content, including photos.
- File System Corruption: Corrupted file systems can also lead to the deletion of files, including photos, on your device.
- Virus/Malware Attacks: Malicious software like viruses or malware can affect your device and delete or corrupt photo files stored on it.
- Hardware Failure: Physical damage to the hard drive is also responsible for data loss.
- Software Issues: Errors in photo editing software or operating systems can lead to file loss.
Preliminary Steps Before You Recover Lost Photos
Now that you are familiar with the causes of photo deletion from your hard drive, it’s time to apply adequate methods to recover deleted photos. Before you apply these photo recovery methods, consider the below preliminary steps:
- Stop Using the Hard Drive: To prevent overwriting the deleted photos, avoid saving new files to the affected hard drive.
- Check Recycle Bin/Trash: If the photos were deleted recently, they might still be in the Recycle Bin (Windows) or Trash (Mac).
Quick Methods to Recover Photos Deleted from Hard Drive
In this part of the read, we’ve discussed some popular photo recovery methods that can help you recover deleted photos on any device, including your hard drives. So let’s get started!
Method 01: Use Previously Created Backups
If your deleted photo is not present in the Recycle Bin or Trash folder of your Windows or Mac devices, respectively, then it might have been permanently deleted. In such cases, you should check the previously created backups to find the missing photos. You can use built-in backup utilities like File History (Windows) or Time Machine (Mac) or even an external storage device to create a backup of your important photos.
Here’s how to recover lost or deleted photos from a Hard drive using built-in backup utilities:
Using File History (Windows)
If you’ve enabled File History backup on your Windows device, follow the below steps to recover deleted photos:
- Firstly, type Restore Files in the search box of your desktop and select “Restore your files with File History” from the search results.
- From the File History window, navigate through the different backup versions of all the folders that have been earlier backed up.
- Once you find the desired files or folder, click on it and select the photos you need to restore.
- Click the green Restore button located at the bottom of the window to save selected files at their original location.
Note: To save your recoverable photos at different locations, right-click on the Restore button and choose Restore to option and then specify their original location.
Using Time Machine (Mac)
Time Machine is a built-in backup feature on macOS that automatically backs up your entire system, including photos, documents, applications, and system files. Follow the below steps to recover your lost or deleted photos using Time Machine backup:
- Firstly, connect the external hard drive containing Time Machine backups to your Mac.
- Now, launch the Photos application from your Applications folder or Dock.
- Click on the Time Machine icon in the menu bar. If not available, go to System Preferences > Time Machine and check the box next to “Show Time Machine in menu bar” to add it.
- From the Time Machine window, navigate through your Photos library or storage location where your photos were stored.
- Select the photos and click the Restore button at the bottom to save selected photos to their original location on your Mac.
Method 02: Use Third-Party Photo Recovery Location
Instances may occur when you don’t have any backup of your lost or deleted photos. In such cases, you can use a third-party photo recovery software such as Stellar Photo Recovery to restore those deleted pictures. This all-in-one photo recovery tool allows you to restore your lost or deleted multiple media files, including photos, videos, and audio files in a few simple clicks. You can recover files deleted due to any reason, including accidental deletion, formatting, corruption, human error, or any other reason.
- The Stellar Photo Recovery software supports the recovery of photos deleted from many internal or external storage devices, including HDDs, SSDs, SD Cards, Memory Cards, etc.
- Supports recovery of pictures captured from popular camera brands, such as Nikon®, Canon®, Sony®, Kodak®, Olympus® Samsung®, etc.
- Offers two scanning modes – Quick Scan and Deep Scan to perform a comprehensive scan of the selected drive or location.
- Allows you to preview the recoverable photos before saving them on your device.
- The software is available in multiple versions, which vary in features and prices. Check their features and use the one that best suits your requirements.
Here’s how to recover lost or deleted photos from hard drive using the Stellar Photo Recovery software:
Step 1: Download and install the Stellar Photo Recovery software on your Windows/Mac device. Launch the software and from the Select Location to Scan window, choose the storage drive where your photo(s) was stored before deletion and click Scan.
Step 2: Preview the recoverable files and choose the required photos, videos, and audio files that you need to restore.
Step 3: Click the Recover button to save selected files at the desired storage location.
Preventive Measures to Avoid Photo Loss
Below are some important tips that you can consider to avoid deletion of pictures on your hard drive:
- Regular Backups: Regularly back up your photos to an external hard drive, cloud storage, or built-in backup tools.
- Use Reliable Antivirus Software:Protect your system from viruses and malware by installing reliable anti-virus software on your device.
- Avoid Physical Damage: Handle your hard drive carefully to prevent physical damage.
- Organize and Manage Files Carefully: Be cautious when deleting/moving files on your device or even while performing disk operations on it.
Wrapping Up
Hope, the above-mentioned photo recovery methods help you understand how to recover lost or deleted photos from the hard drive. Though the recovery seems a challenging process, but can be easily achievable using the above tools and methods. Whether you use built-in backup utilities such as File History or Time Machine or use any third-party photo recovery software like Stellar Photo Recovery, following the steps outlined in this guide will enhance your chances of successful photo recovery. Additionally, adopting preventive measures will help safeguard your precious memories from future data loss.
