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It becomes apparent right away that this isn't just another cookie cutter freebie utility. When you first load PC Inspector (PCI) and pick a language, you're presented with three different options: Recover deleted files, find lost data, or find a lost drive. We appreciate PCI's straightforward approach, which lists what options are available in each category.
PCI continued to impress us with a bit of advanced functionality typically reserved for paid programs. Instead of being limited to scanning partitions, you can also sweep through an entire hard drive. Not only that, but PCI will also attempt to find lost partitions or hard drives, which can come in handy if you've since formatted the drive or are having problems getting Windows to detect it.
An instant scan found all of our recently deleted files (a more in depth scan, in which you can designate a beginning and end cluster, took just over an hour long), but like almost every other software we tested, it had trouble coming up with non-cryptic file names when searching on a non-OS partition for deleted entries. And while we dig the tree view format, you can't automate the task of restoring files to their original folder structure on your hard drive.
Verdict: 6
Free, http://www.pcinspector.de/
Sometimes you just need someone to tell you everything will be okay, and that's what Recuva attempts to do. From start to finish, Recuva holds your hand through the process of getting your data back with a user-friendly Wizard. The first prompt asks what type of files you're looking for (pictures, music, documents, video, or all files), followed by where you want Recuva to look. If you don't know, select 'I'm not sure' and Recuva will rummage through your entire computer. Alternately, you can limit searches to the Recycle Bin, My Documents, a media card, or any other specific location you specify.
Using the Wizard, Recuva did a serviceable job finding 102 files right off the bat, but power users will want to switch to the Advanced mode to unlock the program's full potential. Inside you'll find additional scanning options (after enabling these, Recuva uncovered 397 files), a handy preview pane, and a setting to restore a file's folder structure during recovery. On the other end of the file recovery spectrum, Recuva offers to permanently delete files using a secure deletion method of your choice, ranging from a simple overwrite (1 pass) to the Gutmann method (35 passes). This ensures those incriminating photos you thought you got rid of will not come back to haunt you.
Considering Piriform packs a powerful scanner wrapped up in a user friendly interface with a few useful advanced features sprinkled in, we have no trouble recommending Recuva as our favorite free file recovery app.
Verdict: 7
Free, http://www.recuva.com/
Comments are closed on this article
Raxonon
August 02, 2010 at 1:53am
I have used the Stellar phoenix data recovery software for windows . Its cool and very userfriendly . Although its not needed but alongwth the software we get user guide for step by step operation. I found it cent percent accurate with recovery results.
Marcus_Soperus
January 20, 2009 at 2:49pm
I've had great success with Ontrack Easy Data Recovery Professional (about $200, so it was too expensive for this roundup), but recently, I had to recover data from a corrupt laptop SATA drive that totally baffled Ontrack. After doing some research, I found that a number of users were recommending using the Knoppix Linux distro for NTFS recovery.
I created a Knoppix boot CD, and was able to access the drive's file system after Ontrack came up empty-handed. While Knoppix can read NTFS files, it requires the captive-NTFS option to write to a drive using the NTFS file system. Rather than mess around with that, I reformatted an external USB drive as a FAT32 device and used it to save the data. The result: a very happy client.
Learn more about using Knoppix for data recovery from these websites: http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/; http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=3214
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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.
jayson001
January 20, 2009 at 10:51am
I just bought Zero Assumption Recovery to pull some files off an IDE hard drive that was too corrupt to access. It was $50 for the single user licesnse and I think worth it to get my old data back. Drive I was trying to access was an NTFS drive, and I was running ZAR under XP 32-bit. These reviews say two things to me. You can't get top quality recovery software for free or cheaply and 64 bit OSes are still not quite ready for prime time.
Fuetasoeq
January 20, 2009 at 7:41am
I Use Runtime Software's GetbackData. I have 3 versions. Fat32, NTFS and I also got Raid Recovery which worked well and netted me 20 times more than what all 3 programs cost me!
I can format a drive, install windows on it, format it again and recover the data that was on it before I formatted it the first time!
Bobby Melendez
politik
January 20, 2009 at 5:04am
Easy Recovery Pro from Ontrack has worked for me very well. I use it in a commercial setting and have done so for years. Even on hard drives that are near death, I've had a lot of sucess in getting data off. Customers who accidently used the System restore disc on their computer and not realizing that they erased everything they had, I've been able to get back a lot of their data.
Yusonice
January 20, 2009 at 1:53am
Recuva doesnt seem to work after i reformat HDD and try to recover the files.
Is there a program that can recover files from a reformatted HDD? I hear that reformatting isn't enough to erase files
