How to Recover Photos using CMD?

The Command Prompt is a command-line interpreter application found in any Windows operating system that provides an internal command-line interface for interacting with the system. It can be used to recover internally deleted files, including photos or videos, even if they were permanently deleted by malware system policy. Despite its directive nature, the Command Prompt can be a powerful tool for resolving file loss.

In this article, We’ll show how to recover deleted files using the command prompt.

How to Recover Deleted Files in a Recycle Bin Using CMD?

Sometimes, we mistakenly delete files we need. Luckily, Windows has a ‘Recycle Bin’ that stores deleted files temporarily. If your deleted files are there, you can easily recover them through ‘Command Prompt’ (CMD).

Step 1: Press Windows Key + S to open the search bar.

Step 2: Then, On the Search bar type “CMD” and open as administrator.

Step 3: In the CMD window, Type these commands one by one and hit the Enter button.

cd \

start shell:RecycleBinFolder

Step 4: Then, Right click on the image/files and select “Restore“

How to Recover Permanently Deleted Files Using CMD?

You may remove files permanently, only realizing later that still required them. No worries, CMD allows recovering permanently deleted files with a few simple commands.

Step 1: Press Windows Key + S to open the search bar

Step 2: Then, On the Search bar type “CMD” and open as administrator

Step 3: In CMD windows. Type this command and hit the Enter button

winfr source-drive: destination-folder: [/mode] [/switches]

Replace ‘mode’ with either ‘regular’ or ‘extensive’:

Regular mode is for standard recovery on non-corrupted NTFS drives.
Extensive mode is for recovering files from all file systems.

Different switches offer various functions:

‘/n’ filters files based on specific conditions.
‘/!’ reveals more advanced functions.

For instance, to recover .jpg photos from drive D: to drive C: use:

winfr D: C: /extensive /n *.jpg

Step 4: Click ‘y’ to initiate the scan process, then wait for it to complete. Recovery files will be available in the destination folder.

Recover a Formatted Hard Drive Using Command Prompt

Even formatting a hard drive, often viewed as erasing everything, isn’t necessarily the end. CMD offers ways to retrieve files from formatted drives, though this process is trickier and riskier, so proceed cautiously to avoid damaging your system or losing more data.

Step 1: Press Windows Key + S to open the search bar

Step 2: Then, On the Search bar type “CMD” and open as administrator

Step 3: In the CMD window, type this command and hit the Enter button

chkdsk D: /f

Replace the “D” with the actual drive letter

Type “Y” to proceed

Step 4: Then Type the letter of the formatted drive like D, C

Step 5: Type this command and hit the Enter button.

attrib -h -r -s /s /d *.*

Here:

-h: Assigns the Hidden attribute to specified files.
-r: Denotes the read-only attribute, allowing files to be read but not changed.
-s: Applies the System attribute to specified files.
/s: Instructs the system to search the specified path, including subfolders.
/d: Processes folders within the specified path.

Conclusion

In Conclusion, Command Prompt helps get back lost photos and files on Windows. The above-mentioned guide shows how to get deleted files from the Recycle Bin, recover files deleted forever, and get photos back from a formatted drive. Command Prompt looks hard at first. But learning basic commands lets you beat data loss problems with ease.