A friend wrote me and asked for help with recovering some files that they lost after having to Reformat their Windows System, because of a Virus that they got. So, I put together this list of Windows Based File Recovery Software and Rescue Disks - Live OS's - Linux and Windows Based. Thought I would share it on my Blog too...

Don

Re: Computer virus help!

Ok, here's some Windows File Recovery Live Boot OS's and Software that I have used and some links to several others too...

Hirens Boot CD or USB Stick with MiniXP Recovery has allot of great tools for file recovery. Some have a Graphic Interface (GUI) and some are Command Line Only. It should be easy for Windows users to figure out. Since it runs a Live Mine Windows XP System. You can Access your Windows HD with it to recover files and do many other things was well. There may be some issues with Win7 Systems though. You'd just have to download it. Burn it to CD or put on a USB Stick.

CD, ISO File Burning Apps here...

CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilingual interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free. It does not include adware or similar malicious components.
Go there...
http://donsdeals.blogspot.com/2010/12/cdburnerxp-free-cd-and-dvd-burning.html

InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration.

InfraRecorder is released under GPL version 3.

Features

Create custom data, audio and mixed-mode projects and record them to physical discs as well as disc images.
Supports recording to dual-layer DVDs.
Blank (erase) rewritable discs using four different methods.
Record disc images (ISO and BIN/CUE).
Fixate discs (write lead-out information to prevent further data from being added to the disc).
Scan the SCSI/IDE bus for devices and collect information about their capabilities.
Create disc copies, on the fly and using a temporary disc image.
Import session data from multi-session discs and add more sessions to them.
Display disc information.
Save audio and data tracks to files (.wav, .wma, .ogg, .mp3 and .iso).

Go there...
http://infrarecorder.org/

Best Free CD / DVD Burning Software

Updated Tue, 11/09/2010 - 23:12 by
Go there...
http://donsdeals.blogspot.com/2010/12/best-free-cd-dvd-burning-software.html

USB instructions here, http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd-on-usb-disk.

Then Boot it up to try it out... It's a great Tool, I have use it allot on WinXP Systems...
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

Here's a couple of the File Recovery Apps that comes on Hirens Boot CD. You can download it and run it on your Windows System. But, you will have better results when running from a Live CD or USB and not running your OS from the HD that you are trying to recovery files from...

DiskDigger 0.8.3.176

A simple, straightforward, and easy to use data recovery utility. The DiskDigger application was designed to recover files from any type of media that your computer can read. This includes USB flash drives, memory cards (SD, CompactFlash, Memory Stick, etc), and of course your hard drive. The types of files that it recovers includes photos, videos, music, documents, and other formats. DiskDigger works by thoroughly scanning each sector of your media for traces of files. (Size: 192 KB)

DiskDigger.zip

SoftPerfect File Recovery 1.2

This is a free and useful tool to restore accidentally deleted files from hard and floppy disks, USB flash drives, CF and SD cards and other storage media. It supports the popular file systems such as FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 with compression and encryption. If your important files disappeared and you can't find them in the recycle bin, try this software product and get the files back to life. (Size: 257 KB)

SoftPerfectFileRecovery.zip

I haven't used this one. But it would be good for Recovering a whole Drive - HD. But you would need another empty Drive - HD or Partition to Copy the entire contents of your existing drive to. I thing that this would overwrite everything on the Drive that you Copy the Files to. So, Be Careful with this one and read the Help Files first...

Raw Copy 1.2

This program copy's a disk as a raw image from one drive directly to another. This utility is designed for people who have faulty drive and want to transfer the data directly to another drive without doing a file by file copy. This saves the need for operating system re-installs and allows drives with an unknown file system to be copied (including from console game machines, data recorders, mac etc). The program has a built in data recovery function which will attempt to recover data from bad sectors to ensure all the available data is restored from the drive. (Size: 59 KB)

RawCopy.zip

I have used this one allot too. It has many great Apps for Windows Recovery and more...
UBCD4Win is a bootable recovery CD that contains software used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. Our goal is to be the most complete and easy to use free computer diagnostic tool. Almost all software included in UBCD4Win are freeware utilities for Windows®.Some of the tools included are "free for personal use" copies so users need to respect these licenses. A few of the tools included in UBCD4Win are paid for and licensed software owned by UBCD4win.
http://ubcd4win.com/index.htm

Recuva is simple to use, effective, and can be used to recover lost files. Recuva
File Recovery. Recuva Accidentally deleted an important file? Lost something important when your computer crashed? No problem! Recuva recovers files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. And it's free!
http://www.piriform.com/recuva I can't remember if it can Recover Files after a Reformat. But, it would be good for the situations mentioned above. More info on my Blog about Recuva and more Windows Freeware too here... http://donsdeals.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-free-windows-7-vista-64-bit.html

Here's a couple of Windows File Recovery Apps that I haven't used. But look good...

NTFS Recovery Wizard. The Live Preview feature ensures your ability to recover a given file or document by producing a complete preview of that file or document. And we aren’t talking about that ‘hex’ preview of random numbers and symbols! NTFS Recovery Wizard shows your Word documents as Word documents, and your digital images as viewable pictures to let you examine the quality of the recovery before you pay a cent.

Recover NTFS Disks with a Wizard

Fix hard drive and file system corruption by yourself with a simple, easy to use wizard! Emptied Windows Recycle Bin? Accidentally formatted a disk? Tried using Windows checkdisk on a damaged disk? No need to bring your hard drive to a data recovery lab! Save time and money and use NTFS Recovery Wizard to recover your data and get a perfectly working disk completely automatically.
Go there...
http://wizardrecovery.com/ntfs_recovery/ntfs_recovery.php

Data Recovery Software Tools - freeware and shareware downloads
http://www.ntfs.com/products.htm

I have used TestDisk allot and it has Saved my OS's Several Times!:)

TestDisk, Data Recovery

TestDisk is OpenSource software and is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL v2+).

TestDisk is powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.

TestDisk can

Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
Fix FAT tables
Rebuild NTFS boot sector
Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
Fix MFT using MFT mirror
Locate ext2/ext3/ext4 Backup SuperBlock
Undelete files from FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem
Copy files from deleted FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions.

TestDisk has features for both novices and experts. For those who know little or nothing about data recovery techniques, TestDisk can be used to collect detailed information about a non-booting drive which can then be sent to a tech for further analysis. Those more familiar with such procedures should find TestDisk a handy tool in performing onsite recovery.

Operating systems

TestDisk can run under

DOS (either real or in a Windows 9x DOS-box),
Windows (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, Windows 7 (x86 & x64),
Linux,
FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
SunOS and
MacOS X

Download binary executables and source files for DOS, Win32, MacOSX and Linux.

Read More...
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Five Best Free Data Recovery Tools

The best way to recover from unexpected data loss is to be properly prepared. With one of the following tools on hand, you'll always be ready to save your data from the Reaper.
Read More... (It talks about TestDisk, Recuva, PhotoRec, which I have used and several more)
http://lifehacker.com/5237503/five-best-free-data-recovery-tools

The Automatic Windows 7 File Backup That You Didn't Know You Had

Updated 22. November 2011 - 13:57 by v.laurie

Windows 7 and certain editions of Windows Vista come with an automatic file and folder backup feature called "Previous Versions" that many PC users don't seem to know about. Individual data file and folder backups are created by System Restore or by Windows Backup. With the default setting for System Restore, this means monitored files are backed up once a day. To be more precise, records called "shadow copies" are created. These keep track of any changes that have occurred for files and folders.
Go there...
http://donsdeals.blogspot.com/2011/11/automatic-windows-7-file-backup-that.html

More useful Windows System Tools...

Defraggler v2.08

Added Disk benchmarking!
October 24, 2011

CCleaner v3.12

Added Firefox 8.0 support and better secure deletion!
October 18, 2011

Speccy v1.13

Added TCP connections and Hard Disk features.