You can download the Windows Device Recovery Tool on your PC and use it to fix software problems on your phone. It'll install the latest version of Windows approved for your phone and remove everything else, including your apps, games, texts, call history, music, and photos. Before you use this tool, see if restarting or
resetting your phone fixes the problem. A
USB cable to connect your phone to your PC. A PC running Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10. At least 4 GB of free storage space on your PC. It works on Acer, Alcatel, BLU, HTC (One M8 and 8X), LG, Lumia, NEO, UniStrong, VAIO and Yezz phones running Windows Phone 8 or later. It also works on HP devices. No, you'll need to use a PC running Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10. Before running the tool, try restarting and resetting your phone to see if that fixes the problem. If that doesn't work, back up your stuff, then download the tool and use it to reinstall Windows on your phone. The installation process will delete all the content on your phone—including your apps, texts, and photos—so it's important to back up your stuff first if you can. Some devices let you use reset protection to keep strangers from resetting and reusing your phone without permission. Make sure reset protection is turned off, or you'll need to know the name and password for the primary account on the device to use it. Go to Settings > Updates & security > Find my phone > Reset Protection and select Turn off.
Yes. When you use this tool on a phone that's running a preview build, it will reinstall the latest version of Windows approved for your phone by its manufacturer. To start getting preview builds again, you'll need to go to Download Windows Insider Preview for phones to download the Windows Insider app on your phone, then follow the steps to install Insider Preview. Not immediately. Windows 10 backups aren’t compatible with Windows 8 phones. It is not recommended that you restore a Windows 10 backup to a Windows 8 phone. To avoid Phone Backup Overwrite after switching to Windows 10, you must rename the device. You can do this by going to Settings > System > About and tapping Edit name. The phone can be reverted back to Windows 8 using the Windows Device Recovery Tool. Need more help?Microsoft’s Windows File Recovery is an official tool for recovering deleted files from hard disks, SD cards, USB drives, and other storage media. Here’s an in-depth, step-by-step guide on using this command-line utility. What You Need to KnowMicrosoft’s Windows File Recovery tool doesn’t have a graphical interface—it’s only a command-line utility. We’ll show you how to use it, but it’s a more hands-on process than you might expect from an official Microsoft utility available in the Microsoft Store. This tool requires you’ve installed Windows 10’s May 2020 Update or newer, or any version of Windows 11. It doesn’t run on older versions of Windows. Whether Microsoft’s tool can actually find and recover a file you’ve deleted depends on the drive. Deleted files aren’t removed from hard drives immediately, but they often are removed from solid-state drives immediately. If you’ve written a lot of data to a device like an SD card since you’ve deleted the file, it’s likely that the file’s data may have been overwritten. Even if you manage to recover a file, you may only get some of the file’s data—the file may be corrupted. You can only get whatever data is still on the drive. There are no guarantees here, and that’s why backups are so important. The utility also has multiple modes intended for different situations and file systems. We’ll explain which you should use and how to use them. To get started, install the Windows File Recovery tool from the Microsoft Store to get started. You can open the Store and search for “Windows File Recovery” or just click that link to open the Store. Once it’s installed, open your Start menu and search for “File Recovery.” Launch the “Windows File Recovery” shortcut once and click “Yes” to the UAC prompt. You’ll see a Command Prompt window with Administrator access. This is where you’ll run the File Recovery commands. You can use other command-line environments like the Windows Terminal and PowerShell, but be sure to launch them with Administrator access. (In the Start menu, right-click the one you want to use and select “Run as Administrator.”) How to Recover Deleted Files on Windows 10 and Windows 11To use this tool, you will run the Here’s the basic format: winfr source-drive: destination-drive: /switches After running the command, the tool will automatically create a directory named “Recovery_[date and time]” on the destination drive you specify. Which Mode Should You Use?Before you continue, you should determine the “mode” you want to scan for the deleted file. There are three modes, Default, Segment, and Signature. Default is the fastest mode, while Segment is similar but slower and more thorough. Signature mode can search for files by type—it supports ASF, JPEG, MP3, MPEG, PDF, PNG, and ZIP files. (Searching for “ZIP” files will also find Office documents stored in formats like DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX.) You’ll need to know what file system the drive you’ll be scanning is formatted with. To find this, open File Explorer, right-click the drive under This PC, and select “Properties.” You’ll see the file system displayed on the “General” tab. Here’s when you should use the different modes:
If you’re in doubt, just start with Default mode. You can then try Segment and then Signature if Default mode doesn’t work. How to Recover a File in Default ModeTo use the default mode, you use
Let’s put that all together now. To search for all DOCX files on drive C: and copy them to drive D:, you’d run the following command: winfr C: D: /n *.docx You will have to type “y” to continue. As we mentioned above, you’ll find the recovered files in a directory named “Recovery_[date and time]” on the destination drive you specified in the command line. To find all files with a word in their name, use wildcards. So, to find all documents with “project” anywhere in their name, you’d run: winfr C: D: /n *project* You can specify multiple searches with multiple winfr C: D: /n *.docx /n *.xlsx /n *.pptx To search for a specific file named important_document.pdf that was in the UsersBobDocuments folder on drive C:—and then save it to drive D:—you’d use: winfr C: D: /n UsersBobDocumentsimportant_document.pdf How to Recover a File in Segment ModeSegment mode works almost exactly like Default mode. To use segment mode, which examines file record segments, you use In other words, you can construct Segment mode recovery commands in the same way you construct Default mode commands—just add the For example, to recover all deleted MP3 files from your C: drive and save them to your D: drive, you’d run: winfr C: D: /r /n *.mp3 So, if a Default mode search doesn’t find what you’re looking
for, add the How to Recover a File in Signature ModeSignature mode works a bit differently. It examines file types, so it can only find deleted files of certain file types. To use Signature mode, you use Here’s a list of supported file types and the groups they’re sorted into, taken from Microsoft’s documentation:
Note that the “ZIP” group includes ZIP files in addition to Microsoft Office and OpenDocument documents. You can pull up this list at any time by running the following command: winfr /# Let’s say you want to search drive E: for images in JPEG format and save them to drive D:. You’d run the following command: winfr E: D: /x /y:JPEG You can specify multiple file groups by separating them with a space. So, if you want to find JPEG files, PDFs, and Word documents, you’d run: winfr E: D: /x /y:JPEG,PDF,ZIP More Help With winfrMore
information is available on Microsoft’s official For a refresher on the basics, just run There are also additional advanced options you can see by running READ NEXT
Which tool is Windows recovery tool?What Is Windows File Recovery? Windows File Recovery is a command-line utility designed by Microsoft. You can use it to recover deleted files from a local hard disk drive, a USB flash drive, or a memory card like an SD card. This tool uses the winfr command to undelete files Windows 10.
Is there a Windows 10 repair tool?Instead of fix-it tools, Windows 10 uses troubleshooters to help you solve problems with your PC. To run a troubleshooter: Select Start > Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot, or select the Find troubleshooters shortcut at the end of this topic.
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