PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from hard disks, CD-ROMs, and lost pictures.

The best open source alternative to Disk Drill is PhotoRec. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Disk Drill and 12 is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Disk Drill are Digler, GNOME Disks, Autopsy Forensic Browser and RecoveRx.
PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from hard disks, CD-ROMs, and lost pictures.

Forensic disk analysis and file recovery solution supporting a wide range of disk image formats and raw devices, file system-agnostic recovery, metadata-independent scans, DFXML reporting, plugin extensibility, intuitive CLI, and integration for diverse forensic needs.



Efficiently manage disk functions like inspecting, partitioning, and formatting. Utilize disk imaging and backup, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, and encryption. Integrates well with Linux, particularly GNOME, offering RAID setups and benchmarking tools, compatible with various file systems.

Autopsy® is a digital forensics platform and graphical interface to The Sleuth Kit® and other digital forensics tools. It can be used by law enforcement, military, and corporate examiners to investigate what happened on a computer.




RecoveRx allows to rescue erased files like digital photos, documents, music and videos from memory cards, MP3 music players, USB flash drives, external hard drives and solid state drives.




Program written in python that attempts to reconstruct and recover data from disks or disk images. Recommended for use from disk images, works well with ddrescue. Currently only works on ntfs filesystems. Can be ran on any operating system that supports python.

Data recovery program for NTFS file systems. Reads each block of the hard disk to and retrieves rebuilds file system tree on another partition.
DataRecovery is freeware and made by TOKIWA to undelete accidentally deleted files even from recycle bin.

Foremost is a console program to recover files based on their headers, footers, and internal data structures. This process is commonly referred to as data carving. Foremost can work on image files, such as those generated by dd, Safeback, Encase, etc, or directly on a drive.


safecopy is a data recovery tool which tries to extract as much data as possible from a problematic (i.e. damaged sectors) source - like floppy drives, hard disk partitions, CDs, tape devices, ..., where other tools like dd would fail due to I/O...

Scalpel is a file carving and indexing application that runs on Linux and Windows.