Five Apps: Tools for recovering your data

Introduction

Murphy’s law dictates that the data that you’re most likely\r\nto lose is the data that has not yet been backed up. Fortunately, a number of\r\ndata recovery tools are available. Here are five excellent choices.

Note: This gallery is also available as an article.

R-Studio Data Recovery Software

R-Studio Data Recovery can display a progress indicator or\r\nthe objects it finds while the scan is in progress. Displaying the results\r\nduring the scan is slower, but it doesn’t require you to wait until the end of\r\nthe scan to find out whether the file that you lost is recoverable.

R-Studio Data Recovery Software sells for $49.99, but a free\r\ntrial version is available for download.

Pandora Recovery

Pandora offers three recovery modes. You can browse for\r\nindividual files or folders, search by the file name, size, date, etc., or\r\nperform a deep scan. The deep scan is useful for identifying data fragments\r\nwhen the file allocation table has been corrupted.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition

Overall, EaseUS is a really nice tool. You can scan for\r\nspecific file types, and it will even identify “lost drives”\r\n(partitions for which no mapping exists). The results are categorized by file\r\ntype.

Wise Data Recovery

Wise Data Recovery might be a good choice for\r\nthose who have no previous experience with data recovery.

ArtPlus Digital Photo Recovery

While plenty of data recovery programs can retrieve data\r\nfrom memory cards, ArtPlus has one feature I really like: It allows you to\r\ncreate a virtual disk image that acts as a replica of your memory card. That\r\nway, you can attempt the recovery from the image file without fear of further\r\ndamaging the physical memory card.

ArtPlus Digital Photo Recovery sells for $24.95,\r\nbut a free trial version is available for download.