TestDisk vs. DMDE vs. DiskGenius: My Experience Recovering Lost Files
In my experience, all three of these tools can recover your deleted files as long as they haven’t been overwritten yet. However, they are quite different from each other. Here is what I learned from using them:
TestDisk
TestDisk is completely free and open-source, but it runs inside the terminal. If you are not used to using the command line, I definitely recommend asking an LLM to guide you step-by-step.
One downside is that the scanning and recovery process takes a while. The biggest problem for me, though, is that it does not bring back your original folder structure. If you have files inside subfolders, it splits them up into separate folders. It takes a ton of time to sort and organize everything after you get your files back. It is fine if you only need to grab a few files, but for my situation, it was not a good fit.
DMDE
DMDE has a graphical interface (GUI), but it looks confusing the first time you open it. You really need to pay attention to what you click.
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It managed to find most of my files. At first, an important folder seemed to have completely vanished, but I eventually found it inside an “orphaned” folder that DMDE created ($MetaData\$Extend\$Deleted). What I like most is that the free version lets you recover up to 4,000 files in a folder at a time, with no file size limit at all. The annoying part is that you cannot recover an entire folder at once for free. That is a paid feature, so I ended up buying a one-year license for around $20 USD.
DiskGenius
DiskGenius is much friendlier to use than DMDE, while still feeling like a professional tool. It scans very fast, and it even found a few folders that DMDE missed (though not many).
The problem is the free version. It lets you recover files and folders, but only if the files are tiny it’s around 64 KB or smaller. That makes the free version almost useless for normal recovery. On top of that, buying the full version is pretty expensive at around $70 USD.
- If you only need to get back a few files, don’t mind the terminal, and want something 100% free, go with TestDisk.
- If you want a GUI, don’t want file size limits, and don’t mind paying around $20 to restore full folders, go with DMDE.
- If you want a clean interface, very fast search, and have the budget to pay around $70, go with DiskGenius.
