How to Recover Deleted Photos from Seagate External Hard Drive?

How to recover deleted photos from Seagate external hard drive? This guide can help you get deleted photos back from external hard drives.

Lora

By Lora / Updated on May 7, 2026

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Is it possible to recover deleted pictures from Seagate external hard drive?

Seagate, a leading hard drive manufacturer, is well-developed in the data storage industry. As one of the major manufacturers of storage devices, its products are prevailing around the world.

However, the same as other storage devices, Seagate external hard drive users cannot escape from data loss like valuable photos. Many users are seeking ways to recover data from external hard disks.

how-to-recover-deleted-photos-from-seagate-external-hard-drive

   
   
   
       

Guys, how can I get back my deleted photos from an external hard drive? I have a 2TB Seagate Ultra Slim, which has been used for 2 years. I went to recycle bin after I had accidentally deleted the photo folder, but there were no photos I just deleted.

       

- Question from DPreview

   

You might have deleted files from the Seagate external hard disks, and then you found deleted files not in Recycle Bin, which means the data was permanently deleted.

permanently-delete-jpg-file

Also, you may have met physical or other logical damage. Be it from viruses, system crashes, or file system corruption, you need to deal with it and get your data back.

You might have the same question as the user in the case above that are those photos deleted from Seagate external hard drive recoverable?

You could get an easy answer – Yes. Specifically put, it is possible to do so, but the success rate depends on how much data deleted in it is overwritten. And the drive cannot be physically damaged.

This is a universally applicable rule: no matter what kind of storage device you are using, when file deletion occurs, please stop using the affected drive anymore, thus more data stay not-overwritten, and more data can be restored.

How to recover deleted photos from Seagate external hard drive?

To recover lost/deleted data from Seagate external hard drive, users have multiple options.

Method 1. Restore deleted photos from external hard drive via backups

Like many other hard drives, Seagate is embedded with a backup utility - Seagate Toolkit, which facilitates users to manage and access their data, and also recover files when encountering data loss.

If you need to recover data without backups, you could just head over to the next part.

Notes:✎...
This method only applies to those who have ever backed up their data using Toolkit. 
This tool will end its support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 in mid-2022. Users who are using Windows OS under 10 may need to seek help from other Windows data recovery services.

Step 1. Start Toolkit > click Restore.

activities-click-restore

Step 2. Select the latest backup to restore your deleted photos.

select-backup-plan-to-restore

Step 3. Specify the path > choose files you need > click Next.

choose-files-to-restore-click-next

Step 4. Select a place to store the recovered files or restore them to their original locations > Click Restore.

specify-destination-click-restore

Restoring from a Seagate backup, you could restore deleted photos from Seagate external hard disk.

Method 2. Retrieve deleted pictures from Seagate external hard drive without backups

Without backups, how to recover deleted photos from Seagate external hard drive? For those users who don’t possess any backups, a professional Windows data rescue tool is a better bet.

FastRecovery, specially designed for Windows users, enables users to scan hard disks for deleted files within only 5 steps.

No matter if you have lost data on internal or external hard disks, be it from HDD/SSD, or USB flash drive, or SD card, you can get deleted or missing data back effortlessly.

Seagate external hard drive data recovery software free download

Let FastRecovery free you from trouble.
  • Restore deleted data, meanwhile, keep the format/filename/path intact.
  • Support data recovery from healthy/formatted/corrupted hard disks.
  • Recover 1000+ types of data, including 42 kinds of images.
  • Scan hard disks at a very high speed and restore data with a high success rate.
  • Support Windows 11/10/8/7 Service Pack 1 & Server.
Download SoftwareWin 11/10/8/7/Server
Secure Download

The procedure of Seagate external hard drive photo recovery

Now follow the detailed instructions below to start an efficient photo recovery from Seagate external hard drives.

⚠️Notes:
  • Don't download and install FastRecovery on the Seagate external hard drive where you store deleted files, as this may cause data overwriting.

  • Any newly added data or disk formatting can overwrite data. Please avoid these operations after deletion.

Step 1. Connect your external hard disk properly. Install and run FastRecovery, then click Deleted Files Recovery for fast recovery. You can also choose a more suitable alternative. All of them can help you retrieve data without causing any damage.

Deleted File Recovery

Step 2. Hover the mouse over the drive and click Scan to scan for deleted or lost data.

scan-external-hard-disk

Step 3. It will run Quick Scan automatically to find lost data. During scanning, you can click the Stop or Pause button if you select the wrong disk or something goes wrong. Scan time mainly depends on disk size and health, especially regarding bad sectors or file system corruption.

external-hard-drive-scanning

Step 4. Wait for the process to complete, then select files by Type (default) or Path, with options to sort, search, filter, and preview files

👉Under the Type section: 

  • Specify the data type and click the arrow next to type, size, date modified, etc., to sort files
  • To locate files quickly, type the file name or extension in the search box.
  • Or use the filter feature, similar to the Type category, allowing you to further specify the size of files, from less than 512 KB to 1GB above.
  • Once found, double-click the files to preview

By Type

👉 Under the Path section: Directly navigate to the original location where you saved deleted files. Sort files if needed.

By Path

⚠️Notes:
  • The Type categories and filter options include all supported data types, such as images, videos, documents, mails, web pages, compressed files, etc.
  • Click the Deep Scan to find more data if Quick Scan fails. It will scan every sector of the disk and take longer.

Step 5. Select the deleted or lost files you want to recover and click Recover. Please select a new location to save the recovered data instead of the original location.

Select Deleted Excel Files Click Recover

⚠️Notes:
  • Saving the recovered files to the original location may cause data overwriting.

  • You can recover data from not initialized disk for free, up to 500MB in total. To recover all files on it, try advanced editions.

With this powerful tool, you could easily recover data from a formatted hard drive as well.

Wrapping up

This tutorial has introduced several choices for users, solving the problem of how to recover deleted photos from Seagate external hard drive.

You could seek your data from backups or directly rely on FastRecovery to save your time.

What’s more, to ensure data security, it is highly recommended to back up your data using a professional Windows data backup utility – AOMEI Backupper.

With many awesome features, like File Backup, Disk Backup,  System Backup, etc., your data will be intact. 

Lora
Lora · Editor
Lora is an editor of AOMEI Technology. She is also a tester and editor of Data Recovery Tools. "Keep testing, write the most useful tutorials for helping people recover the lost data for Windows and phones" is the most meaningful thing for her.