Now, this is the type of giveaway I prefer to download and try...one that you don't have to jump through hoops for to get the damn thing registered or activated!! I give Giveaway of the Day and the Developer well-deserved pats on the back for this one! Keep up the good work guys!! And, Thank You, GOTD, for all the work you do in providing these giveaways.

In response to other comments here... During the past 15 years I've burned more than 1000 CDs, data & audio, and several hundred DVDs and have NEVER had any problem with the medium after it was burned and tested. Perhaps the problem with people reporting 2 in 3 bad is that they hadn't FULLY tested them when they were originally burned. Yes, I've run about 2% to 3% "coasters," which I then disposed of immediately. The remaining 97% or so have survived without problems using PROPER storage techniques and disk handling. This includes name brand AND GENERIC disks. Nope, I've never seen one "peel." You do know you can't store the disks in a car on a sunny day - right? Thanks GAOTD for the software offers!

Based on the comments, I won't be trying a program which the developers couldn't be bothered to fill out the the EULA nor actually show the program to English speakers to get feedback. Besides, I absolutely agree: there are fine programs both free and donation-based (I LOVE PIRIFORM!) which recover many file types and still have the little edge which is required in recovering the unique formats/datatypes in pictures.

#14, donebythefish: Too many people have absolutely no clue that chaos happens, things fail. I tell my customers, in my shop, only backup what you want to keep. The corollary being, if you don't back it up SOMEWHERE, I have to assume you don't want to keep that QuickBooks db, Outlook db, Doctoral dissertation...? Typical scenario: Q) "So why did the drive fail?" A) "First of all, this drive is seven years old...!" anyway, for any but the hardware-based pros (like dbtfish), I have a liking for R-studio's offerings.

But, yes, you can't beat gurus who delve into the platter-handling, controller-swapping, datatype-eyeballing fun of it all.

My second try at leaving a comment, as a writer of software (many years ago) I feel that companies like this rely on people’s lack of knowledge. Charging to recover for specific types of files is a nonsense, and is only done so they can sell you the same program in essence, but restricting each to specific file types. That is they sell you the same program many times,companies of this type should be avoided like the plague

I have a batch of .Jpg files that I haven't been able to recover with anything, so I gave this a shot. There are 20 files on a CD and an SD. It wouldn't let me select the DVD, and it never completed processing the SD card. Thumbs down.

@8, Brian, try one of the disk doctor products to remove the surface cover and replace it with a plastic polish. I do not know if it will work for this situation, but I have seen excellent results in other cases.

@3 Your failure rate for CDs and DVDs shouldn't be that bad. Check out the article at http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media for good info on the subject.

The common recommendation from many web sites are Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim archival disks as the best. Do a search for "archival dvd" and see what comes up.

I have tried twice to install this programme. It installs OK but when I try to use it I get an error message and the programme shuts down. I can't recover any files if I can't even get the programme to run!!

Cherished photos are too important to rely solely on things inside your home. If your home catches fire, it's all gone. Get a couple of flash drives, put your pics on it and store one at a friend or relatives and the other in a safe deposit box. There are also online storage companies if you can afford it.

I tried wGXe Data Recovery but uninstalled it because it kept setting my firewall off and wanted to launch a file as start-up so I am opting out of today's giveaway.

#3: "... I have about 100 CD’s filled with pics from 1999 – doesn’t matter what brand, I’ve got all kinds – and only 1 in 3 is still readable..."

#13: "... CD’s (brand-label, not the low-price) have a proven lifecycle of max 4-5 year.. DVD’s in most cases even less ..."

To calm any rapid heartbeats that may have prompted, while there's nothing 100% fool-proof, I've had no problems reading well-stored CD R discs I burned in '95... ditto the DVDs I started burning in '05.

I'd suspect the problem [#3] is the way the data was written or with one of the drives -- hopefully the one you're trying to read with, but it could well have been the burner... MyCE [CDFreaks] has loads of data/info in reviews & forums while Nero has a free tool to check a drive's real performance -- the quality of the burns, rather than speed. Since DVD burning became common, there's loads & loads of info on incompatibilities, mostly with brands of blanks but sometimes between burners & players. Some burners just don't/didn't do a standard burn that every other drive can/could read, IMHO burning at max speed can make it worse. If you used one of the drag/drop type of apps to store data on CDs, maybe the same app installed in an old Windows version will work?... I keep a Win98SE VM just for that sort of thing.

Try not to buy a burner without checking out detailed tests, reviews etc. When you get a new burner, buy where you can return it, & try out freshly burned discs in as many players/drives as you can. When you can't read a disc, 1st make sure the prob. isn't scratches, which can often be buffed/polished, & sometimes even coated with a polish. 2nd try it in as many drives as possible. 3rd, lots of recovery apps specialize in CDs/DVDs, & many (most?) offer a trial that at least tells you what you'd recover.

IMHO the best longevity theoretically would be on-line storage with a major company like Microsoft, as data's stored redundantly at more than one hidden & well-protected location. Hard drives have a commonly expected life-span of 2-5 years, because they're electro-mechanical they're subject to age-related failure (even if little used), & they do not like static electricity or rough handling. Tape & film degrade chemically/physically -- old movie film is stored in vaults with a very heavily controlled environment. Several years back there was talk of one layer on some DVDs going bad [I believe it was called DVD bloom or something similar] but the manufacturers fixed the problem & I haven't heard anything since.

One of the ways I preserve my photos is to upload them to Snapfish, Shutterfly or any number of other on-line photo websites. You get lots of free or discounted offers for products, all of which make great gifts and I've never been disappointed. Paying the s/h for a free product (or even a discounted or regular priced product) at least once a year to maintain my free membership and preserve my photos is a no-brainer for me. I also back them up on my external hard drive and on CDs and DVDs. One can't be too careful when it comes to precious memories in the form of photos. And, no, I'm not employed by any of them.

I didn't have good results with their file/data recovery app, & today I had a real world example where wGXe Photo Recovery failed while Recuva didn't... Setting up a quick test I started copying a selection of image files to a Toshiba USB stick -- it failed, likely due to a combination of McAfee Int. Sec. 2010, 7's poor USB handling with AMD motherboard chipsets, & me doing other things in 7 ult 64 at the same time. 7 wouldn't read the stick any longer, & would only tell me to re-format, which I did using the quick-format option so as not to overwrite any data. Doing a deep or long scan, Recuva found somewhere around 400 - 500 files, I chose to recover a *lost file* folder with ~375 image files, & got all the images that had successfully been copied before the failure. With the write failure, the file tables getting screwed up, & the re-format, not the most difficult test but a good one. On a non-system, storage only internal drive I also tried a delete to the Recycle Bin followed by emptying the bin half an hour later, then re-booted into XP Pro SP3 32 & ran wGXe Photo Recovery -- I hadn't written anything to that storage drive since emptying the Recycle Bin, so all data should have been intact, but the best wGXe Photo Recovery could manage was 3 out of 7 image files.

wGXe Photo Recovery is extremely easy to use, with two choices once you click the Photo Recovery button on the left -- Recover photos from a deleted volume or a formatted volume. Make your choice & you select which drive to scan, click next & it goes to work. Once it's done you're shown a file/folder tree with checkboxes next to every file & folder found, including those that never were deleted/lost. Click Recovery & you'll be asked where you want to put your recovered files, & that's it.

Today's GOTD takes up ~13.5MB with 5 files, & the file: "esdrwstt.exe" is set to start with Windows. It uses the Windows Installer, so you get 5 extra files in Windows\Installer & a tiny bit of unneeded registry bloat -- InstallWatch Pro reported 169 registry adds, instead of the less than a dozen for the app itself [it's no big deal, though it's hardly efficient. Ideally you should be able to run recovery apps after booting from removable/external media/drives so you can recover files from the system disk without removing the drive & connecting it to another PC/laptop]

As far as booting from external drive/media goes, boot-land.net has complete packs for download that, using the default setup & your XP install disc [because of licensing issues] for example, can be used to easily create a bootable CD/DVD/USB stick with a WinPE like environ where you can run apps like Recuva portable. For file storage including images, I like to store them off the system partitions/drives, which can make life a little simpler when things go wrong.

Why do companies limit software just to make a quick buck and yet there are better programs out there that are less limited or not at all that are possibly freeware? Trust me, Recuva is the best. It can recover any type of file and it is freeware. There are groups of what you are trying to recover to make it easier but the final option is to recover any file type.

Got nothing much to download from the net these days: just giving my take on wGXe Photo Recovery.
For a photo recovery tool this certainly is good but their are better free tools for this kind of job : Lack of Option to preview the Snaps is the only features which i feel is badly missing and the option to choose from different folders like Recycle bin and My Document which Recuva v1.38.504 does beautifully.
This program reminded me of Icaredata which was given as a Giveaway:

http://www.freepicsupload.com/pics/phphuUEgW-Snap_001.png

#3 Ken is correct. Many CDs, after a few years, will be seen peeling off the recording layer... bye bye to all the date saved on them.

I own a data recovery business. Here's a few pointers - first, ANY medium used for backup whether it's optical (CD, DVD) or tape or harddrive or whatever, ALL are subject to failure. This is the main reason why backups should be redundantly stored (ie: multiple copies) on different media or multiples of the same type of media.

Second, when data is "lost" due to formatting or accidental deletion, consumer-grade recovery software (such as the one listed here today on GOTD) often work pretty well, EXCEPT in cases where the data has been overwritten by other files. To use an excerpt from Wikipedia, "... Typically, deleted files are not erased immediately; instead, references to them in the directory structure are removed, and the space they occupy is made available for later overwriting."

Put simply, if you put more files in the space that once was occupied by deleted files, the consumer-grade software will not find them.

There are quite a few "DIY" tutorials on the web (and YouTube) that show how to swap Harddrive Logic/Control boards, platters and heads. While a "clean room" is the best environment, it's not always required for many repairs.

Regarding the comment made by Brian about recovery services being very expensive, it's because clean rooms, specialized tools, training and software are all very expensive. Even with all that, no recovery service is 100% guaranteed to get everything lost, all of the time. The best way to avoid using our services is backup, backup, backup.

Finally, and this is directed more to the developers, you might consider having this program detect .psd files, as graphics companies and artists generally would much rather prefer recovery of this file type than a flattened jpg. I suggest this only from experience.

Hope this "not really a review" review helps y'all out! :-)

Using CD's / DVD's for storage of *any* filetype for a longer period of time is a rather risky method. CD's (brand-label, not the low-price) have a proven lifecycle of max 4-5 year.. DVD's in most cases even less.
Storing on (multiple) harddrives is for consumers the best way.
--
About recovering data, I've tried many freeware and non-freeware. Since most non-freeware Datarecovery applications are pretty expensive without providing much more results as the best freeware, I can recommended the following freeware apps:

1) By far the best results are provided by the freeware TestDisk & PhotoRec, available at http://www.cgsecurity.org
It can recover an amazing amount of *usable!* data from any type of disk or USB driven storage device.
Disadvantage may be it's commandshell based user-interface: do not expect some sleek designed GUI. Since a proper recover action does require some knowledge, it is wise to read the included helpfile to make the best choices in the application. Fully freeware; no registration; no crap installed-on-the-side.

2) Close to the results provided by TestDisk & PhotoRec comes the freeware from Convar in two flavors:
* http://www.pcinspector.de/SmartRecovery/info.htm?language=1 for recovery from flashcards etc;
* http://www.pcinspector.de/default.htm?language=1 for recovery from FAT 12/16/23 and NTFS file systems.
Great results; usable GUI; fully freeware: no registration needed; no crap installed on-the-side.

For #3: Try CD/DVD Recovery from Disk Internals. It's not cheap but it's the best I've found for recovering CD/DVD's.

http://www.diskinternals.com/products.shtml

Maybe this is a silly question I have here,,, But I guess we DO NOT need to register this software? It is registered for us automatically ? When I click on register it does nothing, so clicked the about and it takes me to there web site and still says nothing about registration? So is it possible I have over looked something to register. I was in a rush becuse I was leaving and wanted to get it installed before I left. I know it was activated by the web site on giveawayoftheday.com. It took me to the activation page. Like it always does. But nothing on the softwares web site saying it is registered once it was installed. Help me if I have over looked something I was suppose to do after installing with registration.
And ignore me If I am just being silly or you can say an Airhead today. :)
Everyone have a great day. Oh by the way it installed great on Win XP SP3, but have not had an opportunity as of yet to run the software.Like I said I have to leave have an appt, so in a rush but will be back soon. I intend to run it later today. Thanks and everyone have a GREAT day.!

Robin

Better yet, upload ALL your photos to FLICKR (Yahoo service) for $25/yr of unlimited space and organized albums to share with anybody. Backing up daily/weekly is their headache! Can access them anywhere in the world..(ofcourse I maintain one backup locally which I use to upload into FLICKR)

Hi,

There is loads of recovery software available for free - Recuva, doing a good job in 99,99% of the cases, is my favourite, and for some really hard problem cases I use a partition manager.
Some nifty tools have been offered here in the past (some developers even offer free updates once or twice a year...) and most of the ones I installed have come in handy at some time, even when I originally thought I would never have any use for any of them at all.
This being said (and having read the comments here - only 7 upto now!) I think today's giveaway would be overkill for me. Si I'll pass...

Thanks anyway! & Greetz!
Patrick.

To #2 Ken Roberts and all those others who want to get first comment, sometimes even if before they have tried the software - Dont' you realise the comments are MODERATED? That means even if there are no other comments when you post, there are likely to be several that have been made already, but are not showing up yet as they are awaiting being checked before being put up.

Better to try the software before posting, look at how many "early posters" get lots of negatives, just because they have posted an inane remark in an attempt to get first post.

re#3

I'm very surprised indeed you've had trouble with CDs. I've plenty of CDs from well before 1999 that ALL read 100% perfectly!

Have they been stored at moderate temperatures and not been scratched or mistreated?

CDs and DVDs are usually ONLY a problem if they get damaged or mistreated! A new PC CD player might help! Also try using a cleaning disk on the player. Sounds as if you use CDs a lot.

Today's GOTD might be useful if the photo header gets corrupted IF it repairs this, otherwise it's not much use!

Some holiday photos got corrupted on my SD Card and the missus was really upset. Tried Recuva etc but it could not find the missing files.
The demo version on Sandisk RescuePro showed the files were still there but I did not want to pay for the full version if I could help it.
Eventually found PhotoRec from http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec and this recovered most of the missing photos for me.
PhotoRec has a pretty naff command line type interface etc but saved my bacon - was so happy I donated some dosh to the developer.

More playing reveals some rather interesting finds:

The first part is illogical, how is the target market of this application (pc users that are not experts) going to know whether to select "recover from a deleted volume" or "recover from a formatted volume"????

Even I'm confused.

And why are there all these odd references to something called "Esdrw" everywhere???

Inside the applications are images of:
"Email recovery", "Email repair", "Outlook Repair", Partition Recovery", "Raw Recovery". Kind of weird for an "image file" recovery tool.


There is a string of file types supported, perhaps it supports more that "what's on the box"


All Files
*.*

Image Files
*.bmp
*.jpg
*.gif
*.png
*.mng
*.ico
*.tif
*.tga
.*pcx
*.pcx
*.wbmp
*.wmf
*.j2k
*.jbg
*.jp2
*.jpc
*.pgx
.*pnm
*.ras

There a thousands of types of files i.e. .doc, .txt, .pas, are this company going to try and sell separate programs for each type?
Don’t waste your time with this program, get a recovery program that does all at a similar price.

Tried it and not impressed, it's all visuals and irritating "purchace" and "Register" buttons that stay there forever (is it even the full version?) The "register" was showing but not actually active for me to click on to check)

The price ($40) is exorbitant for such a task-limited application, especially considering that the primary competition software that does far more is actually freeware.
Recuva is FREE and most digital cameras have an "accidental deletion recovery" option now.

Very specific that it can only be used for "Photos" and not every type of file which they press you to buy their other overpriced tools. This might be free today but it's a huge file for something so simple.

Installation problems:

IT sat "computing space requirements" for about 2 minutes, and I have a rather fast machine.

The EULA was "placeholder text" instead of a real EULA. (as below)
To add your own license text to this dialog, specify your license agreement file in the Dialog editor.

Navigate to the User Interface view.
Select the LicenseAgreement dialog.
Choose to edit the dialog layout.
Once in the Dialog editor, select the Memo ScrollableText control.
Set FileName to the name of your license agreement RTF file.

After you build your release, your license text will be displayed in the License Agreement dialog."

When it finally did install it was a whopping 13 Megabytes in size.

The "help" wanted me install a "Chinese simplified" language pack.

NOT recommended in any way, shape or form.


Download Recuva, it's free, has a simple interface and will recover ALL files, not just image files.

This software couldn't see my H drive which had a missing volume boot record (Windows could) so I have no idea how it is expected to recover data from a deleted volume.

It also cannot see mounted volumes in Windows.

It recovered NOTHING form the three test volumes I tried, yet a forensic data recovery tool I used recovered thousands of JPEG, GIF, PNG and BMP images.

Poor!

@ken roberts
DON'T store you photos on CD's!! I have about 100 CD's filled with pics from 1999 - doesn't matter what brand, I've got all kinds - and only 1 in 3 is still readable. No programme has yet managed to recover anything from them. Recuva not bad, but RescuePro from Sandisk (you get it free when you buy one of their flash disks) is better. External hard drive much the best idea, but even there you should have two to make two back-ups.
Best thing to remember about recovery is that, if you can't access the drive, nothing except very expensive data recovery services will have any chance.

The best way to keep your pictures is with cd's or dvd's or if you want to get an external hard drive I have one that is one terabyte and at 80 bucks total cost is a great way to save more than one computer you can actually have several . Of course when you lose it due to fresh pictures and did not back up this would come in handy , like an inadvertent discard or some other reason . it makes no difference as they won't post my post any way like yesterday I was first to post and first to get stopped . have a good day and all I did was warn of a tool bar and third party crap /

Pretty specific for a data recovery program, only one type of files per program?
Recuva can find pictures, plus email, plus whatever and there are other programs that I've bought that can recover all files from a formatted drive, including usb drives, photo cards, etcetera.
I'll pass on this one in favor of programs that actually do more for less.