Testing Recuva

[skylark]

Hello, I've been looking for a data recovery program that I could download to a usb thumb drive and use on any other computer, then I came across Recuva portable, (great, I thought, and it's free), I downloaded it to a usb thumb drive and I decided to give it a test run, I loaded some picture files onto another usb drive and then deleted them, and, using Recuva, I tried to recover them, it found the file names but then said that the files were unrecoverable as they had been overwritten, there has been nothing else loaded onto that drive since those picture files. Have I done something silly? (it has been known). I also placed a picture file on the desktop, sent it to the recycle bit and deleted it from there, I then tried to restore it using Recuva, I told the program that it had been deleted from the recycle bin, and it could not find anything to restore!
Is this program rubbish or is it me?

 

[CLC]

What options did you use? Did you use the advanced options menu? Did you do a deep scan and select non deleted files and the rebuild/restore directory boxes? I have used this and it worked well for me. After its done scanning there is a search box you can use also, you can put in a specific directory or search for specific file types.

 

[skylark]

Thanks CLC, I'll check these idea's out and report back to you when I can.
skylark.

 

[skylark]

OK, I tried every option the software offered, I got a lot of stuff back that I deleted some time ago, but strangely enough, not the files that I deliberately deleted as a test. I'm gonna try a few more solutions and see which one I'm most happy with, thanks for your help CLC.
skylark.

 

[ZenTree]

I find recuva good for deleted photos (if just done) but there are better programs out there, recuva does seem to miss quite a few.

 

[CLC]

OK, I tried every option the software offered, I got a lot of stuff back that I deleted some time ago, but strangely enough, not the files that I deliberately deleted as a test. I'm gonna try a few more solutions and see which one I'm most happy with, thanks for your help CLC.
skylark.

I have never tested it the way you are with deliberately deleting files and then trying to recover. I usually only use it on a corrupted disk or file system to get all the customers user files. It seems to work ok for that. I'm sure you know, but never recover files to the same disk you are reading from. There are also much better paid programs out there, for instance get data back for ntfs is good. I'm not familiar with a lot of them so maybe some more experienced guys on here could suggest some good programs?

 

[MobileTechie]

I've tested Recuva several times and found it pretty poor at finding lost data and also at securely deleting it like it claims to.

It's OK to find a very recently deleted file but for DR it's woefully inadequate.

 

[Bobbing]

I've tested Recuva several times and found it pretty poor at finding lost data and also at securely deleting it like it claims to.

It's OK to find a very recently deleted file but for DR it's woefully inadequate.

+2

I too find it useless.

 

[Benchtech]

I use getdataback, for 40% of my datarecovery.

 

[TimJacobs]

I use getdataback, for 40% of my datarecovery.

What do you use for the other 60%?

 

[phaZed]

I too have found that Recuva is indeed, useless. Unfortunate because they have some decent product offerings.

 

[Joseph@Dagon]

hmm i find this thread really interesting.
I use Recuva quite frequently and manage to recover everything for my clients. I've never had an issue with it.
Maybe i should run some more tests on it. Everyone in this thread has only bad things to say about it.
What is the best portable one you guys use?

 

[FoolishTech]

Personally I've been disappointed with Recuva as well but I keep it in my toolkit as a quick and free option.

For the majority of my data recovery I use R-Studio. I can't say it actually works better than the incarnations of GetDataBack which I have also previously used, but I like it a lot better. It's not designed as portable, but can be used that way with a minimum of tinkering.

 

[Bobbing]

I use getdataback, for 40% of my datarecovery.

+2
GetDataBack has never let me down.