best data-recovery software?

I

InCogneato

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
1,236
hey guys i reformatted my hdd a couple of times and since then i lost some important data i forgot to back up. can you guys please tell me which is the best data-recovery software?

i dont care if it costs money or free, just give me a couple of the BEST ones. your experiences with them are also welcome. thanks!
 
InCogneato said:
i dont care if it costs money or free, just give me a couple of the BEST ones.
Click to expand...

so your gonna download it..
I had luck with a program called R-Studio to recover files from a Massively crashed hard drive..

But do me a favor.. If you download a program, use it, and it works.. Freakin buy it.. Its the least you can do for someone saving your files..

If its a free program.. Donate..

Edit:.. And you say you reformatted a couple times.. Chances are youll never recover anything from the first format because tis been overwritten.. File recovery only works if you have not overwritten that sector with something else since formatting.. And if youve defragged since the format, chances are youll get nothing.. You may find files but they will mostly be corrupt
 
Evil Juggalo said:
But do me a favor.. If you download a program, use it, and it works.. Freakin buy it.. Its the least you can do for someone saving your files..

If its a free program.. Donate..
Click to expand...

What's your beef? He didn't make any implication of pirating, unless it was before his edit.

Evil Juggalo said:
Edit:.. And you say you reformatted a couple times.. Chances are youll never recover anything from the first format because tis been overwritten.. File recovery only works if you have not overwritten that sector with something else since formatting.. And if youve defragged since the format, chances are youll get nothing.. You may find files but they will mostly be corrupt
Click to expand...

Aye. That data is likely long gone, especially after multiple reformats. However, you can probably recover whatever data wasn't overwritten by the Windows installs.
 
Ditto, R-studio is one of the best there is but even then I doubt it can do what you are asking.
 
i dont know why that guy feels the need to play hero. its justified if someone boasts or advocates piracy. these people deserve to be bashed, and i do it myself. but seriously, all youre doing by trying to play hero is diverting the thread into something ridiculous and distasteful, and it is counterproductive because all youre doing is raising awareness of piracy. i never once even implied it. please have a little common sense in your future posts and try not to assume so much about people as i am a strong supporter of many developers and services. also you have no idea what youre talking about, data is not always written over.

lets ignore what just happened guys. please keep sharing your experiences with me people. thanks for the replies so far.
 
Ahem..
Did you try GetDataBack yet? I'm betting it will work.. it's saved my ass more than once. It's worth every penny.
 
I've used Recover My Files with great results, but I don't like how it doesn't seem to recover the orginal filename. It renames all the files recoverd..... which is a PITA
 
Ontrack EasyRecovery is great, but it's VERY EXPENSIVE!

Acronis Disk Director suite is very good also and a lot cheaper. It managed to completely fix a hard drive that would lock up Windows Explorer once it was connected to the computer. Recovered everything :)

edit: I wouldn't count on being able to recover data that was lost several formats ago. Unless maybe it was located on the outer tracks of the platter... but don't get your hopes up.
 
Get Hiren's boot cd. It's free and has both Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro 6.10, Acronis Disk Director Suite 9.0.554, Active Uneraser 3.0 and a few others:cool:
 
Man, All I said was if you download it and it works.. Pay for it..

99.100% of the time when someone says cost does not matter, in this day and age, when talking about software.. Nearly every single time its cause they will pirate.. I just think pirating is ok if you at least pay your dues afterwards.. I went thru 9 HDD recovery programs before I found one that worekd for me, then I paid for a full copy..

I did offer a suggestion did I not..

R-Studio Worked best, GetDataBack sorta worked for me, but isnt really designed for the type of recovery I needed..
 
There's a limit to how much data the built-in read heads can read off the platters. After multiple formats you are not likely to recover anything at all.

A specialized read head machine at a data recovery service would be able to get it all back, but you're talking big bucks now.
 
If he QuickFormatted the partition(s), that isn't going to do anything to the data sectors on the drive; QuickFormatting just redoes the pointers in the directory and file allocation tables (MFT if you're using NTFS) so the files are still there where they were originally - hence the reason these data recovery applications work in the first place.

If the formats were "full standard takes entirely too damned long formats" (why anyone does them anymore is beyond me but but but...) then yes, you can pretty much kiss that data goodbye.

As for those recommending Hiren's, it's primarily a CD full of commercial software that users aren't paying for - making it illegal - so it's best if you all just drop mentioning it at all before the Mods have a field day with some of you.

'Nuff typed.
 
I also use R-Studio as well. My company has a license for it and it works very well. Very good program. Also, Spinrite has a utility to do recovery but I like R-Studio better.

-Axel
 
bbz_Ghost said:
If the formats were "full standard takes entirely too damned long formats" (why anyone does them anymore is beyond me but but but...) then yes, you can pretty much kiss that data goodbye.
Click to expand...

if you're referring to the Windows XP Installation "full" format, AFAIK the only difference between that and the quick format is that the longer one checks for bad sectors after the format.
 
ChingChang said:
if you're referring to the Windows XP Installation "full" format, AFAIK the only difference between that and the quick format is that the longer one checks for bad sectors after the format.
Click to expand...

Yah, I know, I'm just trying to "scare" people into not spending so much time to format a drive anymore and go the QuickFormat route. :) I haven't had the displeasure of formatting a 1TB drive just yet, full, and I sure as hell don't wanna at this point. QuickFormat ftw!!! :D

Simple rule of thumb: if the data was stored on a partition and deleted, as long as no other data is written to that partition after the deletion there is a relatively close to 100% chance you can recover it but... everything hinges on not writing a single byte of data to that partition after the deletion. One single byte can, in the right circumstances, make full recovery impossible, but that's rarely been an issue for me in data recovery jobs as long as the person that is having the data recovery done adheres to what I call "The Cardinal Rule of Data Recovery:"

STOP what you're doing, turn off the PC, disconnect the hard drive if possible and do not continue to use it in the computer at all if possible. And I mean that moment, as soon as the data is deleted and the mistake is caught, turn off the machine cold if necessary and get ready for the data recovery, especially if it's happened on the system partition. Most tools work outside of the Windows/etc environment off a bootable floppy or bootable CD so that helps considerably. Just needs someplace to stash the recovered data since you obviously can't write it back to the partition you're trying to recover from.

Good luck...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top