What type of data compression restores data to its exact original form?

Lossless compression is designed to reduce the size of data without losing any information, allowing the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed version. This means that when data is compressed using a lossless algorithm, every single bit of data can be restored to its original state upon decompression.

This is particularly important for applications where data integrity is crucial, such as text files, executable files, and most data formats used in scientific research and software development. In contrast, lossy compression eliminates some information to achieve higher compression ratios, which can result in a loss of quality or detail that cannot be recovered. Other types mentioned, like redundant and partial compression, are not standard terms in data compression and do not represent recognized methodologies for reversible data restoration. Thus, lossless compression is the correct answer as it fulfills the requirement of retaining the exact original form of the data.