14 DAY TRIAL // Since I learned that the data on hard drives cannot be deleted as easily as it may appear, I was fascinated by the softwares that are designed to recover it from broken storage media or devices. There aren't too many such applications and those that really deliver the promise of retrieving the information from broken hard drives or formatted disks are quite a few.
Until now I have met only two programs that really recovered the lost files from the hard disk. One of them is EasyRecovery and the other is GetDataBack. All the others delivered their promises only partially and most of them could not even recover the files I had shift-deleted a few minutes earlier. However, they all converged in one thing, and that is that they could read the lost data; not all of it, but I was able to see a big part of the files I had deleted from the Recycle Bin.
Digital MediaRescue Professional is a Regall LLC product designed to recover lost data from a multitude of storage devices, like digital cameras, audio recorders, MP3/WMA players, mobile phones or PDAs, hard drives, SmartMedia cards, Memory Sticks, CD/DVD discs, etc. The software supports retrieving a pretty wide range of file formats (JPEG, AVI, MOV, MP3, WMA, WAV, etc.) even from formatted or physically damaged storage media.
The trial version does not perform an actual recovery of the files as this option is restricted, but you will be displayed with the files that can be recovered and due to the Preview function the user can see the images in a little thumbnail.
The wizard like interface allows the users an easy use and handling of the program. The principle of its working is very simple and it is described in the first step towards recovering your data. First an analysis of the the sectors on the selected device will be performed so that the deleted and lost files are found. When a recognized data sequence is located, the application will start the recovery process by reconstructing the file on a different disc.
Saving the recovered files on a different disc is an essential aspect of the recovery process because as you well may know, this way overwriting the still to be retrieved files is prevented.
The configuration of Digital MediaRescue can be done right from the start, from the Menu tab located in the lower left hand corner of the first screen. Four tabs are waiting for your changes, but only two of them are worth mentioning: Drive Access and Confirmations. The other two tabs deal with turning on and off the starting splash screen at the launch of the program and language settings.
Digital MediaRescue Professional allows the user to set the number of retry attempts for accessing the drive, the delay between the attempts, specify the read/write buffer size (for a better performance you should increase the value - the maximum value is 10MB). Cluster search threads can be modified and you can set a maximum number of 99 threads to analyze the data. Confirmations tab is for setting the warning message display whenever you are closing the application, stopping the scan, recovery abort or file overwrite.
After choosing the media you want to rescue the files from the File Types window will be displayed. The user can choose between video, miscellaneous documents, images and audio files. Each category shows the file formats included in the detection. Ticking the boxes next to them will reduce the drive scan. A very interesting aspect has to be mentioned: you can add your own extension to the search if the desired file type is not listed. The action can be achieved by right clicking anywhere in the list and choosing Add and completing the required fields.
A set of filters is available in case you want to recover a specific file and the user can specify a certain time interval, or size of the item. Of course, you can use name wildcards for a more accurate result. Scanning has two options: Scan Free Drive Space Only, which is the done very fast as only the free clusters will be checked, and Scan Entire Drive, which will include the invisible files and every cluster will be checked. The time difference between the two types of scans is considerable.
The rescue folder, as mentioned before, has to be on a different logical disc as if this rule is broken all the data will be lost for good. The scan will not take too long and very soon you will be able to see the files the software has detected during the scan. The results window contains "live" and "deleted" elements. The difference is that the "live" data is currently available on your hard disc while the "deleted" items represent the recovered files.
In the case of images, the application is equipped with an internal image viewer that will give you a thumbnail preview of the file. As the trial version restricts the recovering of data I can draw the conclusion that the pictures that are displayed in the preview window can still be retrieved.
An additional cluster scan will be performed to check deeper on the hard disc. The progress log will display the files that were already detected during the first scan and will also show the action taken on them (they are skipped).
The Good
Easy to use recovery tool. I managed to view all the files (images) from a memory stick, so I gather that the viewable pictures could have been recovered if I were to use a registered version of the software.
The Bad
Personally, I wish I could recover at least a number of files, just to see the true power of the application.
Some of the files had the creation date scrambled. The proof was that one image was dated 1/1/1601 (check the screenshots).
The Truth
The test I did with my memory stick was to shift-delete the files and put the application at work. I was able to see almost all the pictures from a previous write session.
It would have been of much greater help in deciding whether to buy the application or not if it had as restriction recovering only a limited number of files. That explains the three stars overall rating.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
