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Posted on Oct 20 Originally published at kuponaut.com

How to recover deleted or formatted files from a hard drive, USB stick or SD card

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Originally published at kuponaut.com, where prices and plan details are kept up to date.

Deleted files are usually still on the drive until something new is written over them, which is why the first few minutes matter more than the software you pick. This guide walks through recovering files from a hard drive, USB stick or SD card with Donemax Data Recovery, using the steps and feature names on donemax.com, and explains when no software can help. Prices are from the Donemax store on 15 October 2026.

Step 1: stop using the drive

When you delete a file or format a drive, the data is not wiped straight away. Donemax explains that a quick format only erases the file system's address table: the files disappear from view and their space is marked as free, but the contents stay on the disk until new data overwrites them. Every file you save, download or copy to that drive can land on top of what you want back.

So stop using it. Do not save, move or create files on the affected drive. If it is an SD card, take it out of the camera and do not take more photos. If it is the drive Windows or macOS runs from, keep use to a minimum: close programs that save in the background and avoid downloading anything to it.

Check the easy places first. Open the Recycle Bin (or the Trash on a Mac) and restore from there if the files are still listed. If you use File History on Windows, Time Machine on a Mac or a cloud service, a backup copy may already exist. Recovery software is for when those are empty.

Step 2: install Donemax on a different drive

Download Donemax Data Recovery from donemax.com on a working computer. Donemax warns that installing recovery software on the drive you are recovering from can overwrite the very files you need, so install it on another partition or an external drive. If the lost files were on your only internal drive, the safest option is to install and run the program on a second computer and connect the problem drive to it.

The Windows installer asks for a language, the licence agreement and an install folder; that folder is where you choose the other drive. The Windows version supports Windows 11, 10, 8/8.1, 7 and Vista plus Windows Server editions, and reads NTFS, ReFS, FAT, exFAT and ext file systems among others. There is a separate Mac version.

Step 3: select the drive and scan

Connect the device and open the program. SD and microSD cards go in a card reader, USB sticks and external drives plug in directly. Select the drive or card where the files were lost. For files deleted from the Recycle Bin, Donemax says to select the drive the files were originally on, not a separate Recycle Bin entry. If an external device does not appear, Donemax's user guide points to fixing recognition first.

Click Scan. Donemax's user guide describes a single Scan button that uses its deep scan mode to look for every recoverable file, and its guide on formatted drives says the software runs a quick scan first and then a deep scan. In practice you do not have to choose between them: start the scan and let it finish. You can pause or stop it, and the Mac version lets you browse files found so far, but Donemax recommends waiting for the full scan, which can take a long time on a large drive or a slow card.

If you need to stop, the user guide describes exporting the scan result to a .dmef file and later choosing Resume Recovery to load it, so you do not have to rescan the drive.

Step 4: preview, then recover to another drive

When the scan ends, use the filters and the preview to check the results before recovering anything. Previewing a photo or document is the quickest way to tell whether a file came back intact or only as a damaged fragment; Donemax lists previews for common formats such as JPG, PNG, TXT, DOCX and PPT.

Select the files you want and click Recover. When asked for a save location, choose a different drive: an external disk, another partition or a second USB stick. Donemax repeats this on several pages, because saving to the original drive can overwrite other deleted files still waiting to be recovered. For SD cards, do not save back to the card.

The program also has a Disk Tools section with a Repair option for file system errors, and access to disk management. Recover your files first and only then repair or reformat the drive, since either step writes to it.

Special cases: formatted SD card, emptied Recycle Bin, Mac

Formatted SD card or USB stick: the steps are the same. A quick format leaves most data in place. A full format overwrites the disk, and Donemax says only some data may come back after one. If Windows asks you to format a card it cannot read, decline; Donemax notes that files on a corrupted card may still be recoverable, and formatting it first makes that harder.

Emptied Recycle Bin or Shift+Delete: select the drive the files were on and scan it. Act soon, since every hour of normal use writes new data to that drive.

Mac: Donemax Data Recovery for Mac supports macOS from 10.11 up to the current release on Apple silicon and Intel Macs, including Macs with the T2 chip. For files emptied from the Trash, Donemax's guide says to check Time Machine first, then select the startup drive in the program, click Scan, preview and recover to another location.

When software cannot help

Recovery software reads what is still on the drive, so it cannot help once the data is gone. Donemax says recovery may fail if the data has been overwritten, if the drive is physically damaged, or if it is encrypted and you do not have the key.

SSDs are the big exception to the advice above. Donemax states that SSDs with TRIM enabled, which covers most modern SSDs, erase deleted data blocks quickly, making recovery from them extremely difficult or impossible. A scan still costs nothing to try, but expect less from an internal SSD than from a hard drive or memory card.

If a drive clicks, grinds, is not detected at all or was dropped, stop running scans on it. Repeated reads can make physical damage worse, and that is a job for a professional recovery lab.

Prices and plans

Donemax Data Recovery for Windows has a free version that scans, previews and recovers up to 200 MB of files. That is enough to bring back a few documents or photos, or to confirm that larger files open properly before you pay. On the Mac, Donemax describes the free download as letting you scan and preview; it does not state a free recovery allowance there.

On 15 October 2026 the Donemax store listed Data Recovery at $89.95 a year or $109.95 lifetime, both covering 2 computers, with Windows and Mac priced the same. An Enterprise lifetime licence for 100 devices was $499. For a one-off emergency the yearly licence works, but it costs only $20 less than lifetime, so lifetime is the better value if you might need it again. After buying, you click Activate in the program and enter the licence key.

Refunds are limited. Donemax's 30-day money-back guarantee covers cases such as duplicate purchases, technical faults support cannot fix, or a licence code not delivered within 24 hours, not a change of mind. That is another reason to scan and preview with the free version first.

Donemax or Recoverit?

Wondershare Recoverit does the same job and is the bigger brand. Recoverit's free version recovers 100 to 500 MB and it offers a 7-day refund window, while Donemax gives 200 MB free on Windows. Both work the same way: scan, preview, then pay only if your files are there.

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