TestDisk
Tested 2026-10-10 on a 4 GB NTFS volume holding 200 files: 40 Arabic, 10 Persian, 10 Turkish, 130 English. After a permanent deletion (Shift+Delete, no recycle bin involved) it listed 190 of the 200 files with their original names intact, and every Arabic, Persian and Turkish name came back character-for-character, diacritics included. After delete-then-empty-the-recycle-bin it recovered 0 of 40 Arabic names: by then the names had already been overwritten inside NTFS, and no tool that reads only the file system's name records can bring them back. Free and open source, no installer, but it is driven entirely from the keyboard.
Test results
| Vendor | CGSecurity |
|---|---|
| Best for | Lost partition · Damaged partition table · Accidental deletion · Emptied recycle bin |
| Platforms | Windows · macOS · Linux · DOS · Portable, no install |
| Free tier recovers | Not tested yet |
| Pricing model | Free and open source |
| Street price | Free and open source |
| Works offline | Not tested yet |
| Arabic names | Yes - 40/40 after permanent deletion, 0/40 after emptying the recycle bin |
| Arabic Windows | Not tested yet |
| Tested on | Windows 11, 4 GB NTFS test volume, en-US system locale, TestDisk 7.2, 2026-10-10. 200 files, two scenarios: permanent deletion (s4) and deletion with the recycle bin emptied (s1) |
Arabic filenames
We deleted the same 200-file volume two different ways. With Shift+Delete, the way a USB stick or an SD card deletes because those drives have no recycle bin, TestDisk listed 190 of 200 files and every Arabic name came back exactly as written, diacritics included (for example /صور العائلة/٢٠٢٤/مُحَمَّد.jpg). With delete-then-empty-the-bin it recovered 0 of 40 Arabic names: sending a file to the bin on the same drive is a rename in place, so NTFS overwrites the name in its master file table with something like $R4X7J2.jpg, and the Arabic name is already gone before you empty anything. The only names that survived were files whose path exceeded 260 characters, which Windows cannot move into the bin at all. So the sequence of events matters more than the tool: if you have already emptied the bin, you need a tool that reads the $I files inside $RECYCLE.BIN, and TestDisk does not.
When we would not use it
Not for anyone who wants a graphical interface: TestDisk is keyboard-driven and its recovery screens are easy to misread. It is also the wrong choice if you have already emptied the recycle bin and the original Arabic names are what you need.
Two limits on what we measured. (1) We publish no content-recovery rate for TestDisk: the data area of this test volume had been TRIM-punched by Windows after the deletion, so any percentage would describe the test rig rather than the tool. The filename results on this page are unaffected, because they come from the file system's name records, which TRIM does not touch. (2) For .docx and .zip files TestDisk reported a size 86 bytes smaller than the real one, in all 7 cases we checked.
FAQ
This page tells you what the tool is. The order in which to use tools, and when to stop immediately, is a different question - and that is what the recovery guide covers. Recovery guide: the right order.
Last updated: 2026-10-10