We advise you which software and apps to use
What can I use to recover XLSX files?
Q Can you suggest a program that will recover an XLSX file that I’ve unwittingly deleted? I’d prefer it to be free, but don’t mind paying. I’m running Windows 10 on my PC.
Robin Hurley
A Our current recommendation is PhotoRec, which runs on Windows 7, 8, 10 and 11. Despite its name, it can be used to recover far more than just photos. It’s also free, with no hidden fees. To download it, visit www.snipca.com/48720 and click the green TestDisk button top right. As well as PhotoRec, this downloads TestDisk which is a specialist tool for recovering deleted partitions.
Once the download has completed, extract the files and launch the ‘qphotorec_win’ file. You can use this to recover data lost from a wide variety of sources, including your internal hard drive, external drives and USB sticks – even if they’ve been formatted.
Select the drive you want to scan in the dropdown menu, then the relevant partition and specify whether you want to search only unallocated space or the whole partition. Choose the folder you want to restore files to, and click Search (see screenshot).
Bear in mind that if you’re using it to recover files on a drive that has been in use for several years there may be several megabytes – and possibly even gigabytes – of deleted data to be recovered, so the process could take quite a while. We’d recommend leaving it to get on with the job while you do something else.
Whatever you do, however, don’t touch your computer. The more you use your PC, the greater the likelihood that you’ll overwrite the missing file with new data, at which point it won’t be possible to retrieve it.
How can I convert PDFs?
Q Can you suggest a safe and free program that can convert PDFs to both Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. I know there are websites that do it, but I feel
