 Hello everybody! In this video, I'd like to show you a selection of best-rated tools to recover lost data from Linux volumes formatted into such file systems as EXT4, 3 and 2. Hello friends! If you need to recover deleted data, view or restore removed browse in history. Hetman Software products will help you. Follow the link in the description, download the necessary program for free, install it and analyze the disk. The utility will show you the data you can recover, so you will be able to view it or get it back. In our channel and blog, you will find solutions to any problem, from installing an operating system or configuring it to fixing possible bugs and errors or optimizing mobile gadgets. Our specialists will answer any questions you ask in your comments, under the videos or articles. By default, most modern Linux distributives use the EXT4 file systems in the same way as older distributives typically used EXT3 or EXT2 file systems. The whole thing started one day in the past with them using the original EXT system. One of the features within EXT2 is that this file system removes partially the information about deleted files, in particular links to file names, which makes recovering such file names an almost impossible task. On the contrary, EXT3 and EXT4 are journal file systems and the process of removing a file involves making certain changes to their journal. The probability of recovering data from such systems depends largely on the size of the journal and on how long the operating system worked after a certain file was deleted. That is why it's important to take immediate action right after you discover important information was lost. In our case, immediate action means you should stop writing data to the disk from where the important information was removed, and find a reliable app to help you bring the files back. We have selected some of the most popular data recovery solutions, which you may wish to use, and conducted a few tests. Watch this video to find out which of them can do better when it comes to recovering lost information from the hard disk. Before we start testing various tools, let's explore the structure of these file systems. This file system consists of a series of block groups. The structure of which group begins with a superblock followed by group descriptors, then followed by block bitmap, then by enode bitmap, then by enode table, and the final element is data, that is, the information stored in a volume. The EXT4 system is designed as a bit tree. That is why the data is stored in its leaves, and in order to accept the information a data recovery tool has to go down the chain of links before restoring any files. If some elements of this chain are removed, there are chances that the data recovery tool won't be able to find the path to your data. In today's tests, we will try deleting some elements of the file system structure and find out how best data recovery tools can cope with this problem. In Windows, you need a specialized utility or a special driver to view the contents of a removable drive, such as a USB flash drive or an external hard disk, formatted into EXT4.3.2. Fortunately, data recovery tools can recognize such devices and restore data from them. For our benchmarking assessment, we have selected several popular data recovery tools. Hetman Partition Recovery, RStudio, EZUS, Recover, and DiskDrill. After a preliminary round of testing, we had to exclude one of the participants, Recover, because it could find only a small portion of files on an EXT4 drive. Being able to recover only 20% of the lost data is evidently the tool is the least suitable for the job, so we said goodbye to it. Alright, let's get down to testing. On a computer running a Linux operating system, we have created a test disk with EXT4 file system. Let's copy some data there. For example, photos, videos, documents. Remove some of the files and unmount the volume. We will perform the tests on another computer running Windows 10. Let's connect the EXT4 drive. Windows 10 can't recognize this file system, and when the drive is connected, the operating system suggests formatting it to be able to use it. However, in fact, there is no need to format anything, start Hetman Partition Recovery and scan the drive. You can see that the program can recognize the disk, detect its file system, and display its name and size properly. Let's try File Scan first. Here's the result. The files and folders it can detect. Evidently, this tool has no difficulty in finding the files deleted in such a way. There is no need for file analysis, and it saves us quite a lot of time. Remove data is marked with the right cross. All the files can be previewed and recovered without effort. The disk structure is retained, so all files and folders can be located in a second. It makes searching for specific data extremely easy. The program has completed this test successfully, and melt the challenge just as we expected. Let's try another candidate – RStudio. It can also recognize the test disk, detect its file system, and display its name and size properly. Let's try to view the drive contents. Just as the previous program, RStudio finds all the files and preview is available for all of them, except for documents. The disk structure is retained, all other files can be previewed. However, after a quick scan, it can display contents of the documents. That is why we will try a full scan now. This time the result is similar. In the end, this tool has passed the test too, but it has some difficulties in displaying documents. Let's move down the list to TestEaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. The program can display the drive, recognize its name and size. However, the file system type is not displayed. Let's analyze the disk. And the program switches to Advanced Scan at once. It can display all files now, but the disk structure is lost as well as file names and all the files are sorted by file type into separate folders. The program seems to be checking the disk with in-depth analysis, so it's going to take a long time if you're working with high-capacity drives. Let's check the results. Their program has found all files and sorted them by file type into folders. It managed to find the documents. They can be previewed, all photos are available, and one video file is damaged. Unfortunately, deleted files have no markings to distinguish them from the files which are still on the disk. The only way to tell if all files are present is by counting them. As you can guess, finding the file you need is going to be quite a challenge when there are many of them on the disk, and it will take a long time to view every file. Still, the program has completed this test successfully, and only one video file could not be recovered. The next one on the list is DiskDrill. It can recognize the drive and display its name and size. When we try scanning the disk, you can see there is no way to run a quick scan. But a deep scan can help us see what this product can do. Here are the scan results. The program has found the data but couldn't restore the disk structure or the file names and sorted the files into folders by file type. All photos are available for preview and recovery, as well as the videos. One file is damaged. All documents are present and can be previewed. The program has hoped with the test successfully, although it took quite a long time to complete the scan. This may become a serious issue when you work with a high-capacity drive containing a number of files. Scanning the drive and looking for lost data may take much longer than you expect. All tools have passed the first test and showed good results. In the next test, we are going to raise certain elements of the file system structure one after another, a superblock, then group descriptors table, then all superblocks and see what happens. All right, for the second test, we are raising the superblock. The search algorithm used in our product lets you recover data easily even when the file system structure is damaged. Hetman Partition Recovery allows us to analyze the disk space with the signature analysis algorithm. When the storage divides sector by sector, the program finds certain byte sequences, skips lost elements of the chain and represents the data to the user. If the entire file system structure is erased but Level 0 folders are still there, that recovery is still possible and our program will do its best to display and recover it. Now let's see how it works in real life. Run Hetman Partition Recovery. It recognizes the disk and detects its file system type and name. Open the disk, choose Fast Scan. We can see the same result as in the first test. All the data is present and available for preview. It goes without saying that all the files can be recovered. The program has coped with the task successfully even without running a full analysis. The disk structure and file names are retained, all data is available for preview. The second test is passed. Now let's try RStudio. This program can also see the disk, display its name and file system type, so the result is similar to the first test. You can't preview documents just as before. Even after a deeper scan, nothing changed. The disk structure and file names are retained, all data is present, so this program had also passed the test. The only downside is that it can't show you the contents of the documents. The next one on the list is U.S. Just like in the previous test, the program can recognize the disk but doesn't display its file system type. Let's scan it then. After scanning, nothing happens. Just like before, files are sorted into folders, no disk structure, no file names, but at least the files can be located. And documents are displayed. My video is damaged and it's unlikely we can recover it. The program has passed the second test. Meanwhile, we're testing this drill again. The program can display the drive, recognize its name and size. Quick scan is unavailable. Let's run a deep scan done. We can see the same result as in the first test. No disk structure, file names are lost, but all data is present and can be previewed. One file is damaged. In the third test, we will erase the group descriptors table. Let's analyze the disk with Hetman Partition Recovery. The program shows the same result as in the previous test. You can see it on the screen. Now, let's see what our studio can do. Nothing new. Everything is just as before. The only change is that documents can't be previewed. Still, the program managed to recover them in the end. We can see the same picture when we run EaseUS. And you can see it now. One video file is damaged. Alright, let's see if this drill can do better. In the third test, this drill has achieved the worst result. The program failed to find the majority of the files, even those that haven't been removed. However, the program suggests scanning the entire disk. Okay, let's see if it can improve the situation. You know what? Things are definitely getting better. All files are detected, including one damaged video file. All in all, this program has also passed the test, though it took more time than we expected. Now, let's draw the bottom line. All the programs have passed the three tests, but with different results. Hetman Partition Recovery managed to find all files, the disk structure and file names are retained. Our studio also detected all files retained the disk structure and file names. Although documents can be previewed, we can still recover them. EaseUS found all files too, but failed to keep the disk structure. All files are sorted into folders by type, but their names are not displayed anymore. One video couldn't be recovered at all. Finally, this drill. It managed to locate all files, but it couldn't display the disk structure and file names, just like some other participants of this benchmark. One video file is damaged. The program managed to recover it, but only partially. Alright, now that you've seen the results, it's easier to decide which tool to choose for recovering your information, and which one is better suited for your needs. The choice is yours, after all, but there is only one thing I'd like to add. The algorithm used in our product allows us to retain the folder structure and file names, which makes it easier to search for certain data and saves your time. In addition, our program lets you create a disk image and then recover data from there, which is the industry standard for dealing with faulty drives. Some programs that we have tested today don't have this feature. The algorithm used in our product lets you recover data even if the entire structure of the file system is erased. And if the disk has at least some data left, admin protection recovery can restore it and display it thanks to using signature analysis. And that is all for now. Hopefully, this video was useful. Remember to click the Like button and subscribe to our channel. 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