14 DAY TRIAL // Archiving is among the most used forms of file manipulation. According to the type of data that you try to glue into a single file, the result may be a small sized archive, easy to send via e-mail, FTP, instant message software etc. It incorporates all sorts of files, ensuring that the recipient receives all of them in one continuous flow. Besides these properties, there is also the matter of security, as malware is known to be impotent when dealing with archives. Also, many archive types support password protection which in some cases is quite strong.
Now that most benefits of the archive have been presented, think about corrupted ZIP files (ZIP is the most spread compression format in the world, although not the best). Important data may be entrapped in an archive and, in most cases, all you can do is try to mend it with some strange tools you find on the Internet. Truth be told, in the majority of the cases, you still end up deleting it with a furious press of Shift+Delete keys mumbling curses between the teeth.
And yet, if you had spent more time looking for a tool in order to get you out of the predicament, you would have probably bumped into ZipRecover. The name says it all about its purpose on your computer: it deals with recovering corrupted ZIP files. It accomplishes the job with no effort from the user, save for pressing a few buttons and defining the paths for the corrupted archive and for storing recovery results. Instead, you will have a quick completion of the recovery process.
The price of the application is steeper than I expected, considering that in my case it rarely happens for a ZIP compression to get corrupted one way or another. Its price tag reads $39.95 and there is no limitation in testing it, except for inability to save recovered results.
A very user-friendly interface welcomes you when starting the Wizard for recovering corrupted ZIPs. The entire process is composed of a total of three steps, all of them extremely easy to understand and go through. Step one of the operation requires the input of the corrupted ZIP file, which is achieved by browsing to its location. If it is protected by a password, you will have to provide that, too.
Step number two proceeds to the actual recovery of the archived files. There are three stages for finishing this task: reading and analyzing ZIP file structure and content, checking and recovering the files and wrapping everything up and generating a report regarding the state of the zipped files. During our testing, a 12MB ZIP was processed in about 16 seconds. The archive contained 325 files and was obtained by brutally terminating the process during compression. For larger files (we tried this with a 290MB archive) ZipRecover took six minutes and 34 seconds to completion.
Third step for completing the recovery process is checking up the state of the files. You will be displayed a list with all of the retrieved files, each being appended information on the status, the size, the creation timestamp and the path to their location. Users can easily select all data with a single click of a button or choose only the files of the utmost importance. Lower in the window, you get to set the destination path of the recovered files. The original structure will be preserved in the recovery folder, so you don't have to worry about quick finding the desired file.
At this stage, all files that could be recovered are already retrieved in computer memory (that's as far as the evaluation version goes) and you are going to take the next step, for saving the files on the hard disk. Once you have defined the desired location for the recovered files, everything is automatically output on the hard disk. The 290MB archive took about four minutes (3'49'' to be exact) to finish and the results were amazing. Out of over 2000 files recovered, only the last one was damaged and could not be opened.
Working with ZipRecover is extremely easy, especially because of the Wizard implemented in the interface, which will guide you through every step of the operation. The recovery process is pretty fast and the effort invested by the user is minimum. However, one thing not present in the application is time estimation, for both recovery of the files and their saving to the disk. It is not a major disadvantage, but it would be nice to have a clue on the waiting time.
To sum all this up, ZipRecover is perfect when dealing with broken ZIPs due to an interrupted download, cut off archive operation, copy, move or network transfer. It can be handled with ease even if you are not a computer aficionado. For those of you hungry for details, ZipRecover will check the zipped data integrity and will fix incorrect CRC value in the archive.
The Good
Integrated Wizard is all you need in order to complete a corrupted ZIP recovery process. Step by step, it guides you through all the settings (which are practically inexistent, as the entire operation is automatic) until all the files are safe and sound on your computer.
It does retrieve the files from bad ZIP files and displays the recoverability level for each file.
The Bad
There is no ETA feature in the software. You won't know how much it takes to recover and save the files to disk, until you get used to its work.
In our case, it displayed the correct size of the last file of the archive (right where the process was cut off) and it labeled it with 100% recoverability, but it failed to correctly extract it (the file did not open, as it was badly damaged).
The price seems a bit steep to me, but I can be but subjective here, as it rarely happens for me to deal with a broken ZIP file.
The Truth
From our estimations, the full process (starting with retrieving the data and ending with saving it to a user designated folder) for a 290MB file takes about eleven minutes. You be the judge of that.
Limitations include only the restriction to saving the files on the disk, so there is really no reason not to test it with your own.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
