Data recovery review: Blog

Top 15 Free Data Recovery Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed

admin — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:44:26 +0000

Whether you’ve lost data after a system failure or deleted a bunch of files, it’s natural to wish your data back. The data recovery market is full of various offers from local services that can recover data from physically damaged hard drives to software packages advertising at-home recovery for many types of data. Some of these software tools are free. It is in human nature to wish something for nothing. In this article, we’ll see how these free tools fare against each other.

FreeUndelete
FreeUndelete by Office Recovery is a tiny, ad-free tool supporting FAT and NTFS disks. It’s a fast, lightweight and usable tool. FreeUndelete does not have any pre-recovery preview available, and is not suitable for recovering multiple files as it shows a confirmation dialog after each successful recovery. If you have one or few files to recover, this is a great choice. If your situation is more complex than that, keep reading.
TestDisk
TestDisk is a renowned console utility for undeleting files and fixing system partitions. It’s a perfect example of enthusiast-supported freeware. Working on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and many other platforms, TestDisk supports an impressive number of disk formats and file systems yet has no banner ads to display. If you feel geeky and have lots of experience and spare time to spend learning the many available options and command-line settings, this is the best tool for you. Those who expect point-and-click operation, read along.
PhotoRec
PhotoRec is related to TestDisk, and features all of its strong and weak points. The console interface is suitable for advanced users and system administrators, the performance is flawless, and the ability to recover many types of files from disks and flash cards with damaged or no file system is outstanding. If you feel brave enough and have time on hand to learn all of its command-line parameters, this is the tool for you. If you know of a front-end to this data recovery tool, please let us know!
SoftPerfect File Recovery
SoftPerfect File Recovery is a tiny, banner-free utility to have on a flash drive just in case. This free tool provided fast and reliable recovery, yet it lacks any sort of pre-recovery preview or any estimate of a file’s degree of recoverability. Download and save it somewhere in case you need to quickly recover a few files.
Pandora Recovery
Pandora Recovery offers wizard-based recovery. Sophisticated recovery features, step-by-step operation, no banner ads, pre-recovery preview and recoverability estimate are all present. It worked in our tests to recover files from FAT and NTFS partitions, but didn’t do so well recovering JPEG and RAW files from a flash memory card. Overall, it’s one of the best free tools tested in this review.
PC Inspector Smart Recovery
PC Inspector Smart Recovery is aimed at multimedia files. Advertising reliable recovery for various music, video and image formats, PC Inspector Smart Recovery recovered all supported files in our tests, including RAW and CR2 files. However, it’s very slow to scan the disk, and does not make a difference between deleted and existing files on the disk, putting everything into a single list. To make it even slower and even less usable, you can’t specify a single folder to scan; PC Inspector Smart Recovery will perform a complete scan of the entire disk.
R-Linux
R-Linux recovers the Linux Ext2FS file system from the convenient Windows environment. While its objective is questionable, it’s one of the few freeware Linux recovery tools that work on Windows. R-Linux does not appear to support Ext3, and we couldn’t find (and damage) a Linux partition handy to produce a review in a timely manner.
VAIO Recovery Manager
VAIOSoft Recovery Manager supports Windows and Linux and advertises many useful features, but its Web site seems abandoned and its development halted. Still, it performs very well when recovering files from removable media. Unfortunately, you can’t see the recoverable files; they’re either recovered or not.
ADRC Data Recovery
ADRC Data Recovery Software Tools is a tiny and fast recovery program featuring no banner ads. Out tests resulted in complete recovery of all files we deleted from an NTFS partition, but the tool couldn’t do so well on a FAT flash card with digital pictures. Featuring loads of advanced functions, the utility can be dangerous shall it fall into wrong hands. If you are an experienced system administrator or advanced user, this is the tool to have on an emergency flash drive. If you’re new to data recovery, there are still better alternatives.
EASEUS Deleted File Recovery
EASEUS Deleted File Recovery is a free little brother of EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard. The proprietary user interface is exotic, but at least there are no banner ads. Unfortunately, the tool refused to support our test images and virtual disks, so we can’t tell anything about its recovery rate.
PC Inspector File Recovery
PC Inspector File Recovery advertises complete file recovery from FAT and NTFS partitions in exchange for displaying a small banner ad. Our tests confirmed solid operation on FAT disks, yet our attempt to recover files from an NTFS partition yielded about 50% recovery rate. The tool didn’t find the rest of the files.
Undelete Plus
Undelete Plus conveniently groups recoverable files, making them easy to select. However, we found this tool hard to use due to exotic approach to user interface. The tool was the longest to scan our test hard drive, and crashed a couple of times while scanning the disk. You can watch a banner ad in a more sensible way elsewhere.
Smart Image Recovery
Smart Image Recovery can only recover pictures and images. Multiple advertisement pop-ups, pesky user interface, no support for RAW files are second to the fact that the tool discovered none of the files we shot on a formatted flash card. Oh, and it happily reported a hundred errors in the Windows Registry without even accessing it! One word: don’t.
Smart Email Recovery
Smart Email Recovery is the only free email recovery tool we could find. Our tests discovered loads of banner ads, alien user interface, severe limitations and buggy recovery. Despite of having no free alternatives, we restrain from recommending this tool.
Data Disk Recovery
Data Disk Recovery is a high-performance but extremely buggy product featuring large animated advertisement at every launch. We could never complete a disk scan with this tool as every time it crashed near the end of the scan. Hence we can’t recommend it.

Freebies in your bonnet

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:28:07 +0000

16 popular recovery tools which will cost you nothing.

Your data is trapped on a dead computer. You lost your login password or your Windows product key. The computer won’t start. It is not always necessary to spend over $500 at the repair shop to get your data back or start up your dead computer; you can get powerful recovery programs online for free. As long as the HD crash doesn’t mean that the HD stops working mechanically, these tools work flawlessly. Which one of the listed products is best for you depends on your skill level, operating system and particular problem.

16. InsertCD is a light weight distro that will easily run on machines even with modest power allowing you to remove the CD you just booted from and then use the CD drive for other things if needed, even write CD’s. The program’s options include: full read-write support for NTFS-partitions using NTFS-3g, disaster recovery (e.g. gparted, gpart, partimage, testdisk, recover), and virus scanning (Clam Antivirus, the GUI xfprot for F-Prot)

15. Reatogo PE (Bart PE Derivative) allows you to create a customized version of a PE Disc with the latest drivers. To add the drivers, an automatic driver inclusion method is used. This program can be especially helpful for people with RAIDed systems.

14. PC Inspector Smart Recovery is an excellent tool, especially for SD data recovery.

13. For simple drive access, Puppy Linux is a great live Linux disc. It has read/write access to FAT/FAT32/NTFS drives. It’s also very light and fast and will run in a GUI on virtually any x86 PC with 128MB of RAM.

12. Hiren is a bootable disc that can partition, recover, install, find passwords, and many other things. It combines several utilities into one single disc.

11. BartPE is a great utility with tons of plugins to fix your computer when it’s completely dysfunctional. The program requires a Windows XP, 2003, CD/DVD to create a rescue boot disc. BartPE can be built to include McAfee with more current virus definitions and an Ad-Aware.

10. SuperDuper is a pre-emptive recovery tool for Mac. This software can be used to backup your Mac’s HDD onto an external drive. SuperDuper will create a bootable clone of your Mac’s drive, and if the computer dies, you will be able to connect the clone, and, by holding the “Option” key when starting, select the external drive as your boot drive.

9. Key Finder’s version 2 enables you to extract the Windows XP or Vista product key from a dead Windows installation. The program also allows you to display the product keys of common Windows applications, such as Microsoft Office, etc.

8. The all-in-one USB PC Repair Kit will provide you with an access to 37 Windows repair and recovery utilities. All of the tools included in the kit can be easily stored on a 32MB USB drive. The program list ranges from CCleaner, to Eraser, to ProcessExplorer and ProduKey and TweakUI.

7. Undelete Plus is a simple utility intended for bringing back deleted files that haven’t been overwritten on disk.

6. System Information allows you to create comprehensive SIW report with important data which may be necessary in case the machine passes away. The tool is extremely helpful when one needs to dig up software licenses, the type of BIOS or RAM or motherboard installed on your PC.

5. DasBoot is developed for Mac OS X. It creates a bootable CD (similar to DiskWarrior) and, along with other useful utilities, installs it to a portable, writable, external drive, even an iPod. Effectively this makes a writable Mac diagnostic disk to go.

4. If you lost your Windows administrator password or, say, need to boot up an inherited PC for which you have no password, Ophcrack will help you easily. The software can boot a Windows PC and crack alphanumeric passwords less than 15 characters.

3. The Ultimate Boot CD offers a menu of diagnostic disk tools to scan and repair your PC’s drives. The UBCD works much faster than a floppy disk. If you prefer USB drives, a version for them is available for download, too. The Ultimate Boot CD comes with a couple different anti-virus apps (F-Prot & McAfee).

2. Knoppix software creates a bootable CD which contains a completely usable Linux desktop that can copy otherwise inaccessible files from your PC’s HDD to an external drive, such as a USB drive.

1. The GParted LiveCD is a bootable disk that contains a cool partition manager. GParted is a graphical user interface to GNU Parted, an open source Linux partition manager, which can perform all useful operations with partitions such as reading, copying, expanding, moving, etc. The CD now comes with Clonezilla, which helps create disk images, restore existing disk images, clone a disk, etc.

Partitions at fault

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:36:09 +0000

In this post we put eight data recovery apps to the brief review.

PC Inspector File Recovery

PC Inspector File Recovery
PC Inspector has rather advanced functionality typically reserved for paid programs. Instead of being limited to scanning partitions, you can also sweep through an entire HDD. Furthermore, PC Inspector will also attempt to find lost partitions or hard drives, which can come in handy if the drive was formatted, or Windows is unable to detect it. An instant scan normally finds all of recently deleted files (deep scan, in which you can designate a beginning and end cluster, takes just a bit longer than quick scan). However, the program has trouble coming up with non-cryptic file names when searching on a non-OS partition for deleted entries. Another disadvantage of the program is the incapability to automate restoration of files to their original folder structure.

SoftPerfect File Recovery

SoftPerfect File Recovery
We hate to say this, but there really aren’t any extraordinary options in this program, save for the ability to limit searches by manually inputting file names or types. If more than one search query at a time listed, File Recovery will roll over and stop responding. The program lacks an option for a deep scan, which can potentially uncover hundreds missing files. On the plus side, File Recovery doesn’t require an installation (and takes only 268KB) so it may be useful when you need a free and quick app to be carried around on a flash drive.

eDATA Unerase

eDATA Unerase
This utility, despite the rather annoying popup window, is very easy to use. The program is intended primarily for recovering of images. OctaneSoft disables the functionality in its free version of eDATA, probably realizing the loss of digital pictures is a major reason why consumers seek data recovery programs. You can sort found files by size, folder, type, or name, but the program sometimes fails to correctly label found files. Therefore, if you’re looking for a specific file among many, it is unlikely you will recognize them because the file names will look as obscure abracadabra.

Piriform Recuva

Piriform Recuva

From start to finish, Recuva uplifts your spirit with a user-friendly Wizard. The first prompt asks what type of files you’re looking for, followed by where you want Recuva to look. If you don’t know, select ‘I’m not sure’ and Recuva will rummage through the entire computer. Alternately, you can limit searches to any specific location. Power users will want to switch to the Advanced mode, which provides additional scanning options, a handy preview pane, and a setting to restore a file’s folder structure during recovery. If you need to permanently delete specific files, Recuva offers a secure deletion method of your choice, ranging from a simple overwrite (1 pass) to the Gutmann method (35 passes). Overall, Piriform packs a powerful scanner wrapped up in a user friendly interface with a few useful advanced features sprinkled in, Recuva can be considered as one of the best free file recovery apps.

Undelete PLUS

Undelete PLUS

If you feel nostalgic about how Win 3.1 looked like, you will definitely adore this program’s retro interface. You don’t get very many options, and the lack of a deep scan limits the program’s usefulness. You can filter searches by name, date, or size, but that’s it.

Avira UnErase Personal

Avira UnErase Personal

Avira, which makes one of the best free antivirus programs around, instead of again leading the freebie pack, offers the least expansive program of the bunch. Don’t look for any options, because there aren’t any. You select a partition to scan and that’s it. You can’t limit searches to specific files, there’s no deep scan option, and you won’t find a preview pane. Instead, UnErase Personal takes a quick peek at your drive, including removable media, and finds about the same amount of files as every other program without the aid of an extended scan. But unlike the rest, Avira doesn’t tell you where the files were located, nor does it offer a tree view or any other handy features.

Quetek File Scavenger 3.2

Quetek File Scavenger

Quetek, putting a lot of work into File Scavenger’s interface, managed to create a program that is easy to navigate, even for beginners. In the ‘Search for’ menu, you can opt to have File Scavenger scour your HDD for all deleted files, or narrow the search to specific file types. The amount of different file extensions you can choose from is quite impressive. Single partitions show up in the ‘Look in’ pull-down menu, along with HDDs or removable storage. Quick search returns less results than the other apps, but unlike the others, File Scavenger had no trouble remembering the original file names. File Scavenger updates the list of files in real time, but don’t even try to organize them until it’s finished. You can then sort the files by type, name, date modified, etc. The Tree View function enables to present the files and folder structure as they existed on the HDD. What separates File Scavenger from free alternatives is the ability to reconstruct a broken RAID array or spanned volume.

Handy Recovery 4.0

Handy Recovery Free

SoftLogica’s Handy Recovery started off as freeware, but the newest version will cost you $50. What you get in return is another user friendly interface with a few goofy quirks. Handy Recovery quickly lists all of the available partitions and removable drives, but it doesn’t scan an entire HDD. It takes lots of time if one tries to scan, for example, a USB key. The software offers an ‘Extended Analysis’ option, which performs a deep scan faster than many similar utilities. Results are listed in an easily navigable tree view, but it is hard to detect exactly how many files were found. On the other hand, Handy Recovery includes a preview pane allowing you see the contents, be it a picture a text document, or even a media file. Handy Recovery filters search results by keyword, date created, and file size. Other useful features include search by keyword, look for lost partitions on a formatted HDD. The program also helps create an image of a drive or partition allowing you to open it later and recover files.

I’ve got you recovered!

admin — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 07:41:26 +0000

Five best recovery tools for Mac

Even such notoriously reliable computers as Macs sometimes have problems: be it a hard drive crash, Mac OS X problem, or a more extensive hardware failure. Most Mac users rely on Disk Utility and the tools that come with Mac OS X. Disk Utility, however, doesn’t provide extensive hard drive repair, diagnostic tools, etc. Furthermore, Mac OS X’s Utilities don’t include extensive diagnostic tools.

Data Rescue II screenshot

Data Rescue II

Prosoft’s Data Rescue II is perfect for situations in which you need to recover critical data that has either been deleted or is stored on a damaged drive. It can work with drives that are failing because of corrupted directory structures or because of physical problems with the drive. Unlike some of repair tools Data Rescue doesn’t make any modifications to a drive. Such read-only approach provides a greater chance of recovering data than the process of trying to repair the drive. Data Rescue has both an interface for the beginners and an expert one. The program can sort available files by type, making locating and recovering specific items easier. It can be used to select and clone the contents of a damaged drive. Be aware that a second HD or partition is required.

Drive Genius screenshot

Drive Genius

Prosoft’s Drive Genius can be used to verify and repair disk directory structures, as well as to rebuild directory structures from badly corrupted disks.

Beyond that, Drive Genius offers some advanced features not found in Disk Utility:

defragmenting and optimizing the data layout. Although the Mac OS X Extended (HFS+) and related disk formats are not too susceptible to fragmentation problems, fragmentation can still occur, especially on disks that are 90% full.
Drive Genius allows to securely erase all data on a drive (or just the free space of a drive, i.e. previously deleted files). This ensures that any files not deleted using Secure Empty Trash cannot be recovered without the need to erase the entire disk.
the ability to test the physical integrity of a drive, scan for bad sectors, and conduct performance bench marks.
direct editing of disk sectors (not recommended for inexperienced users!).
resizing of existing partitions on a HD without reformatting the drive. This feature has been added to Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.6, but it is available only for hard drives using the GPT scheme.

TechTool Pro 5 screenshot

TechTool Pro

MicroMat’s TechTool Pro is probably the most comprehensive hardware testing and diagnostic tool that is capable of testing virtually every component of any Mac model. This tool easily detects hardware-related problems and which piece of hardware causes the problem. TechTool Pro allows defragmentation and contents optimization of a hard drive. Along with some data-recovery capabilities, TechTool Pro enables you to configure automatic testing of directory structures as well as to regularly query SMART status of hard drives (in order to alert you to problems before they become drive failures). eDrive function is one of the coolest features of the software: it creates a small emergency partition (with files necessary to boot the machine) on your drive. TechTool is particularly helpful for support professionals because of its capability to test hardware. However, its hard drive repair and data recovery features (while being more successful than Disk Utility) tend to fall short of the capabilities in other tools.

DiskWarrior screenshot

DiskWarrior

Alsoft’s DiskWarrior doesn’t offer the broad range of hardware diagnostics; it is designed as a drive repair tool with a very clean and easy-to-use interface that includes very good explanations of each feature. DiskWarrior is among the best tools for rebuilding disk directory structures. DiskWarrior is so often successful that when someone says that the program fails to repair a disk, it sounds like a bad joke. While rebuilding a disk’s directory, DiskWarrior also optimizes the layout of directory data for improved performance. The new version enables to verify and repair Mac OS X permissions and repair files on a startup drive, as well as preference files, symlinks, etc. DiskWarrior is often the last-resort tool for problem drives. When rebuilding a disk’s directory, it also offers the option to preview the replacement directory to ensure that it resolves problems and to copy data from a drive experiencing physical failures.

AppleJack screenshot

AppleJack

AppleJack is an open source tool designed to resolve problems that can cause failures and erratic behavior, including startup issues. AppleJack, an easy-to-use menu-driven package, has a friendly interface (if you are not comfortable with command-line tools); the autopilot mode enables to automatically run through the program’s core techniques. AppleJack includes features for system/cache files cleaning out as well as the ability to verify the system and user preferences files are not corrupt. It also allows deleting the virtual memory swap file (which, if corrupted, can cause startup problems).

AppleJack’s expert features include:

testing of RAM using the memtest tool, (can be installed along with AppleJack)
disabling of auto-login and login items for specific users (can be helpful when troubleshooting login failures)
disabling specific system configuration files if they are suspected to be corrupted.
NetInfo tools (restoring a NetInfo database, disabling NetInfo automounts, and deleting the local NetInfo database).
The feature “enable new machine setup” causes Mac OS X to enter setup mode as though it were just installed. This can resolves some local user accounts problems without erasing the hard drive.

Hard Drive Inspector 2.100: hard drive monitoring

admin — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:18:59 +0000

AltrixSoft released an update for the program designed for monitoring of hard drives. The program is built on the S.M.A.R.T. technology, which is supported by practically all HDDs. Hard Drive Inspector analyzes hard drives and warns a user about possibilities of problem occurrences. If an emergency in the system is about to occur, the program will suggest the user either to backup the files, or to replace the hard drive. There is an option to enable automatic backup procedure. Other program features but limited to creation and emailing of the reports, automatic shutdown in cases of system failure. The data about disks’ performance can also be saved as a log files and printed out.

“Doctor Web” created an utility for restoring files damaged by Trojan attacks

admin — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:14:46 +0000

A new Trojan program Trojan.Encoder.21 (quite similar to the previous Encoder.19 version) has been detected by Doctor Web. Encoder.19’s principle of functioning is similar to Gpcode that was recently discovered by Kaspersky’s lab. The virus encrypts user files (.jpg, .psd, .cdr, .mov, .doc, .xls, .ppt, .rar, .zip, .mp3, .pdf, etc) stored on the hard drives, and the files become inaccessible. After encryption is performed, the virus creates the “crypted.txt” file that demands the user to pay $89 for a decoder, using a specific payment system. The previous versions of the virus used temporary links, while the new version is constantly stored on some websites (already known as Trojan-“distributing”). This can enable the virus to spread more quickly than before. Experts do not recommend paying the bleeders. Doctor Web created a free utility te19decrypt.exe that decodes the encrypted files and creates new versions without “.crypt” ending. The utility has a graphic interface module that makes the program very handy.

All Media Fixer 2008: media files recovery

admin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:31:35 +0000

NewLive Software released a new version of All Media Fixer, a utility that helps restore damaged unplayable media files. This problem usually occurs if a file was damaged, or if its download was not completed properly. All Media Fixer supports such media formats as WMA, WMV, ASF, WM, ASX, AVI ,MP3, MP2, MP1, MPA, MPGA, MPG, MPEG, MPA, DAT, and WAVE. As the developers of the program claim, the percentage of successful media recovery ranges from 82.8% to 97.6%. One of the most notable features of the program’s interface are four cartoon assistants that resemble comic book characters. They guide the user through the process of recovering. Each of them performs its own distinct function: the first regulates the process in general, the second scans the file and checks for errors in it; the third attempts to repair the file, and the fourth manages file structure and suggests data to be replaced.

IBM presents new cool technology: 4TB SSD

admin — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:23:34 +0000

As a part of its “Quicksilver” project, IBM presents a new solid-storage device, sized at 4TB, the TechRadar website reports. The Project Quicksilver SSD hopes to replace spinning disks with faster and more powerful SSD’s. The mighty 4.1TB SSD is 250 times faster than the world’s fastest disk solution (so far, Mtron Storage Technology’s 128GB SSD was a revolutionary invention due to be produced beginning this year). The industry has already “crossed the 1TB threshold” since Seagate began to sell 1.5TB drives, however there are no harddrives with comparable capabilities. Performance improvements of this sort mean a lot for business, since two to three times as much work can be done in a given time frame. Besides the obvious speed and size advantages, the Quicksilver also is a power-saving device, since it uses about 50% of a standard set-up’s power and cooling, and its size is considerably smaller than its predecessors.

DiskInternals Updates Mail Recovery.

admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:07:25 +0000

DiskInternals announces the update of Mail Recovery, a tool to recover and repair deleted and corrupted email databases. The new release is compatible with all major mail clients; it recovers messages, attachments, contacts, tasks, calendars, and address books. The new version automatically locates, recovers and repairs e-mail databases even when the partition is damaged or inaccessible. The program combines sophisticated data recovery technologies with simple, convenient user-friendly interface and fully automatic operation. The algorithms used in Mail recovery are similar to those in DiskInternals Uneraser that is considered to be one of the best tools in the field. The combination of the recovery techniques and new algorithms allows to fix corrupted email databases after they’ve been recovered. Mail Recovery has a capability to exporting files to Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express formats, as well as eml and vcf files.

WinHex 15.1: a new mighty hex editor

admin — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:49:53 +0000

X-Ways Software Technology has developed a new version of a unique hex editor. The program is especially helpful for data and deleted files recovery from damaged hard drives, flashcard drives, and other data storage devices. The program supports systems FAT, NTFS, Ext2/3, ReiserFS, Reiser4, UFS, CDFS, and UDF. The product uses many different recovery methods, has a RAM editor. Among the many features, the most notable are analysis and comparison of files; flexible systems of search and replace; support of such character sets as ANSI ASCII, IBM ASCII, and EBCDIC; support of large files; data backup. The new version now works with large folders stored on a FAT hard drive.