What is Windows File Recovery Tool? How to use?
Windows file recovery
tool to restore files that were encountered with Microsoft Windows 10 2004
version update and deleted; is an effective Windows 10 tool that allows us to get it from local disks, external disks (USB, Hard disk) from SD cards or even cameras. The main features of the Windows File Recovery Tool
are as follows.
The extensions supported by the file recovery tool are as follows:
Extension Group | File Types |
ASF | wma, wmv, asf |
JPEG | jpg, jpeg, jpe, jif, jfif, jfi |
MP3 | mp3 |
MPEG | mpeg, mp4, mpg, m4a, m4v, m4b, m4r, mov, 3gp, qt |
PNG | png |
ZIP | zip, docx, xlsx, pptx, odt, ods, odp, odg, odi, odf, odc, odm, ott, otg, otp, ots, otc, oti, otf, oth |
File system types that we can do file recovery:
File System | Examples |
FAT and exFAT | SD cards, Flash or USB disks (<4GB) |
ReFS | Windows Pro for Windows Server and workstations |
NTFS | Computers (HDD, SSD), External Hard disks, Flash or USB disks (> 4GB) |
Using the table below; In which cases we can decide which recovery modes to use:
File System | Status | Recommended mode |
NTFS | Recently deleted | Default |
Deleted some time ago | First Segment then Signature | |
After the disc format process | ||
Bad Disc | ||
FAT, exFAT, ReFS | Desired file extension | Signature |
Coming to the file recovery process:
Required files:
Step-1:
- The current version of Windows must be Windows 10, version 2004 (Build 19041). You can view the Windows version by running the
winver
command on Run.

Step-2:
Windows File Recovery tool must be installed on your computer. If not, we can easily download the tool from the Windows Store.

Step-3:
The drive on which the files are to be saved and the drive on which the recovered files will be stored (Source and Destination Drives
) must be different. For example, if the files to be recovered are on the local disk C
, we should designate the target drive as another local disk or external disk.
Recovery process:
- After installing the
Windows File Recovery
tool, we can run the tool from the Start menu or start the file recovery process with thewinfr
command on aPowerShell
started with administrator privileges. - As an example, the work I recovered some PDF and Image files from a Flash Disk that I formatted about four months ago is as follows:
I run the command “winfr E: C: / x / y: pdf
” on PowerShell to recover all my PDF extension: I use the “winfr
” command in Signature (/ x) mode because my target is to save the file

Step-4:
As a result of the process, four PDF
files are saved and the (C :
) drive I have specified is saved on the drive and a log file is created in the same folder, but the names of my PDF files are saved as 0,1,2 and 3.

Step-5:
I run the same command once for JPG and PNG
file types: “winfr E: C: / x / y: JPEG, PNG
” My groove I deleted months ago as a result of the operation, including all JPG
and all PNG
files that I deleted before formatting. successfully recovered.
Step-6:
“Winfr /!
” To display advanced options we can run the command.

Here I tried to show you how to use the Windows File Recovery Tool that came with Windows 10 update (Windows 10, version 2004).
I hope it was a useful article.