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Also worth checking the type of drive. On SSDs, the TRIM feature can clear deleted data quickly, which means recovery tools might only find empty or incomplete data blocks.
In general, the best practice is to stop using the drive immediately after data loss and run a recovery scan as soon as possible, since the more the drive is used, the higher the chance that the original data gets overwritten.
Another possibility is file system corruption or fragmentation. If the file system metadata is damaged, recovery tools sometimes have to reconstruct files using raw data patterns. In those cases, the software may recover the file content but lose parts of the structure or combine fragments incorrectly, which can lead to files that won’t open properly.
A common reason is partial overwriting. When a file is deleted, the data isn’t immediately removed from the disk — the space is just marked as available for new data. If new files get written to the same sectors, recovery software may only restore the remaining fragments, which makes the recovered file appear corrupted or incomplete
I recently tried recovering some deleted files from an external drive using a data recovery tool. The scan detected many files and even showed previews for some of them, but after recovering the files, several of them either wouldn’t open or appeared corrupted.
I’m wondering why this happens. Is it because the files were partially overwritten, or could it be related to file system damage or the recovery method used?
Has anyone experienced something similar?
- What usually causes recovered files to become corrupted or unusable?
- Are there any steps that can improve the chances of recovering fully usable files?
Good suggestions in this thread. From my experience the most important thing is to stop using the drive immediately after data loss, otherwise files can get overwritten quickly. Usually I run a free scan first to check if the files show up in preview before deciding which tool to use.
Same here, I usually try a couple of tools just to compare scan results. Sometimes one program detects files that another one misses. I’ve noticed that running a deep scan makes a big difference, especially on external drives or formatted USBs.
Honestly, for quick accidental deletions I’ve had decent luck with Recuva. It’s pretty lightweight and easy to run. It won’t always recover everything, but for simple cases like emptied recycle bin or deleted photos it works surprisingly well.
After accidentally deleting some files, I started looking for free data recovery tools. Many of them claim to be free but only allow scanning.
Does anyone know a genuinely free recovery software that works well?
I’m trying to find a free data recovery tool that actually works well for recovering deleted files. There are a lot of options online, but many of them claim to be free and then only allow scanning, not the actual recovery.I’m mainly looking to recover common file types like documents, photos, or videos from a USB drive or hard disk after accidental deletion.
For those who have tried recovery tools before:
Which free data recovery software worked best for you?
Were you able to fully recover files, or were there limitations?
Any tools you would recommend avoiding?
Just trying to understand what actually works in real-world situations before I try more options.
Appreciate any suggestions or experiences!
Your understanding is accurate. A RAID1 storage pool on the Synology DS220+ cannot be converted to SHR without deleting and recreating the pool, and a Btrfs volume that was created using the full pool size cannot be shrunk to make room for another volume. Even though only 35% of the space is used, the entire pool is already allocated to that single volume. That means your realistic options are either replacing both drives with larger ones or backing everything up and rebuilding the storage pool. Since you already have a 4TB external drive and run regular Hyper Backups, rebuilding is a workable solution. Hyper Backup can restore system configuration if it was included in the backup task, but it is generally cleaner to create a separate DSM configuration backup and restore it after your data and packages have been restored to avoid conflicts. The sensible order is: complete a final Hyper Backup, create a standalone DSM configuration backup, factory reset the NAS, recreate the pool as SHR with the volumes you need, reinstall Hyper Backup, restore your data and packages, and then restore the DSM configuration last.
This does not appear to be a ZFS rebuild. A ZFS resilver only starts after the system has fully booted and the pool is imported, and it would not show as continuous hash symbols at the FreeBSD boot screen. The repeated ” output suggests the system is failing during the bootloader or kernel loading stage, likely due to a boot mode mismatch (UEFI vs. Legacy), incorrect boot order, or a SATA controller setting issue rather than a problem with the disks themselves. Since ZFS stores its metadata on the drives, replacing the motherboard would not break the mirror. With a current configuration backup available, the simplest and most reliable path forward is to reinstall pfSense, ensure SATA is set to AHCI, assign the WAN and LAN interfaces, and then restore the saved configuration. That should return the system to its previous state.
For a 4-bay NAS focused on maximizing storage with room to expand, the most practical setup is either three large drives in RAID 5 or two to three drives as single disks with backups for important files. RAID 5 with 20TB drives isn’t inherently unsafe, but rebuilds take a long time and there’s added risk during that process. For mostly replaceable media, it’s a reasonable and cost-efficient balance since you only lose one drive’s worth of capacity. If you’re storing irreplaceable photos or documents, RAID alone isn’t enough — you still need a proper backup. If usable space per dollar matters most and the content can be replaced, running single disks and backing up only critical data is often the simplest and most economical approach.
I’m using Fedora Linux with a BTRFS RAID 1 array secured with full disk encryption and shared over NFS under nobody:nobody permissions. While reorganising folders from my laptop through Nautilus in admin mode, I renamed a directory and then found it completely empty. It appears the rename over NFS behaved like a move operation that failed because of permission handling on the server side. As soon as I noticed the issue, I unmounted the NFS share and stopped all activity on the server to avoid further writes. The BTRFS tools would not allow me to remove a single disk from the RAID 1 without triggering a rebalance and additional disk writes, so I couldn’t safely isolate one drive for recovery. I tested Hetman RAID Recovery and it successfully detected the missing folders and files from one of the mirrored disks. Since RAID 1 is a mirror, restoring from a single disk with Partition Recovery should be enough. This happened while I was preparing these backups for long-term cold storage, which makes it especially frustrating. I have a spare 1TB SSD available for restoration and will avoid performing sensitive file operations over NFS in the future. I would appreciate a licence key to recover my data. Thank you.
Generally, it’s not recommended to recover files to the same drive they were deleted from. When a file is deleted, the system usually just marks that space as available instead of removing the data immediately. If you save recovered files back to the same drive, the new data might overwrite the sectors where the lost files were stored