First, stop using the external drive
The single most important step in external hard drive recovery is also the easiest: stop writing to the drive immediately. Deleting a file only marks its space as free — the actual bytes remain until new data overwrites them. Every file you copy on, every app that saves a cache, chips away at your chances.
- Don't save new files to the drive, and don't move files onto it.
- If the drive prompts you to format or "repair" it, decline for now.
- Leave it plugged in, but idle, until you're ready to scan.
Which scan mode applies to your drive
RecoverHelper opens the source drive strictly read-only, so scanning can never make things worse. Which mode you pick depends on how the external drive is formatted:
- Quick Scan — reads the NTFS Master File Table and brings files back with their original names, folders, and timestamps. Ideal right after an accidental delete on a healthy NTFS drive.
- Deep Scan (the default) — runs Quick Scan first, then carves the whole drive by file signature to recover files the file system has already forgotten.
- Carving Only — a pure signature scan for FAT32, exFAT, or raw external volumes. It recovers the data even when the original filename is gone (names aren't restored in this mode).
Not sure? Start with Deep Scan. You'll get live progress, throughput, and ETA, and you can preview results before recovering anything. If the drive is failing, RecoverHelper's bad-sector tolerance skips unreadable areas and keeps going, so a struggling drive still surrenders most of its files.
Always recover to a different drive
When your files appear in the preview, save them somewhere other than the drive you're rescuing. Writing recovered files back onto the same external drive could overwrite the very data still waiting to be found — so RecoverHelper blocks same-drive output on purpose.
- Choose a destination on your internal disk or a second external drive.
- Select the previewed photos and files you want.
- Recover them, then confirm they open before you touch the original drive again.
Free for JPG & PNG — and everything else too
You can run the full scan for free to confirm your files are there — no signup, no bundled adware. JPG and PNG photos are free to recover at full quality, which covers most everyday photo loss.
External drives often hold more than photos, though. every format the scan finds unlocks for free by pairing the free RecoverHelper mobile app — scan the QR code once and this PC stays unlocked:
- Camera RAW (CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG, ORF, RAF, PEF, TIFF) and HEIC
- Video (MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV, AVI, WebM)
- Audio (MP3, WAV, FLAC, OGG)
- Partial recovery of fragmented files
Because the scan is free, you can see exactly what's recoverable before you even install the app.
What can and can't come back
Recovery odds come down to whether the data was overwritten:
- Deleted files or a quick format — the data is still on the drive and is recoverable, as long as you stopped using it in time.
- A full format or secure erase that overwrites every sector is not recoverable — there's nothing left underneath.
On macOS, RecoverHelper rebuilds original filenames on NTFS volumes; the Mac's own APFS/HFS+ disks are recovered by signature, so contents come back even when names don't. RecoverHelper is available for both Windows and macOS, so you can scan the external drive from whichever computer you have on hand.