List of frequently asked questions

Go to the download page of the software by pressing the Free Download button in the upper right corner of this website. After that, choose the download option that corresponds to your operating system: Windows, macOS or Linux. Press the respective button to start the download process. However, please note that you should avoid using the storage device you lost data from as the target location for saving this file.

After the download is finished, you will get an executable file with the icon of the Software Manager application, which can be run in your operating system. Launch the application and follow the directions provided by the installer.

Raise Data Recovery works in the Wizard-based mode by default. Simply run the program and follow the prompts integrated into the interface.

Raise Data Recovery marks target storages using different colors to make it easier for the user to choose the proper one for saving recovered files. Storages marked:

blue have no limitations on saving the files you have selected for recovery;

violet are capable of storing each of the files, but don't have enough space to place all of them;

gray may not allocate some of the selected files. You can still try saving files separately.

Raise Data Recovery automatically detects and displays all devices attached to the local computer. To start data recovery, you need to decide on a logical volume or physical storage. The whole drive should be selected only when you are not sure what partition the data was stored, or you simply do not see it among the detected options.

The logical volumes of all data storages will be displayed on the first pane with the summary of their properties – the label and name of a volume, the title of a file system, the size of a disk volume. The only file system of a storage is displayed as a single logical volume, if it is defined as a logical disk under Windows or if it is an LVM volume under Linux. Examine the properties and if they seem proper, highlight this volume. At the same time, don’t be afraid to make a wrong choice: you will be able to choose another storage later at any of the further steps.

If the physical drive is divided into several logical partitions, Raise Data Recovery displays these partitions on the Logical volumes pane. Also, they are presented as subdivisions of each physical drive together with their properties. Go to the Physical disks pane and click on the needed drive to see their allocation. After that, click on a partition to check the summary of its properties – the file system type, size, partition start sector as well as its condition. Select the one matching your criteria and start the scanning operation.

If you cannot find the partition with your lost data or if it seems damaged, press Ignore these partitions at the bottom to start a full drive scan.

Irrespective of whether you know the exact location your files were deleted from, the program will have to analyze the whole logical volume your folder is located on. In the first window, select the storage, press the Continue button and wait until Raise Data Recovery completes its scan. After that, go to All files in the scan results and use the tree-like structure to browse to the folder in question. Open it to pick out the files you want to save. The deleted ones will be displayed with brown names.

However, please mind that in some cases, files may not be presented in their original folders, but this doesn’t always mean that they were not recovered. They may lose their initial folders and names due to serious logical corruption or other issues. Under such circumstances, they get allocated to the $LostFiles and Extra found catalogs created by the software. Moreover, the files removed via the system’s Recycle Bin (or Trash) can sometimes be found in the $Recycle.Bin folder. Thus, if you cannot see your data at its usual place, don’t forget to check other locations as well.

If you need to make sure that your files are indeed no longer in that folder, you may check its existing content before staring the data recovery procedure, provided the volume it resides on wasn’t damaged. At the first step, enable the Open existing file system option, select the required volume and click Continue. Browse to the problem folder and open it to see the available files. You may examine the $Recycle.Bin folder as well. Having decided on the necessity of a scan, go back to the previous step and simply disable the mentioned Open existing file system option.

If Raise Data Recovery doesn’t display a physical drive, check if this device is attached properly to your computer. Doing so, examine the data connector and the power supply cable, find out whether they are connected firmly to the hard drive and have no breaks. Make sure that the driver software is properly installed for both the adapter device and the disk device itself.

In case of a system drive of a Mac running macOS 10.13 High Sierra and later, it is required to disable the System Integrity Protection feature that blocks access to the drive, or connect the device as an external storage to another computer. Also, on Macs with the T2 security chip or Apple M1, data recovery is possible only for external devices.

If everything seems to be in order except for the storage, your drive may have physical defects, and you should turn to a data recovery center.

If Raise Data Recovery doesn’t display a USB-storage, press Refresh drives to make the program update the information about the newly connected devices. Use this button for every new connection. If this doesn’t solve the problem, a broken USB slot may be the issue. Try a neighboring USB slot. If the problem does not go away, there may be issues with the USB storage itself. In such a case, turn to a data recovery center.

Data storage connection matters a lot in this point. The bridge chip of the adaptor may be incapable of transferring data located at large addresses because of its data transmission ability. That’s why disk sizes displayed in Raise Data Recovery can differ from the real ones. The same problem may also arise for internal drives in case of a poor bandwidth of an old motherboard.

As a RAID storage is a complex data-storing device that consists of several drives arranged into one logical system, it usually requires reassembly before data recovery. Raise Data Recovery detects RAID metadata automatically and assembles its drives into one virtual storage. Still, if any metadata has been lost, we recommend using data recovery tools that specialize in recovery and reconstruction of complex RAID systems, for instance, Recovery Explorer RAID.

Data recovery from RAID with Raise Data Recovery includes such steps:

1. Switch off a RAID device.
2. Take out all RAID drives.
3. Connect them to a PC on which Raise Data Recovery is installed.
4. Launch Raise Data Recovery.
5. Go to the Complex (RAID) storages pane and choose the needed storage.
6. Press Continue to start scanning the storage.
7. After scanning is over, preview the found files and choose the ones needed for recovery.
8. Press Recover selected to save the files to a safe storage.

Network Attached Storage is a stand-alone data storing and sharing device which uses certain software protocols to establish communication with your computer. These protocols are aimed at file access rather than at data recovery functions. For this reason, before starting data recovery from a NAS unit, you need to take all the NAS drives out of the box and connect them to a local computer for recovery. For more information on how to connect NAS drives, watch our video-guide.

Having selected a partition to be scanned at the first step of your data recovery procedure, you may enable the Open existing file system option. If the chosen partition wasn’t seriously damaged, the program will open its content right away, without running a full scan of a storage. Otherwise, you will receive a message with a suggestion to start scanning this storage.

Basically, Raise Data Recovery completely repeats the structure of the data source. For this reason, you can easily navigate through files and folders in a manner similar to Windows Explorer.

In the left pane, you will see a tree-like structure, in which the file system element is located at the top and the folders are listed under it.

The All files folder will give you an unfiltered view of what has been recovered, allowing you to browse through all folders and files in one location.

In addition, the program will categorize them into relevant folders based on the file types, like Documents, Archives, Photos and pictures, etc. You may use such pre-organized folders to find the corresponding file types a whole lot easier.

Another way to find files is to use the quick search box. Enter the file name or its extension into the search line and press the Search button or Enter. The software will find the requested files and sort them into specially created folders.

Yet, if some files have irreversibly lost their folders, they may be placed in the $LostFiles or Extra Found folders and have numbers instead of their names.

It is possible to tell deleted elements from the normal ones by the red color used for their names.

Raise Data Recovery virtually recreates the initial structure of the file system of the source storage addressing all found files to their native folders. If for some reason a native folder has undergone irreversible changes that made it unrecoverable, the program will sort such a file to the special $LostFiles folder. Thus, if you cannot find your file in its regular place, you can still look for it in the $LostFiles folder.

The result and quality of data recovery depend heavily on the file system which manages files on your disk. Some file systems keep the file names after the deletion operation while some tend to erase them. If a file name is lost, Raise Data Recovery will find and recover such a file by using the same data recovery criteria as usual, but will assign a number to it instead of the name. Use the program's viewer to check if this is indeed the file you would like to retrieve.

If you cannot find your files at the very last step of the recovery process with Raise Data Recovery, examine the recovery result once again. You may also try $LostFiles and Extra found folders.

You can select all the found data for copying using the Select all button located in the lower left corner of the interface. Alternatively, you may choose the needed items manually by putting checkmarks next to them. The program will also respond to the universal keyboard commands, such as Ctrl + A for "select all" and Shift + Down to select a series – to enable this option, you will need to activate the Explorer window with a mouse click.

The software hides the source storage to prevent data overwriting, which leads to irreversible loss of your files. Chose another location and continue.

If you are sure that this is not the source storage, examine all storage connections. In case of an external device, press Refresh drives to let the software update the information about newly attached devices.

Windows OS, without UAC

To make your network storage available directly in the target storages selection, map network location to the local logical disk.

Windows OS with UAC

To make the network storage available under the privileged user account context, map the network storage with Reconnect at logon:

Settings:

1. Go to This computer context menu;
2. Select Map network drive;
3. Select the drive and tick Reconnect at logon checkbox;
4. Copy the complete drive path using the address bar;

Settings in Raise Data Recovery:

1. Press Other locations (advanced) in the target selection dialog;
2. Select "offline" network storage for target location.

After the first access, network location turns to the "online" status and becomes available among target locations.

As an alternative, a direct path can be used:

1. Navigate to the destination network folder using Network location in Windows Explorer;
2. Copy the network location path in the address bar of Windows Explorer;
3. In Raise Data Recovery, press Other locations (in the advanced mode) in the target selection dialog;
4. Insert the storage path into the program address box;
5. Press Select.

Now the network target storage is available for saving recovered files.

Failures in copying out files might occur for various reasons:

1. Limitations of the Trial license. Buy a software license to remove the trial limitations and continue recovering files.
2. Incorrect detection of the drive size. Check the size of the drive and change the adapter if the size is detected incorrectly.
3. The drive is a part of a RAID. If Raise Data Recovery doesn’t assemble your RAID, use data recovery software specialized in the RAID reconstruction, for instance, Recovery Explorer RAID.
4. Severe file system damage. Try looking for your files in the $LostFiles and Extra found folders.

Raise Data Recovery is shareware software. All software functions are available in the trial version and you can try them before buying the license. Still, there are trial version limitations on copying and saving the files that are larger than 256 KB. The program will recover the files whose size is bigger, but the user will be able to save them only after the corresponding license is purchased and activated.

Raise Data Recovery provides two licensing options that differ only in the duration of the period of free software updates. The Personal License with Short-Term Support entails the possibility to acquire updates for the program at no cost for 30 days, whereas with the Long-Term Support – for 360 days. The license itself is perpetual and does not have an expiration date. It can also be activated under any supported operating system: Windows, macOS and Linux.

The application will prompt you to order a license at the stage of saving the data.

You can also purchase a license by yourself on this website as well as on the developer's website.

You can purchase a license for Raise Data Recovery by following the prompts in the program. Then you will get a software registration code via e-mail. To activate the license, open the application, press Software license and Add license, and enter the name you specified in the purchase as well as the registration code in the corresponding fields. Press Apply license.

Go to HOW TO ORDER page to learn more about purchasing and activating licenses.

Our sales partner 2Checkout provides a variety of payment options, including Visa/MasterCard, PayPal, American Express, Discover, WebMoney, wire transfer, etc. and allows performing safe transactions in any currency. For more details, please, visit the global payments page on their website.

Such an expression means that the Raise Data Recovery license is not limited to a single platform. You may order a single license for the software and apply it under any of the supported operating systems – Windows, macOS or Linux. You don’t need to purchase separate licenses for each OS the program will be installed on.