When recovering your lost or deleted data from your PC or any other storage devices using Recuva, have you ever experienced that the Recuva recovered files cannot open? For instance, if you used Recuva to recover media files and you cannot open some or all of them, you may think that Recuva is not working.
However, that is not always the case. There is something you can do to rescue your files when you cannot open the recovered files Recuva got back in the following sections.
Why Is Recuva Not Working?
The point here is that if Recuva didn’t work, you wouldn’t be able to recover any file in the first place. This further means that if the files are restored and you can see them in the folder you specified, Recuva is functioning correctly and the only problem is that the Recuva recovered files are not working, or to be more accurate, not opening.
Why cannot you open the files recovered by Recuva? Generally, that’s because the files are partially or fully overwritten and what has been recovered is not the original file. The original files may be corrupt. When your computer is working, there are new files created which will take the location where the deleted data was and make it hard to recover the complete files. Another reason is that Recuva just didn’t find the deleted files.
No matter which reason it is, there are still some things you can do.
How to Fix Recuva Not Working
Considering the reason explained earlier, although it is highly unlikely that the issue is with Recuva, if you still believe that the recovery app is the culprit, you can check the suggestions given below to isolate the problem and fix it with the least effort:
Suggestion 1: Contact the Recuva Support Team
Being a non-techie, you are not expected to understand every nook and cranny of Recuva. As a result, you may miss some key points while preparing the tool for data recovery. It is also possible that you might have misconfigured some advanced settings or left them untouched altogether due to which the files couldn’t recover correctly.
Therefore, you are advised to contact the Recuva Support Team and ask if there is anything else you can do to resolve the issue. With this approach, you don’t have to depend on them the next time the problem arises.
Suggestion 2: Use a Repair Tool
After contacting the Recuva Support Team, if you come to know that there’s nothing wrong with the recovery application, your next approach should be to check and confirm if the data itself is corrupt due to which Recuva recovered files are not working.
Now, because there is no correct or incorrect method to verify the integrity of the retrieved data, and neither is there a gauge to perform any such kind of check, you need a third-party tool to do the job for you. There are different repair tools for corrupt videos, photos, and different files. You can conduct a quick online search
Suggestion 3: Try Another Free Data Recovery Tool
When all the above solutions fail to work, you can assume that Recuva isn’t performing correctly and you must look for other options. When talking about the alternatives, you can try the following free solutions and see if they can help you when Recuva is not working:
Alternate Tool 1: EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free
This recovery program is available for both Windows and Mac computers and can recover almost all file types including documents, photos, videos, etc. Furthermore, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free can detect internal and external HDDs, SSDs, camcorders, SD cards, USB flash drives, and many other types of storage. This makes the software versatile and worthy.
The free variant of the software can recover up to 2 GB of data in a single session which is quite sufficient for home users. If your data exceeds this limit, you can go for the paid version of the tool which also has many advanced features that can perform the recovery process more efficiently.
Alternate Tool 2: MiniTool Data Recovery Software Free
Unlike EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free, MiniTool Data Recovery Software Free is available only for Windows computers at the time of this writing. Nevertheless, the tool is equally efficient and can perform almost all the tasks that the previous solution can. It can recover 70 types of files from PC and other different storage devices.
However, the free variant of the software can only recover up to 1 GB of data per session. If the files that you want to recover exceed this threshold, you must buy a Personal or Business license to upgrade and lift the limit.
Also, if you are a Mac user, you can use Stellar Data Recovery for Mac which is the MiniTool’s sibling developed specifically for Apple PCs.
Note: Sometimes, you may have to install each of the above two data recovery tools individually to see which one works for you. Depending on the number of files these apps can recover and the integrity of each recovered file, you can decide upon the software that best suits your needs.
Conclusion
Using and sticking to only one tool isn’t enough these days. If you notice that Recuva recovered files are not working, you can try other alternatives suggested above. In addition, you can also conduct a quick online search to see other tools that can repair the files if they are corrupt. Nevertheless, before searching for substitutes, you may want to confirm if Recuva is not working, and you cannot repair the files either.
