VirtualLab

Storage devices can wear off in time or become corrupt. This can easily lead to data loss or inaccessible files, but all is not lost. There are an abundance of specialized applications out there which thoroughly scan drive sectors in an attempt to recover any kind of file, and VirtualLab is a suitable example in this regard.

When installed and launched, the application throws you in a main menu to select the recovery option which suits you best. You can choose from PC partition recovery, deleted files recovery, Mac partition, email, CD/DVD, photo, or RAID recovery.

Regardless of your choice, you’re then taken to the drive selection screen. Here you can choose from both fixed and removable drives, regardless of the file system. Additional info is displayed to help with your selection.

It can take a little while for the scan operation to finish, but this mostly depends on the health status of the target drive, its size, as well as complexity. Although there’s no possibility to set up file filters before the scan operation, you do have access to several scan operation settings to narrow down results. These are related to file system type, whether or not to use boot records and partition tables, and several more.

Once the scan operation is done, you can have a look at detected items. A folder tree makes it easy to browse folders, while selection unveils content in a separate panel view. Items are fitted with corresponding icons indicating status. You can manually pick files to recover, and change the view style. It’s highly recommended to save recovered files to a different drive.

Taking everything into consideration, we can state that VirtualLab can be used to recover a variety of file types from multiple sources. Multiple scan operations are at your disposal, and even though there’s no filter option or search in the results sheet, it might just find the files you considered lost forever.