When it comes to data recovery you really only have one chance to get it right. When you delete a file on FAT32 or NTFS file system (standard Windows Operating Systems), its content is not erased from disk. Instead, only the reference to the file’s data in File Allocation Table or Master File Table is marked as deleted.

Simply put, deleted files and folders are hidden from you, but not from people with specialized tools. And while the cost of professional data recovery can run in the thousands, there are several professional programs under the cost of $50 that gives you a free analysis.

When it comes to recovering family photos and other important digital documents, file recovery is the one area where you do not skimp. If you go for free software and it works then great! But if it doesn’t it will severely screw up the chances of you being able to recover the software through other means.

As an IT professional I have experienced significant data loss that has seriously hampered productivity and almost cost me my job a couple of times. I learned early on that backups are the only way to truly protect you from data loss. But what do you do when data loss strikes? Simple, grab a professional copy of data-recovery software and attempt to recover your data. The advantage of professional software over freeware is simply this: customer support. If something were to ever go wrong you have a number that you can call and get a hold of a physical person who can help you.

I’ve compiled a list of a couple of software-recovery programs that I have used over years with about 90% success. Each piece of software has both its ups and downs and I will hopefully be able to help you pick a piece of software that will save your data. Remember – you can always download the program and see if you can recover your data first. If you can then you pay for it. If you can’t I recommend moving on to the next program.

-Luke

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Feature Set:

Restore My Data is missing a few features, this product doesn’t support RAID disks, you aren’t able to recover deleted emails and you can’t recover files over a network. You can however, create an image of your hard drive for easier future data restoration.

Ease of Use:

The screens designs for Restore My Data are more difficult to use as compared to some of the other products out there—the opening screen consisting of your hard drive information and a few icons at the top of the screen.

We didn’t experience any problems during the installation and setup of Restore My Data.

Recovery Effectiveness:

Once we figured out how it worked, we were able to recovered every file that we searched for with this product.

Search Capabilities:

With Restore My Data you are only allowed to search for your recovered files by the file type or by looking in every folder individually.

Help/Documentation:

The help documentation Data is excellent; through its FAQs section, built-in help section and email support, we were able to find the answers to all the questions that we were looking for.

Summary:

Restore My Data is decent data recovery software that simply lacks the features and user-friendly design needed to compete in today’s data recovery market

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Restore Deleted Files

The reason why I chose to rank this software above all the others is because of the partial file recovery mode. During my last year of college my best friend Kristina was working on her history thesis about two weeks before it was due. She accidentally deleted her thesis along with over 3000 photos. She called herself deleting old drafts when in fact she had deleted over 30 pages worth of new research and about three months worth of historical photos. You can imagine the type of panic that she was in. She came to my dorm room with her laptop in one hand and a box of Kleenex in her other, she had been crying all night. Doubtful of whether or not I could help her I download the software to see if it could recover anything and within in a matter of minutes I was Kristina’s hero.  I was able to recover about 95% of her data. I was missing some of her photos and about two pages from her thesis but other than that I was able to recover everything for her. Needless to say I was in Kristina’s graces for the rest of college and enjoyed many of her fine dorm-room cuisines!

Restore Deleted Files™ feature highlights

• Recovers files instantly from hard drives, floppy drives and other types of fixed media. If you are a home user or a network administrator, Restore Deleted Files fills a critical gap in your data protection strategy.
• Rapid scan engine – a typical hard drive can be scanned for recoverable files within minutes.
• Scan all files and directories on selected hard drives.
• Search for a recoverable file using part or all of its file name.
• Utilizing a non-destructive, read-only file recovery approach. Restore Deleted Files will not write or make changes to the section of the drive from which it is recovering data.
• Batch file recovery (recovers multiple files in one action).
• Works around bad-sector disk areas. Recovers data where other programs fail.
• Supports standard IDE/ATA/SCSI hard drives, including drives larger than 8 GB.
• Supports hard drives formatted with Windows FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file systems.

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