• Computer systems can hold your files hostage.computer image by Ewe Degiampietro from Fotolia.com
  
  Many things can go wrong on a computer system. You can accidentally delete files, files can be lost or corrupted, the drive itself can become corrupted and disk partitions can become lost or unusable. Fortunately, there are a variety of software applications designed just for such situations. Unfortunately, most of the good ones cost a little bit of money. These are just a few of the free options or free versions of paid software.
  
  

Pandora Recovery

• Pandora is a completely free software package designed for Windows systems. It offers the ability to scan uncataloged sections of hard drives and removable media. Users can even preview certain file types without even conducting a full disk scan.
  
  

EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition

• This is the free version of the larger and more comprehensive Data Recovery Wizard. This package will recover up to 1 gigabyte of data before the user has to upgrade to the paid version of the software. The Wizard works with all versions of Windows back to Windows 2000.
  
  

PC Inspector File Recovery

• This may be the most comprehensive of the free utilities for Windows machines. It allows users to scan hard drives for deleted and hidden files on Windows systems. It also has the capability to scan damaged systems that may have had their file systems corrupted.
  
  

Smart NTFS Recovery

• This software is a free version of a larger package of PC utilities. It works exclusively with the NTFS file system, which includes most modern versions of the Windows operation system. Smart NTFS can recover deleted files from hard drives as well as USB drives, cameras, removable drives and memory sticks.