Best Alternatives to Seagate File Recovery Software

Imagine this: you try to access the files on your Seagate external drive, you connect the drive to your computer, open it to access your files, and guess what…nothing happens. Your Seagate drive is not working.

Panic often sets in because the files stored in it mean a lot to you.

There’s a way to rescue your files before you call a data recovery center for services, which could cost you hundreds of dollars.

Seagate does provide a DIY data recovery program – Seagate File Recovery. But the program isn’t without drawbacks (new update: now Seagate has taken down this product). We’re here to share with you a few other alternatives.

Seagate File Recovery: Quick Review

Update: the software is now not available. It seems Seagate took it down from their official website. Here’s how it looks when you try to download or buy the software.

In the nutshell, it’s Seagate’s own recovery software used for retrieving data erased or lost from an external hard drive. The software has both a PC and Mac version, both of which are risk-free.

Seagate claims it’s able to recover all types of data such as documents, photos, videos, emails, archives, etc. deleted, formatted, inaccessible, or lost due to different reasons.

The trial versions are free, but you’ll need to purchase to get a registration key to activate the software if you want to save your files. Here’s our review of the software:

Pros:

• It offers a free trial that allows you to search and preview certain types of files.
• It supports recovery of a decent list of file formats.

Cons:

• Not convenient to get. You’ll have to fill a long-form and provide your personal information (hint: privacy, privacy…).
• We didn’t find a deep scan feature, thus it tends to find fewer recoverable files.
• Not easy to use, user interface (UI) is old-fashioned.
• Price is much higher than that of many other alternatives. Either Windows or Mac version requires $99 US Dollars to buy.

Best Alternative to Seagate File Recovery for Windows

We recommend Stellar Windows Data Recovery for two reasons. First, it can find and recover more data with deep and sophisticated scan algorithms, even if you have deleted or lost some partitions in your Seagate hard disk.

Second, it supports recovery from a large-size hard drive even more than 2TB.

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to use the program to retrieve your Seagate data:

1. Connect your Seagate drive to a Windows PC first.
2. Get Stellar Data Recovery and install it on your computer.
3. Open the software, click “Drive Recovery”, select your Seagate disk drive, and then click “Scan Now” to continue.
4. Wait until the scan process to complete.
5. Preview and recover your files.

You can find more programs from this roundup review: Best Data Recovery Software for Windows 10

Best Alternative to Seagate File Recovery for Mac

We recommend EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac — what we like about the software is that it allows you to scan your Seagate drive anytime you want with the “Save Scan” and “Resume Recovery” features.

Also, it comes with several recovery modes (as seen in the screenshot below) that helps maximize the chances of recovery.

Here’s a step by step guide for using this Mac app:

• Plug your Seagate drive to your Mac.
• Get EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac and follow the instructions to install it on your Mac.
• Open the software, you’ll see the “Wizard Mode”. Follow the instructions to have a quick scan of your Seagate drive.
• If it doesn’t find any of your items, switch to the “Deep Scan” mode where you’ll see four sub-modes, try “Raw File Recovery” to conduct a deeper scan.
• Preview and recover the found items.

Pro tip: remember to save the scan whenever you want. You can always use “Resume Recovery” to load a previous scan.

You can find more apps from this roundup review: Best Mac Data Recovery Software

What if Recovery Software Don’t Work?

It’s possible that none of the data recovery software is able to rescue your data either because your Seagate device has suffered physical/water damage, or the files have been partially/fully overwritten.

In this case, your last option is to send your device to an in-lab data recovery center.

Thankfully, Seagate offers in-lab recovery services to its customers, and we highly recommend you to go with them first. See what diagnostic reports or advice they would give you and then evaluate whether it’s worth paying the price.

Also, there are many professional third-party data recovery companies out there. We encourage you to do your own due intelligence before sending out your device to any remote centers.

Data loss on a Seagate hard drive happens here and there. Whether you mistakenly formatted the drive, deleted some items out of it, or the device became crashed, it’s often possible to recover the data by using a recovery program.

If that won’t work out, pick up your phone and call for a data recovery service, which usually is your last resort.