Data Recovery Software: How to Choose the Best Software
Loosing a critical PowerPoint presentation or inadvertently erasing an important spreadsheet can be a traumatic experience. While most may assume the data is gone forever, that's not the case. The only way a file can be permanently deleted from a computer is if a special program is run to do so. Whether a document is accidentally deleted or the computer's hard drive crashes, there are options for retrieving the valuable information. One way to salvage the lost files is to use data recovery software.
What is Data Recovery Software?
Data recovery software is designed to recapture files that have not been written over, whether it's from damaged sectors, USB drives, deleted partitions or external disk drives. The software is able to recover any type of data files, including images, music files, Microsoft Office documents and emails.
Data recovery software searches a computer's hard drive to locate recoverable data. It then pieces it back together and provides it in a salvageable format. Many of the software options provide previews of recovered files, filtered and searchable results and easy file restoration.
“If data has just been erased, it isn’t tough to recover," said Phil Hudson, owner of Contemporary Computers, in an interview with the Toronto Sun. "(Computer owners) think erased means it's gone forever. Honestly, it isn't."
Choosing the Best Data Recovery Software
Since computer owners are counting on their data recovery software to come through when they need it most, it is important they take several things into consideration when choosing one.
One of the most critical factors is the type of places the software can recover data from. Computer owners want data recovery software that can not only resurrect deleted files or files emptied from the recycle bin, but also restore data from altered partitions, damaged sectors, USB drives and external drives.
Some features computer owners should look for include the ability to support both FAT and NTFS type file systems and the ability to launch the file search regardless of whetherWindows can be accessed.
Other options to consider when choosing data recovery software include what type of search, filter and sort options are offered, whether previews are available and how much help and support is provided.
Download or Disk?
Many of the top data recovery software options offer choices for either installing software or downloading it online. Both options offer the same features and benefits.
Top Data Recovery Software
One of the highest-rated data recovery software options is the Stellar Phoenix 5. The software can recover more than 185 file types from a variety of devices, including hard disks, USB drives, SD cards and DVDs. Among the files it can recover are all common audio files, such as wav, wmv, mp3 and avi, as well as jpg, gif, png and bmp image files. It can also resurrect all Office-type documents, including docx, ppt and xlsx. Stellar Phoenix 5 is compatible with all current Windows operating systems, including several server versions. The software provides 24-hour support Monday through Friday.
R-Studio for Windows is another popular option for data recovery software. It can recover lost files from any memory device, including hard disks, externally connected disks, memory cards, CDs and DVDs, floppy disks and USB-connected drives. The software can restore data after a variety of disk problems, including viruses, partition changes, reformatting, running of utility tools or disks with bad sectors. R-Studiocan also recover files from unbootable computers. In addition, the R-Studio software comes with a disk-imaging tool, which can create disk images of a damaged disk for file restoration. It also comes with advanced search and filter tools that make it easy to find files, which most likely won't have their original file names. Phone and email support are available during standard business hours.
Another well-regarded data recovery software option is Data Rescue PC 3. The software works over an Internet connection and can retrieve files even if Windows can't be started. Data Rescue PC can restore files from formatted drives, altered partitions, RAID arrays, USB and Firewire connected devices, camera cards and older floppy diskettes. It can also work with hard disks connected through a variety of interfaces, including IDE, EIDE, SCSI, ATA and SATA. The software can recover numerous types of files, including documents, images, audio, video, and financial documents such as files saved with QuickBooks. The searching tools let computer owners locate their lost documents by file types, file types with wildcards and by date. Data PC includes a comprehensive user guide, with email and phone support also available.
Best Data Recovery Software: Our sister site, TopTenREVIEWS, conducted extensive in-depth reviews of numerous data recovery software options. Their full reviews are available here.
