Some would argue that 'Data loss' is the biggest of the three Ds ('Death' and 'Divorce' being the other two). But no matter how you rank them, few things in life are capable of inducing that same gut wrenching feeling you get from realizing you just deleted a group of files you weren't supposed to, or nuked the wrong partition. Oops!

Lucky for you, several companies have stepped up to the plate with programs that promise to recover your data when you can no longer do so on your own. How can that be? Well, whether you deleted a file or hosed an entire partition, your data isn't actually destroyed, Windows just no longer knows where to look for it. Your files remain until their location is overwritten with new data. For this reason, you'll want to install a data recovery app on a separate drive than the one you're trying to recover data from.

We put eight different data recovery apps to the test -- six of them free, and two that will set you back half a C-note -- and we'll tell you which ones are worth your time and, if applicable, your money.

SoftPerfect File Recovery

Getting hands on with SoftPerfect's File Recovery left us feeling as though we had just engaged in a one night stand. We've heard this rap before - support for FAT12/16/32, NTFS, NTFS5, USB flash drives, and CF and SD cards, among other storage media - but in the end, the program finished doing its thing almost as quickly as it started, leaving us completely unsatisfied. So that's what it feels like being on the other side.

Usually we'd spend some time talking about the options, but there really aren't any, save for the ability to limit searches by manually inputting file names or types (*.jpg, for example). Just don't try to list more than one search query at a time, because that causes File Recovery to roll over and fall asleep. You're probably better off not narrowing searches anyway, as File Recovery found 100 files on our 200GB test partition (on par with every other program's quick scan setting), but lacks an option for a more in-depth scan, which can potentially uncover hundreds more missing files.

On the plus side, File Recovery doesn't require an installation and only takes up 268KB, so it doesn't hurt to carry it around on your thumb drive when you're out and about and in need of a quickie.

Verdict: 4
Free, http://www.softperfect.com/products/filerecovery/

eDATA Unerase

Get used to starting at the screenshot above, because you'll be seeing that popup any time you try to enable what little advanced options eDATA has to offer (at one point, the popup entered into an endless loop, forcing us to resort to the three-fingered CTRL-ALT-DEL salute). We don't think it's asking too much to be able and scan for photos, but 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 in the first place. That's either genius or bunk, and so is preventing end-users from performing a 'Full Scan' without first shelling out $32 for eDATA Professional.

The 'Quick Scan' option (the only one available in the free version) uncovered 101 files instantly, and found just 25 files on our USB key (File Scavenger and Handy Recovery found 901 and 876, respectively).

You can sort found files by size, folder, type, or name, but good luck on the latter if you've recently deleted a file on a non-OS partition. The program struggled to correctly label files it found, even if we had just deleted them. That's a deal breaker if you're looking for a specific file among many, unless by some cryptic voodoo you manage to recognize $RYN3BQB.MP3 as an Eazy-E track (welcome to mid-life if you know who that is).

Between the sparse interface, gimped options, sub-par USB scanning, and having to sort through potentially hundreds of files to find what you're looking for, you're better off just looking elsewhere in the first place.

Verdict: 2
Free, http://www.octanesoft.com/data_recovery_free_edition.html