14 DAY TRIAL // Recently, I have been running into data recovery softwares. Some of them were pretty good, so I posted their review, while others were utter pieces of crap and they are not even worth mentioning. From more than ten such softwares tested I selected two of them that are pretty good and I hope that the developers keep up the good work and keep improving them with each version. It so happened that they are both free.
After reading the developer's presentation on PC Inspector File Recovery, I thought it would be an impressing application that will definitely recover the lost data from my disc. Unfortunately, it was not quite so, although it gave me a pleasant surprise when testing it on a memory stick, as it recovered all the data I had erased and even files from the previous writing session.
Restoration - on the other hand - almost made me dismiss it without testing. But this was until I learned that it does not require installation, so it would not leave any junk files on my computer. This made me think a little more and put it to a try.
The developer is Brian Kato and he does not offer too solid reasons to make users work on it, as on his web page the tests on partition drives, DVD-RAM, Smart Media and Memory Stick drive have been performed only by one user. S/He reported the software to work correctly on these devices. The developer does not take any responsibility in case of damage to the storage devices due to Restoration. These aspects are not too convincing to put the program to the test.
Anyway, I said a Hail Mary and I proceeded to testing Restoration. The archive it comes with is only 163KB large and - since you do not need to install it - just launch the executable. The interface looks as if the software was built in historic times when Windows 98 was considered as the most flexible, secure and stable operating system. But looks do not matter too much in this case, as it is understandable that functionality came first when building it.
You will not have too many options or menus to explore as there aren't any, unless you count Others which shelters ironically or not the "Delete Completely" option. On the right, there are the settings which cover drive selection, a search tool and "Restore by Copying" function. Some additional options would be checking the "Include used clusters by other files" and "Include even if the file size is zero", but the first one worked only if I selected the Floppy Drive.
The search tool allows the user to type in the name of a file to be looked for in the deleted files. To tell you the truth, I managed to find deleted files (an entire folder actually) only by using the search tool. Wildcards are not supported in this version, so you will have to enter at least a part of the file name. All the files that might contain the name you are looking for will be displayed.
The developer does not guarantee the recovery of the detected files, and after restoration is complete you should check for the integrity of the items. For a fast search inside the deleted items you can type in the letter you want to go to and the selection will go directly to that letter.
In the deleted files window the user will be provided with information about the location of the erased item, its size and modification date and hour. Sorting options are available by these criteria (click on the head of the column).
Restoring a file is recommended to be done on a different drive than the one it has been erased from. This way overwriting the still to be recovered files will be prevented.
Permanently deleting the detected files was a bit scary at the beginning, as the application will display some warning-like dialogs. But after reading each of them, you will realize that they are purely informative and let you know what will happen next.
The Good
The application is free and you can recover deleted files. If the restoration process is not successful at least you can see the files that have been deleted and try to redownload them or to recover them from somebody else.
The Bad
In my case, the data recovery percentage was 50%. I shift-deleted four files and recovered only two files with 100% integrity. But instead I could see at least what else I had deleted.
The Truth
I forgot to mention that one of those two recovered files was a folder containing four elements. I was able to retrieve all the items inside the folder.
Take your chances with the software. It's been a couple of hours and three restarts of my machine (Windows updates related) and my system is still standing. But I guess the software will perform best if it is used immediately after the files have been shift-deleted.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
