EASEUS' Free Data Recovery Wizard

very good
key review info
application features
  • Recover deleted or lost files emptied from the Recycle Bin
  • (7 more, see all...)

This article is also available in Spanish: Data Recovery Wizard gratuito de EASEUS

Whether you like it or not, accidents happen, and when a computer is involved, this generally means losing data. For many, retrieving it actually translates into time and effort spent to recreate it, even if several developers make data recovery tools available for free. Generally, these instruments manage to carry out the job successfully as long as one basic rule is obeyed: never put data on the drive you are about to recover from.

Recently, EASEUS has added its contribution to the list of free utilities designed to recover data you thought to be lost. The name of the program, EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition, says it all. Besides the developer, it also relays the message that it is easy to use and that it costs nothing. Well, it is not quite so because it comes with one limitation: it cannot recover more than 1GB of data for you. Other than this and the lack of technical support, this version of Data Recovery Wizard is exactly the same as the professional one.

The set of features advertised by the developer is truly amazing, if you consider that the app is supposed to be able to recover data from lost or deleted partitions and even retrieve your files after partitioning errors or crashed hard drives. Extended support for file systems includes FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS/NTFS5 and EXT2/EXT3. Judging strictly from what the developer advertises EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition is currently the most complete file undeleter offered to users for free.

During the installation procedure, you will be made aware of the rule of thumb that needs to be respected. As soon as you confirm that you’ve read the caution instructions, installation will unfold.

The interface is no different than what the professional edition of the application has to offer. It is wizard-driven, so there’s no place for complications. Depending on the way you want your data to be recovered, you can choose from the first screen of the application window to retrieve files that have been purged from the Recycle Bin, files lost due to formatting or in an accidentally deleted partition.

Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image

No matter which one you select (except for Partition Recovery option), you’ll be presented with all the drives currently available on your system so that you can pick the one to recover data from. The bits deleted from Recycle Bin are the easiest to get back, so there is less time to wait in this case as the application is building the directory tree. If the data is still retrievable and uncorrupted it will show up in the next screen, otherwise you are advised to go with “Complete Recovery” option in the main window.

While testing EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard, we had it recover a set of 28 files from an empty Recycle Bin. The application was able to show details (size, type, creation and modification date, last access time) on 23 of them and recover only seven of them. In its defense, this happened after several computer restarts and writing of some data on the target drive.

Checking on its ability to retrieve data from a formatted partition showed that Data Recovery Wizard from EASEUS is up to the job. After a quick format of the test partition the application managed to show all the lost files, but not with their names or any details attached (thus making search function useless). The files had not been corrupted in the process and could be viewed just fine. However, it seems like the program’s attempts to get your data back after a full drive format are futile, as nothing could be found in our case.

Preview option available in the file recovery panel of the program can prove to be quite helpful in the case of a complete recovery after quick format of the partition; but you should not rely on it entirely to view the files whose names leave no clue as to their content because there is a limited amount of formats that can be previewed. Video and audio files are not supported by this function, and PDFs as well. Yet, it is useful in the case of the most important image formats, TXT, or to view the binary contents of any file.

Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image

The application also boasts data recovery abilities off a lost partition, but we were not able to test the feature to its full extent. However, as long as it can list the lost drive and no formatting is involved, Data Recovery Wizard by EASEUS should be able to retrieve data with no problem.

The types of files that can be recovered by the program make for a very long list among which there are office documents, photos, videos, audio data or emails. In the case of the latest Microsoft Office Word documents, there is a little trick that should be done in order to have access to the text file because Data Recovery Wizard will retrieve the files as ZIP archives. To make them open with Microsoft Word, you have to change the extension from ZIP to DOCX. If the file isn’t corrupted, it’ll open in Word with no problem.   One very cool function in the program is the fact that you can resume the data recovery process (http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/faq/technical-faq26.htm) at any time you want and with any edition of the program. To make things as comfortable as possible, the developer added the possibility to view scan results of a recovery session even after program restart or system reboot. This means that you can continue to rescue data for a longer period of time, without the need to run a new scan. As expected, the results will no longer be valid if full formatting of the drive takes place.

Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image

An option you don’t get to see very often in such programs is the possibility to create disk images of various portions of a selected drive. In the case of EASEUS this sort of backup is a sector-by-sector copy of the data. Advanced usage of this option allows you to set a split size of the resulting file or different compression levels. This is useful whenever you don’t have time for data rescue operation; with disk imaging, you can create an exact copy of the target partition and try to get your files back directly from the image.

Handling the configuration panel of the application is not a difficult job. Actually, if you leave it to default, everything should work fine. For increased success in finding lost or deleted files, however, you are advised to disable the use of first and second FAT copy under the first of the four tabs available. The consequences of enabling or disabling the options in here are explained in plain terms, so that the average and even the beginner user should easily understand them.

The application showed that it could recover deleted and even formatted data, but it also showed its limits. Our tests proved that a full format of the drive would render all the data on it unrecoverable with EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard.

Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image


The Good

The free edition of Data Recovery Wizard by EASEUS is exactly as its name suggests: wizard driven interface that helps you recover your data one step at a time. It will build up the directory structure so you can easily find what you need. Also, you can use the search function in order to get specific items.

Disk imaging option works great and comes in handy if you’d rather leave a time consuming recovery task for a more convenient time. All options are explained so that you know exactly how the scan results will affect their disabling/enabling.

The Bad

The program returns no results if the drive has been fully formatted. CPU usage increases a lot during the scan procedure, but this is understandable since most users do not engage in a different activity for fear of not overwriting retrievable data.

DOCX format is recovered as ZIP and requires renaming the extension in order to become a file that can be opened by Office Word.

The Truth EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free allows you to get back 1GB of lost or deleted data and gets the job done as long as you do not overwrite it. It comes with a brief set of configuration options, wizard based interface that won’t let you go wrong about the recovery and, most importantly, it is free of charge.

There are other solutions that accomplish the same task for free and without imposing a size limit for recoverable data. However, in most cases users appeal to such software to retrieve files of rather small sizes and accidental losing of data does not happen very often, so this can’t be too much of an issue.

user interface 5
features 4
ease of use 5
pricing / value 4


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
NEXT REVIEW: Magic Screenshot