Recuva

Recuva is a free-for-the-download utility that recovers deleted files from virtually any disk that Windows can read. That means it lets you restore lost files from your hard disk, which probably uses the NTFS file system, or the FAT and exFAT systems used on USB sticks and most storage cards and music players. Recuva is effortless to use, with an attractive interface that you can navigate easily even when you're distracted by the fear that you've lost precious data forever.

In my tests, Recuva didn't recover as many files as its for-purchase-only rival OnTrack Easy Recovery Professional , but it works better than I expected from free software, and it's the kind of program that would be worth buying if its vendor decided to charge for it. Of course, if it rescues your files, you should feel free to send the developer a donation via its website.

Starting to Recuva
Recuva comes in two versions?a normal one that you should install on your system now, before you need it, and a "portable" one that you can install on a USB stick or other external drive. The main advantage of the portable version is that you can install it on an external drive without overwriting any of the free space on your hard drive that may contain exactly the data that you're trying to recover.

Both versions work the same way. A wizard interface asks you whether you want to recover specific types of deleted files, such as pictures, music, or e-mails, or whether you want the program to find any and all deleted files. You then choose whether to scan a specific drive or media card, or whether you want to scan your entire computer. Finally, you get to choose whether or not to use the option for a time-consuming "deep scan" that can take an hour or more on large drives. (My advice: use the "deep scan" option only if the program's basic features don't find your files.)

When the scan is complete, a list of your deleted files appears in the main window. You can right-click on the list to switch from list mode to tree view or a thumbnail view, which displays thumbnail images of some files, but not all. Like (OnTrack Easy Recovery Professional, Recuva doesn't preview PDF files.) Each file is flagged with a green, yellow, or red light, indicating whether the file is recoverable, probably not recoverable, or gone forever. At this point, you can select the files you want to restore, click on the "Recover" button and select? a location on your computer or network where you want the program to copy the recovered files. Unlike OnTrack Easy Recovery Professional, Recuva can't burn your files to an optical disk.

Quirks, Concerns
The whole operation is extremely smooth, but it's worth learning some of the program's quirks before you use it. For example, I'm skeptical about the value of its green-yellow-red color-coding, because it can mislead you into thinking that a file marked "red" is lost forever when it's actually still intact, because the program reports that a file is unrecoverable when, in fact, the "unrecoverable" copy has merely been overwritten with another copy of exactly the same file. (This may happen when the file has been opened and then saved by an application program.) You probably won't be able to figure out that this is what happened to your file until you click a button in Recuva's interface that says "Switch to advanced mode." In advanced mode, you can view an inspector panel for each file, with tabs that display a preview (if the program can create one for the relevant file type), the hex code in the file header, and information about the file itself.

It was only when I looked at the information tab for many of my deleted files that I understood that these "unrecoverable" files were merely older copies of files that still exist on my disk. The files had not been lost at all, but Recuva wasn't smart enough to recognize that the "Unrecoverable" file still existed under the same name. Of course, this problem doesn't cause you to lose data, but it may cause you to panic needlessly until you understand how the program works.

Un-Recuva
Recuva includes a useful feature that does the opposite of recovering a deleted file?a feature that deletes the file securely enough to make it impossible for anything to recover it. The option menu lets you choose different kinds of secure deletion, ranging from single-pass overwriting, which is good enough to hide your file from anyone with access to your computer, to options that tell the program to overwrite the data three or seven times, which is more than enough to secure your data from the FBI or CIA. The program includes a 35-pass option, presumably to satisfy obsessive secret-keepers, ignoring the fact that even the inventor of the 35-pass option, Peter Guttman, says it's a waste of time.

I like free software, and I like Recuva. For most situations where I'll want to recover deleted files?for example, on a family member's hard disk or camera card?it gets the job quickly and easily. But if I worked in a small or large office where lost data means lost money or lost customers, I'd also make sure to have a paid-for copy of OnTrack Easy Recovery Professional handy for files that Recuva, despite its name, can't recover.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/IyEsqBl-wzM/0,2817,2407759,00.asp

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