The reasons for why many people take photos and why they shot videos are almost the same. They need to use those media to record the precious and unforgettable moments in our life. Apart from this, you may save some videos important for work. Yet, the problem is videos may get lost sometimes, and you need to find them back.

Videos are more vivid than photos and pictures. You can save your good memories better in video files. Besides, you may download your favorite music videos and movies to a portable drive so as to collect them.

But, did you ever have the experience of losing a precious/important video? Certainly, you know video file recovery is necessary in such case. But the problem lies in that most of you don’t know how to recover lost video files.

So my task here is to teach you how to recover video files on your own in 3 different file loss cases. Do you often think of data recovery companies/professionals when crucial video files are lost? Now, please put a spin on it.

I will introduce MiniTool Power Data Recovery as a video recovery app for Android, and other devices to you since it’s more economical and suitable for video recovery (especially when you don’t want to put privacy at risk).

Part 1 – Carry out Video File Recovery

Since content in videos is often significant, you must be eager to know an effective way to recover video files from SD card or hard drive. Considering that videos are often saved on SD card, I’ll mainly show you how to recover video from SD card in the following content (after all, the way to recover video files from hard drive is almost the same as SD card video recovery).

recover video from SD card

  • First of all, you can download the trial edition of MiniTool Power Data Recovery (wonderful deleted video recovery software for Android and other devices).
  • And then use it for free video recovery; the trial edition can help you scan disk and preview found items.
  • After knowing its real performance, you can choose to buy a license to complete video recovery on Android SD card or other devices.

According to statistics, this file recovery software has over 2 million supporters and the number is increasing at a rapid pace. I can say it would be one of the best video recovery software you’ve ever seen. If you need to recover video from SD card on Mac, you should choose MiniTool Mac Data Recovery, instead of Power Data Recovery.

  1. I will guide you through the whole process of using video recovery software to regain lost video files from SD card/hard drive.
  2. After that, I will analyze the most common causes for video file loss.
  3. In the end, I will introduce several common video file formats in brief.

You can navigate directly to the part in which you’re interested.

Now, let’s get to the point: how to recover deleted videos from PC/SD card, how to recover video files from deleted/lost partitions and how to recover video files from formatted SD card. After reading this part, you’ll not ask questions like “how can I find a lost video on my computer”.

How To Retrieve Deleted Files On PC – Step By Step Tutorial.

Recover Deleted Video Files from SD Card

Oops, I’ve made a mistake carelessly – deleting a very important video file by pressing the wrong button. This is a common scenario for you, right? After accidental deletion is done, you must keep 2 things in mind:

  1. Get MiniTool Power Data Recovery and install it immediately.
  2. Stop running any programs on SD card or writing new data into it.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Then, follow this tutorial to restore deleted videos you need:

Step 1: take out the SD card from your removable device, and then insert it into a card reader.

Step 2: connect the SD card reader to computer properly and launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery to start deleted video recovery.

Step 3: click on “This PC” from the left side of the main interface of this video recovery app. And then select the partition that represents your SD card from the right side.

select This PC & SD card

What to do if you can’t find SD card in the list:

  1. If you run software before connecting SD card to computer, it may not appear in partition list. At this time, you should select another option and then shift back to “This PC” to refresh.
  2. If the SD card still does not appear after refreshing, you may go to see Fix USB Flash Drive Not Recognized & Recover Data – How To Do to know the possible reasons and fixes.

Step 4: click on the “Scan” button from lower right corner to detect all deleted files on SD card, and then wait for the scan.

wait for the scan

Step 5: look at the video files found by this file recovery software and then select what you need one by one.

Step 6: afterwards, click on the “Save” button and choose a storage path for them from the pop-up window. In the end, you should click on “OK” to confirm your selection.

When all selected video files are recovered to appointed place, a prompt window will pop up in the software, indicating that the process of recovering lost video files is finished.

Top Recommendation

You may as well read How To Recover Deleted Files From SD Card In Easy Way to know more detailed information about deleted files recovery from SD card.

Click here to have a better understanding of where do deleted files go.

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Recover Videos from Missing Partition

What if it is not the file but partition containing video files that has been deleted accidentally? At this time, you can’t find the partition in the drive list. Well then, what should you do? In fact, you should follow this tutorial.

Step 1: choose “Hard Disk Drive” to recover lost videos from PC or “Removable Disk Drive” to recover missing videos from an external drive. (You must connect the removable drive to computer at first).

Step 2: select the disk in which deleted partition was stored and then press “Scan” button to search for lost video files in deleted partition.

select the disk to scan

Or you can select the deleted partition directly if it is also displayed in this interface.

Note: In both cases, you can click on the “Settings” button to check only needed video formats so as to accelerate scan by narrowing the scan range.

check only needed video formats

Step 3: check the video files you need from the scan result and then press “Save” button to set a storage path for them. When all selected files are recovered to this storage path, the software will give you a prompt message, indicating that you can close it.

check the video files to recover

Recover Video from Formatted Drive

I stupidly formatted the wrong hard drive when there are two external hard drives connected on my computer. It is a WD external hard drive. I heard about the data recovery software which could help restore the saved data back from a formatted drive. But, I am afraid the program may make things worse. Do I have to use a data recovery program to get back my videos? Is there any one that could give me some suggestions? Thanks!– by Camaer00yoo at CNET Storage forum

Formatting a drive with useful files is also a common mistake that lots of people tend to make when using the drive. Though this problem is clearly more serious than accidental deletion of important files, it can still be solved easily with the help of MiniTool Power Data Recovery.

Let’s show you how to recover files from formatted SD card:

Step 1: take out your SD card from other devices carefully, and then connect it to your computer by using a card reader.

Step 2: launch the video recovery software for memory card and choose “Removable Disk Drive”. Then, select the SD card and press “Scan” to search for video files in it.

Step 3: please look through the found files carefully at the end of scan so as to pick out the needed video files one by one. After that, you should click on the “Save” button and choose another drive to store the recovered videos.

search for video files

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Stellar Repair for Video

Part 2 – Why Your Video Files Are Lost

You know your videos are lost sometimes without giving a sign. But do you know the actual reasons for causing such problem? Here is my answer:

  • Pressing wrong button on digital devices or computer to delete valuable videos by mistake.
  • Getting attacked by virus due to the lack of crisis awareness.
  • Deleting/formatting a wrong drive.
  • Performing wrong operations during data backup & recovery or system reinstall.

Those are only the common reasons why you lose needed videos.

Regular Backup Is Important

In most of the time, file is lost unexpectedly; it will not give us an omen. Because of this, you should backup important files on a regular basis, and the time interval shouldn’t be too long. Otherwise, when files were lost before the backup is completed, you’ll lose them.

Suggestion: MiniTool ShadowMaker is a wonderful backup tool for you.

All in all, file backup and recovery is very useful to prevent unexpected data loss!

Part 3 – Common Video Formats

Video file is one of the most important components of internet multimedia. It mainly refers to those files containing real-time audio and video information. The multimedia information is usually derived from video input devices.

Here, I would like to introduce some common video file formats that you may see frequently in life and work.

  • AVI: earlier AVI was developed by Microsoft. AVI is short for Audio Video Interactive; it refers to the storage of encoded and mixed video and audio. As an old format, AVI has many limitations and it does not provide any control functions. (Here’s an amazing AVI converter for you!)
  • FLV: FLV is short for Flash Video; it is a streaming media format developed with the introduction of Flash MX. FLV is adopted by many video sharing sites.
  • MOV: QuickTime Movie is a container developed by Apple. The QuickTime format is essentially a common format in film production industry due to Apple’s dominance in professional graphics.
  • MP4: MP4 is a set of compression coding standards used for audio and video information and developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) under International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
  • MPEG: MPEG format is media package form that is approved by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and supported by most machines.
  • WMV: known as the abbreviation of Windows Media Video, WMV is a group of digital video codec format that was developed by Microsoft; ASF (Advanced Systems Format) is the corresponding encapsulation format.
  • MKV: Matroska is a new multimedia encapsulation format, which can encapsulate a variety of encoded videos, 16 or more audios in different formats and subtitles with different languages into one Matroska Media file.
  • DV: it is generally used to refer to a device, such as camcorder, that captures and stores video in a digital format.
  • MOD: it is the storage format used by JVC’s hard disk camcorders.
  • OGG: Ogg Media is a completely open multimedia system plan and OGM is the container format. OGM can support multiple video, audio, subtitles (text subtitles) and other tracks.
  • RM/RMVB: Real Video or Real Media (RM) is a file container developed by RealNetworks. It usually holds only the media encoded by Real Video & Real Audio.

Part 4 – Bottom Line

It can be devastating if your precious videos are lost before you have a chance to make a backup. At this time, timely video file recovery seems to be the only way to compensate. To ensure the successful rate of recovery, you are suggested to choose the best video recovery software for finishing the recovery work.

Choose an option that is most suitable for your data loss case and then follow the steps I gave you in part 1 to recover lost video files without trouble.

After all the needed videos files were recovered to a safe place, I strongly recommend that you make a backup of all important files immediately to prevent further data loss. Hope you all can regain the precious videos you need after reading this article.

Video File Recovery FAQ

How do I retrieve deleted videos?
First, you should go to check the Recycle Bin on your computer, the deleted items will be kept here temporarily. Second, you should turn to the backups if you have any. Third, you can use MiniTool Power Data Recovery to help you recover deleted files.
Can deleted videos be recovered on Android?
Though there isn’t Recycle Bin on your Android device, you can still recover deleted videos from it by resorting to the backups or using the data recovery software that gives support to Android. Please stop writing new data to Android in order to avoid data overwriting.
How do I recover permanently deleted videos on my computer?

To be honest, there are a lot of ways to help you recover videos after they had been deleted permanently from the computer.

  1. Restore previous versions.
  2. Backup and Restore.
  3. Run CHKDSK command.
  4. Use powerful data recovery software.
  5. And so on.
How can I recover deleted videos from memory card?
Fist of all, connect the memory card properly to your computer via card adapter. Then, run MiniTool Power Data Recovery and select Removable Disk Drive. After that, double click on the memory card to scan it and choose the found videos to recover.
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