The invention provides a data updating method and device, and belongs to the technical field of terminals. The method comprises: starting a recovery mode; obtaining a preset network protocol stack in the recovery mode; obtaining a destination address of destination equipment stored with an updating data file; downloading the updating data file from the destination equipment based on the network protocol stack and the destination address; and updating data based on the updating data file. According to the data updating method provided by the invention, the network protocol stack is preset for the recovery mode, the updating data file can be downloaded from the destination equipment based on the network protocol stack and the destination address in the recovery mode, and the data are updated based on the updating data file, so that the problem of updating failure caused by such situations that no updating data file is stored in a memory card and a USB interface is damaged or no USB flash disk is carried or the like, and an online data file downloading and updating in the recovery mode is provided for guaranteeing data updating success and improving the reliability.