Data Recovery Tools

CDRoller is an easy-to-use, well featured and low cost tool for CD and DVD data recovery. It acts as a fault-tolerant data CD contents reader with capabilities to search for lost data tracks, as well as a Session Selector to retrieve the data from all sessions on multi-session CD. CDRoller also offers extended UDF reading features with capability to search and recover lost files. The built-in CD Data Rescue tool, allows you to recover the files and folders from the damaged discs. On top of that, the program can also be used as a Audio CD digital extractor (CD ripper) and media analysis and testing tool and to catalog your media. The main problem with scratched CDs or DVDs is that they may no longer be readable by Windows. If this is the case, most recovery programs cannot access them either - since CDRoller uses a fault tolerant driver however, it is able to overcome this problem. We used a deeply scratched DVD during the review, that could not be read by Windows (inaccessible). CD Roller was able to read the DVD and browse the content.

Recover My Files is a utility to recover deleted files, including documents, graphics, digital camera photographs, Zip files, email, music, video and more. It can recover files emptied from the Recycle Bin, from a formatted disk or lost due to a system crash or virus infection. The user friendly interface provides a simple 4 step wizard that lets you select the file types to scan for and the drive. The program then searches every sector of your hard drive to recognize deleted files by their internal format. The results show you the status (chance of recovery) for each file and it also provides a viewer that allows you to view the content of the file (text, image etc.). The evaluation version only displays the files found and chance of recovery, but it does not allow to recover any files.

Undelete Professional is a data recovery tool that replaces the standard Windows recycle bin with a Recovery Bin, which is more powerful and can undelete all types of files, even if they were deleted over the network or from a command (other programs etc.). It acts as a preemptive measure to avoid data loss, providing a safe way for easy recovery. Undelete Professional also includes SecureDelete to permanently wipe files from the disk as well as extended search functionality to find deleted files based on various criteria. Other features include support for files versioning, free space wiping, file and folder exclusions and more.

GetDataBack for NTFS is a data recovery software for NTFS file systems, which will help you to get your data back, even if your drive`s partition table, boot record, NTFS, root directory is corrupt or lost or when a virus has hit the drive, files were deleted, the drive was formatted, fdisked or struck by a power failure etc. GetDataBack can even recover your data when the drive is no longer recognized by the operating system or all directory information is lost. It uses advanced algorithms to make sure that all directories and sub directories are put together as they were, and that long file names are reconstructed correctly. GetDataBack is safe to use, because it is read-only, which means the program will never attempt to write to the drive you are about to recover. Instead, it allows you to first create an image of the drive, and then recover the data from the image. The program can also recover data over a network or a serial cable. Easy to use and very effective product.

GetDataBack for FAT is a data recovery software for FAT file systems, which will help you to get your data back, even if your drive's partition table, boot record, FAT, root directory is corrupt or lost or when a virus has hit the drive, files were deleted, the drive was formatted, fdisked or struck by a power failure etc. GetDataBack can even recover your data when the drive is no longer recognized by the operating system or all directory information is lost. It uses advanced algorithms to make sure that all directories and sub directories are put together as they were, and that long file names are reconstructed correctly. GetDataBack is safe to use, because it is read-only, which means the program will never attempt to write to the drive you are about to recover. Instead, it allows you to first create an image of the drive, and then recover the data from the image. The program can also recover data over a network or a serial cable. Easy to use and very effective product.

IsoBuster is a CD/DVD and (Disk)Image File data recovery tool, that can read and extract files, tracks and sessions from CD-i, VCD, SVCD, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, DVD, DVCD BD and HD DVD and others. It also supports the following image file formats: *.DAO (Duplicator), *.TAO (Duplicator), *.ISO (Nero, BlindRead, Creator), *.BIN (CDRWin), *.IMG (CloneCD), *.CIF (Creator), *.FCD (Uncompressed), *.NRG (Nero), *.GCD (Prassi), *.P01 (Toast), *.C2D (WinOnCD), *.CUE (CDRWin), *.CIF (DiscJuggler), *.CD (CD-i OptImage) and *.GI (Prassi PrimoDVD). The program uses several retry-mechanisms to aid you in getting the data, even if Windows is not able to do so. Additional features include Mpg (*.dat) Extraction, support for file system properties, CDText support and much more.

File Scavenger is a Windows file undelete and data recovery utility for NTFS and FAT/FAT32 volumes. It can recover files that were damaged by virus or accidentally deleted from Windows Explorer, the Recycled Bin, command line window, or a network share along with original folder names and file Create and Modified dates. It supports reformatted volumes or broken hardware/software RAID volumes as well as file compression, dynamic disks, alternate data streams, sparse files, Unicode filenames and more. With the trial version only 64KB or smaller files can be recovered. File Scavenger offers 3 different search modes, one for quick access to recently deleted files, one for exhaustive search and also a defunct volume search that can even recover files from compromised striped and RAID volumes. We tested the product on a machine that was reformatted a few days ago, and safely recovered some of the files, old desktop shortcuts and more.

MediaRECOVER is a digital image/data recovery program for recovery of removable media used in digital cameras, PDA s, etc. Common media types supported by the program are: Flash Card, SmartMedia , CompactFlash, Memory Stick, Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card, Zip Disks, and also hard drives. If you have accidentally deleted or formatted your media, this program can recover that data, even if the media has become corrupted. The program does not write to the media, but stores the recovered files in a user defined location. Additional features include a media wipe option that erases the content beyond recovery. This free trial demo will only recover the first found image. It works well, we have tested if with a formatted SmartMedia card and were able to recover all images.

eIMAGE Recovery is a tool to recover digital photos and multimedia from media that is defective or damaged, as well as images that you may have accidentally deleted from your storage card. This program works with most types of digital camera storage including SmartMedia, CompactFlash, Sony Memory Sticks, IBM Micro Drives, Flash cards, and others. The interface is easy to use and offers a fast scan, as well as an in-depth scan, and displays the images that can be recovered as thumbnails, while marking the ones that appear damaged. We took eIMAGE Recovery to the test with a freshly formatted 1GB FlashCard, that contained 80 images before formatting (via camera). The program did not only recover all the recently deleted files, but found a total of 440 files, many of them gone through multiple (previous) camera formats. Supports all popular image formats, including Canon Raw (CRW), Kodak Raw (DCR), Nikon Raw (NEF) and several other specialized formats. If you have lost your images due to accidental deletion or damage, eIMAGE Recovery may be your best chance of getting them back.

Active Partition Recovery is compact DOS software tool that helps to recover (undelete) deleted partition and logical disks on PC hard drives. It can backup the MBR (Master Boot Record), partitition table, boot sectors and restore MBR from backup if the partition structure was damaged by a virus or inadvertantly deleted. Active Partition Recovery is able to create disk images and runs from a startup disk. Editor: After a recent problem with my Notebook (XP), which deleted all partition tables and left the disk inaccessible, Active Partition Recovery was able to completely restore the system from a Floppy for less than $30. Sure worth every penny!

Photo Recovery Genius enables can recover deleted and formatted photos from various media storage devices, including digital cameras, local and removable hard drives, CD/DVD disks, iPods, mobile phones and all types of Flash cards (CF, SD, MMC etc.). The program offers a step-by-step wizard that lets you select the drive to scan, the file types to search for, and then presents you with a thumbnail list of all recovered files. Photo Recovery Genius also includes a full-size preview, an advanced filtering option to filter files by size, date and name, and support for popular RAW formats. The trial version only lets recover small images (up to 640kb) but allows for full preview of all found files.

BadCopy Pro is a data recovery tool for CDs, DVDs, floppy disks and other removable media. If you have a damaged disk, Windows usually won`t even read from it, making it impossible to access. This program uses advanced disk reading to get to the data. In many cases BadCopy Pro can recover the corrupted files perfectly or partially, then copy them to a specified folder, in order to recover the data. Using BadCopy is safe, since it does not perform any modify/overwrite operation on your original disk or files- all data is rescued to a user-defined, secondary location.

Image Recall enables you to recover deleted or formatted files from any type of flash memory card, USB memory drive, or other removable media. It supports all popular image (including RAW), audio, video, and data files, and provides an easy to use 3-step recovery process. The recovered files can be previewed (JPEG) and saved to a folder on your hard drive or burned directly to CD. In addition to file recovery, Image Recall also includes a secure deletion feature that allows you to erase your card, so that it cannot be recovered. The trial version allows you to fully recover and save the first 10 files on the card.

PhotoOne Recovery allows you to recover deleted or formatted images from almost any type of media cards used by digital cameras (CompactFlash, SecureDigital, MicroDrive, MemoryStick etc.). It scans the selected drive and presents you with thumbnail images of all pictures that were found, with an option to view them in full size as well. Unlike most other recovery tools, PhotoOne Recovery actually allows you to recover all the images to your hard drive, however adds a watermark to them, so you can verify that the recovery works, before purchasing. The program also allows you to create a backup disk image file, or recover lost images from a disk image file. We tested the software with a formatted CF card and successfully recovered the deleted images. The program is easy to use, however the process of saving images is a bit confusing at first and image properties were displayed incorrectly.

OfficeRecovery combines data recovery programs for Microsoft Office applications into a single package. It includes data recover programs for Word, Access, Excel, Outlook, Outlook Express and PowerPoint. Word Recovery fixes corrupted Word documents, Outlook and Outlook Express Recovery fix corrupted mail folders, Access recovery can recover data from corrupted Access (.mdb databases). The components can also be purchased separately ($399 each).

Recover Disc is data recovery software that can help you extract data from scratched, damaged, defective or incorrectly burned CD and DVD discs, even if they cannot be read by Windows or other software. The program extracts the intact portions of the disk and also attempts to recover problem areas. If it encounters bad blocks you can choose to retry or skip the block and try recovery from a different disc reader later - partially extracted data of the same file can be automatically merged. You can choose to extract individual files or save the entire disc as .ISO image. Recover Disk supports all types of CD and DVD media with ISO or UDF file systems, including discs burned by video cameras and recorders.

Active@ UNDELETE is a data recovery software that helps to recover lost, deleted and formatted data on local and network drives, as well as removable drives and digital media like Secure Digital, CompactFlash, SmartMedia, MemoryStick etc. The program supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS files on any Windows systems including servers versions. In addition, the program supports EFS (Encrypting File System) file recovery, damaged RAID reconstruction and also allows you to create a disk image to further protect your data.

CardRecovery enables you to recover deleted or formatted images from digital camera memory cards, including SD, CF, xD, Memory Sticks and various other card types. The program provides a 3-step interface that allows you to select the type of files to scan for, a list of the recoverable files and a thumbnail preview. CardRecovery supports all common image files as well as audio and video formats and several popular RAW formats.

DocRepair is a fully automatic data recovery tool for corrupt MS Word documents. It supports all versions of Microsoft Word and various damage situations. The program uses a simple 3-step interface, that allows you to select the document and then start the recovery process. Evaluation version allows you to preview the recovered document, but you cannot save it.

CD Data Rescue recovers files from damaged or defective CD's. Any time you get an error reading a file, CD Data Rescue can help you to recover it. You can easily recover files, folders, and even deleted files from CD-Rs and CD-RWs. The program can also recover files from quick formated CD-RWs. It offers an easy to use interface, with all options accessible by pushing buttons. CD Data Rescue is designed to operate with either IDE or SCSI drives and CD recorders.

Handy Recovery is data recovery software that enables you to restore accidentally deleted files and files from formatted or deleted partitions. You can recover your data immediately or save it as disk image to recover them later and/or to prevent further damage to the file(s). Handy Recovery can restore entire folder structures or individual files and supports FAT12/16/32, NTFS and NTFS 5 file systems as well as CompactFlash, SmartMedia and Secure Digital cards. The trial version allows you to recover one file per day.

Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR) is a read-only data recovery solution, that extracts data from the damaged HDD to another medium (typically an additional HDD), leaving the original disk intact. ZAR can recover FAT16/32 and NTFS (including NTFS5) volumes and supports long file names, national language and NTFS compression. The program can typically recover volumes accidentally formatted or corrupted by a virus, power strike etc. The main interface operates under Windows, however it also provides an optional DOS mode in which it can also scan for and retrieve partitioning information from the damaged disk. ZAR can automatically save the recovered disk to a new disk image, so you can simple load the image and recover additional files at a later time.

OutlookFIX enables you to recover and undelete Outlook email messages, Contacts, Tasks, Calendar entries and other Outlook items. A step-by-step wizard guides you through the process of selecting the .PST file and selecting the items to be recovered. In addition to data recovery, OutlookFIX can also be used to split your .PST file into several smaller .PST files to overcome the 2BG limit and associated problems. This file splitting feature also allows the user to burn one Outlook PST file onto several CDs. The program recovers files created in all versions of Outlook including 95, 97, 2000, 2002 (XP), 2003 and 2007.

R-Undelete is an easy-to-use yet powerful file undelete solution for FAT, NTFS, NTFS5, and Ext2FS file systems. R-Undelete can undelete files on any valid logical disks visible by the host OS. After the program scans the selected drive, you can select the files to be restored from an easy to understand tree view that marks deleted files in red. The program cannot undelete files on damaged or deleted volumes or in the case of hard drive repartitioning.

RecoverPlus Pro allows you to recover delete images from your hard drives or any type of removable storage media including CF cards, SD cards, Memory Sticks, SmartMedia, CD/DVD, digital cameras, cell phones and more. It supports more than 40 file types by default, including several RAW formats, and new formats can be automatically added using a unique TransPict Adaptive engine. The simple, bare-bone interface offers a preview of the images that are found and can be recovered, as well as options to save the files, explore the folder, test the media speed and more. RecoverPlus Pro includes a quick search feature that recover images that were simply deleted, and two additional scan options for media that has been formatted. The trial version of RecoverPlus Pro allows to to recover up to 64mb of images.

DiskInternals Flash Recovery allows you to recover deleted, lost or formatted photos images from hard-drives, external drives, cameras and flash memory devices including Smart Media, Compact Flash, Memory Stick, MicroDrive, xD Picture Card, Flash Card, PC Card, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card, and others. The program is very easy to use, just select the drive to scan, and it will present you with thumbnails of the images that can be recovered. In order to actually recover the files, you need to purchase the product first. The program appears to support several RAW formats as well, we tested it with Canon CR2 files, which is a fairly new format and it worked fine.

Easy Undelete is an easy-to-use undelete program for FAT and NTFS file systems. It can recover deleted files, even if they have been emptied from the Recycle Bin or erased by other programs. Easy Undelete supports all types of media such as hard disks, floppy, Zip and Jaz drives, Flash and Smart card readers and more. This allows you to not only recover deleted files from your PC, but also from your digital camera card or similar devices. Trial version is limited to files smaller than 32kb.

Active@ File Recovery will recover data after formatting or loss of partitions and recover files that have been lost by formatting, damage, virus, or directory destruction. It supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS disk volumes and can run from a floppy disk, to prevent that the installation overwrites any data. Active@ File Recovery is easy to use and offers an Explorer-like interface. It scans your drives and marks all deleted files in a different color and allows you to recover them. In addition, you can use the program to create a disk image of any selected drive.

MSSQLRecovery is a data recovery program for Microsoft SQL Server databases. It offers a powerful recovery engine designed to retrieve data from most damaged databases and a simple user interface allows to recover your data by simply selecting the .mdf or .dat file. The recovered data is output as SQL scripts. The program can recover tables, stored procedures and views as well as default values, primary keys and more.