Disk recovery Software - What's your fav?

[Kerrya]

I'm looking to get a disk recovery software that can help with data recovery from hard drives.

I've used software specifically for photos, but I really need something that can recover any file type.

Do you have a fav?

Any advice appreciated.

Kerry

 

[britechguy]

I've had great luck with TestDisk and PhotoRec (which can and does recover far more than just photos, and allows you to limit what you're attempting to recover by file type) over the years. I haven't had to do this all that much, and there have been certain occasions where, based on what was described by the client about sounds the drive had been making immediately prior to failure, that I would only go straight to professional recovery services.

Also, always clone any drive you're trying to recover from to a known good drive, and do the recovery processing on the clone. You never know when an original drive that's in the process of dying will "go absolutely terminal," so it makes sense to make your first (and possibly only) attempt to read that drive being to clone it.

 

[Joep]

If you manage to get away with Testdisk and PhotoRec then I guess that's okay, but you're basically limiting yourself. Bit like, if you have a hammer as your only tool, everything becomes a nail. Sure Testdisk allows you to copy files, but won't handle more severe file system damage. Basically it's no more than a clumsy undeleter. So then PhotoRec. But PhotoRec only does raw recovery, so no filenames, no folder structure and lots of false positives. In some cases like an SD Card with only photos not a big deal perhaps, but different story on a hard drive containing 500000 files. In fact I do not even like it for photo recovery because of the many false positives and recovery of useless thumbnails and such.

A 'better' tool potentially recovers client data complete with file names with original folder structure.

My take on this would be:

You need something to clone drives with (ideally) and file recovery software. HDDSuperClone and DMDE can be purchased as a bundle, sort of. Can be used in tandem and then allows for example even advanced stuff as targeted imaging.

If you don't touch unstable drives, cloning could be done using DMDE itself too. For file recovery software it actually has decent cloning on board, even allows for timeouts, direct SCSI/ATA and such, which is more than most tools. DMDE also has some features that allows it to be used in tandem with ddrescue, for example it can export it's cloning log to a ddrescue map file.

It supports most common file systems. It's has a quick lost partition scan feature (does this automatically), reconstructs file systems and it can do what Testdisk does: Restore/undelete partitions in-place as well as repair boot sectors. I urge you to only do this if you know what you're doing though and first clone the patient drive.

Can be a tad hard to use though. For example if you decide to clone a drive, disk access parameters can not be accessed from clone/image window. For that you need to goto device I/O parameters window. It's not the most intuitive tool. But for $95 you get a very complete tool, license permits commercial use and is lifetime. It's unbeatable if you consider what it can do vs. the price IMO.

The big guns like R-Studio and UFS Explorer and perhaps ReclaiMe PRO are considerably more expensive (for commercial use), and valid for a year. I must add that ReclaiMe Ultimate, which is a consumer product but still very useful is life time license and AFAIK permits commercial use. Lately there are some signals I picked up which may indicate R-Studio (R-TT) will become more aggressive enforcing license limitations.

UFS is best prepared if you decide to expand later on as it can work in tandem with various of the DeepSpar tools.

 

[Kerrya]

If you manage to get away with Testdisk and PhotoRec then I guess that's okay, but you're basically limiting yourself. Bit like, if you have a hammer as your only tool, everything becomes a nail. Sure Testdisk allows you to copy files, but won't handle more severe file system damage. Basically it's no more than a clumsy undeleter. So then PhotoRec. But PhotoRec only does raw recovery, so no filenames, no folder structure and lots of false positives. In some cases like an SD Card with only photos not a big deal perhaps, but different story on a hard drive containing 500000 files. In fact I do not even like it for photo recovery because of the many false positives and recovery of useless thumbnails and such.

A 'better' tool potentially recovers client data complete with file names with original folder structure.

My take on this would be:

You need something to clone drives with (ideally) and file recovery software. HDDSuperClone and DMDE can be purchased as a bundle, sort of.

If you don't touch unstable drives, cloning could be done using DMDE itself too. For file recovery software it actually has decent cloning on board, even allows for timeouts, direct SCSI/ATA and such, which is more than most tools. DMDE also has some features that allows it to be used in tandem with ddrescue, for example it can export it's cloning log to a ddrescue map file.

It supports most common file systems. It's has a quick lost partition scan feature (does this automatically), reconstructs file systems and it can do what Testdisk does: Restore/undelete partitions in-place as well as repair boot sectors. I urge you to only do this if you know what you're doing though and first clone the patient drive.

Can be a tad hard to use though. For example if you decide to clone a drive, disk access parameters can not be accessed from clone/image window. For that you need to goto device I/O parameters window. It's not the most intuitive tool. But for $95 you get a very complete tool, license permits commercial use and is lifetime. It's unbeatable if you consider what it can do vs. the price IMO.

The big guns like R-Studio and UFS Explorer and perhaps ReclaiMe PRO are considerably more expensive (for commercial use), and valid for a year. I must add that ReclaiMe Ultimate, which is a consumer product but still very useful is life time license and AFAIK permits commercial use. Lately there are some signals I picked up which may indicate R-Studio (R-TT) will become more aggressive enforcing license limitations.

UFS is best prepared if you decide to expand later on as it can work in tandem with various of the DeepSpar tools.

I've downloaded the evaluation of Reclaime trial and running it on a 2.5" drive that has been nasty to recover. I'll let you know how it goes

Thanks for the tips.

Kerry

 

[britechguy]

If you manage to get away with Testdisk and PhotoRec then I guess that's okay, but you're basically limiting yourself.

True, absolutely true. But I didn't read the request as one likely to be seeking the best, professional grade tools.

And for those of us with very, very occasional recovery needs (of this type) and primarily residential clients who don't want to pay for professional recovery services, it often works fine in a pinch.

But I agree there are better tools, but they can become very expensive very quickly, and not economically feasible for occasional use.

 

[Joep]

I've downloaded the evaluation of Reclaime trial and running it on a 2.5" drive that has been nasty to recover. I'll let you know how it goes

Thanks for the tips.

Kerry

Cool. If you decide to order, if you do via my website you can use the coupon for a small discount.

 

[Joep]

True, absolutely true. But I didn't read the request as one likely to be seeking the best, professional grade tools.

And for those of us with very, very occasional recovery needs (of this type) and primarily residential clients who don't want to pay for professional recovery services, it often works fine in a pinch.

But I agree there are better tools, but they can become very expensive very quickly, and not economically feasible for occasional use.

Well, standard versions I guess earn their money back quickly enough. My main gripe is that often you're forced to buy their most complete package of which you may not use even half the functionality but that you're still expected to pay for. So for example R-Studio: If you deliver a service you're forced to use their most expensive package.

Sysdev (UFS) is a better option then. If you decide to use the 'Standard Recovery' edition you can still order a commercial license (double price).

 

[fincoder]

Servicing residential and home businesses, I've been trialling HDDSuperClone (runs in Linux) for cloning drives with hardware issues, and I own GetDataBack (runs in Windows, not expensive) which has been excellent over the years and can now even recover files from mac filesystems.

 

[Diggs]

First step I take is a clone with ddrescue before invoking my other toys for file reclamation. Always recover the cloned drive. Never the original.

 

[GTP]

+1 for GTB

I've been using GetDataBack for many years. Its inexpensive and works great.
I've also used Easus Data Recovery with great success, but as previously advised always clone the drive and work on that.

There are many other free and paid data recovery tools, like Disk Digger, Reccuva, etc but I havent used them.

 

[lcoughey]

Just a reminder that there is a resources section on Technibble.

Professional Data Recovery Resources

Looking to get serious about data recovery? Here are the tools that you will need: Hard Drive Repair Tools (needed to fix firmware, PCBs and tweak the drive to read) Ace Laboratory (PC3000, PC3000-SCSI, PC3000-SSD) MRTLab Dolphin Data Lab...

www.technibble.com

 

[frase]

MiniTool works good in recovering partitions, as does GParted. Am a user of R-Studio as well, been using it for a while. Though anything that clicks or chirps get sent off to the people in white shirts.

 

[britechguy]

By the way, for those who've said they use ddrescue, this utility on Sourceforge, ddrescueview, might be of interest if you routinely try to analyze the ddrescue mapfiles.

I can't say much more, never having played with it myself. But I find a lot of graphical representation tools to be quite helpful in general.

 

[Kerrya]

Just an update,

I've been using HDDsuperclone trial on three recoveries and so far it's worked great. I will definitely be buying their commercial version. I might also pair it with R-Studio.

I've also ordered the parts for their restart relay as well, but have not received them yet.

Thank you all for the advice you gave.

Much appreciated.

Kerry

 

[Joep]

HDDSuperClone author was more enthusiastic about using it in tandem with DMDE after testing both. I also think there's a discount deal between the authors of these tools. DMDE is somewhat more difficult to use than R-Studio but nothing you can not get used to. I use it a lot.

R-Studio Tech, latest incarnation is bundled with DeepSpar USB Stabilizer (with somewhat crippled firmware compared to stand alone USB Stabilizer). This may be a temporary thing so if you want to take advantage of that, now's the time. Basically the combo works with any storage device you can 'convert' to USB. It may not always be ideal, but it will allow you for example work with unstable SATA drives and even SSD drives depending on what's wrong with them. Latest version of R-Studio Tech was updated to work with it and also the disk imaging portion was revised.

R-Studio was long time the bench mark for data recovery techs. Nowadays many doing data recovery in a professional capacity pick UFS Explorer when it's license renewal time. In my own work, UFS works very well with USB Stabilizer, and like R-Studio it offers USB Stabilizer integration. UFS Explorer is very comprehensive and it offers very responsive support and ultra fast update cycle.

 

[frase]

First rule of Data Recovery..