Tenorshare 4DDiG offers a legitimate free version. While it has limitations (usually restricting how much data you can recover or only allowing you to preview files), it allows you to:
The interface will show all connected drives. Select the drive where data was lost. Crucially, do not select your USB drive (where the portable app lives). tenorshare 4ddig portable
Tenorshare 4DDiG Portable doesn't discriminate. Whether you need photos (JPG, PNG, CR2 raw), documents (DOCX, PDF, XLSX), videos (MP4, MOV, AVI), or archives (ZIP, RAR), the scanning engine identifies signatures rather than relying on the file system table. If the bits are there, 4DDiG will find them. Report: The Double-Edged Sword of Tenorshare 4DDiG Portable
If you are looking for a free solution, consider open-source tools that are legally free and safe: Verify if the software can actually find your lost files
A wedding photographer formats their SD card thinking it was backed up. They shoot a second event on the same card. Standard tools fail because the new photos overlapped the old. Using 4DDiG Portable’s "Deep Scan" mode (which ignores the file system and scans raw sectors), the photographer recovers the original wedding JPEGs alongside the new engagement photos.