7 Data Recovery Suite is the worst program I've ever tried. Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery performs much better and beyond my expectations. I'll appreciate if you could perform giveaway of such tools.


Thanks!!

@#10 DislikesCensorship: try with DEFT Linux (http://www.deftlinux.net), a Linux distribution used for forensic analysis, data recovery and so on

Did anybody else get their system hosed by EaseUS Todo Backup Home 7.0 yesterday? Not only will my Windows 7 system not boot up, all the restore points have been removed, so i am unable to recover. In addition, I installed it very late last night, so I was going to create the boot disk this morning...
Don't know what I am going to do at the moment.

For the drive my operating system is on I use Shadow Explorer.
Free and works by recovering files from your restore points,

After visiting the 7-data web site it is obvious from user statements there that this cannot work with any android that has OS ver 4.0 and above which is nearly everything except much older phones. And yet on their site they give instructions on how to enable USB debugging on phones with ver 4.2 and above - thus useless info. FAIL!

Just what I was looking for. I am very well versed in Android. I know about turning on developer options (tap 7 TIMES not just several) on the 'Build' in about phone. My USB debugging is On. I can see both the internal SD memory and external memory with Windows 7 explorer and totalcommander. However when using this 7-data-recovery suite I can't even see the external or internal drives. TOTAL FAIL on Android recovery for this common Samsung Galaxy phone. I used another program yesterday and was able to see it and attempt recovery with DiskDigger (beta) which is a great App that runs from the phone. I would certainly like to see this program work for Android if anyone has any suggestions but the drives simply don't show up and I've refreshed, restarted program, reboot Android etc. with no luck.

#25 dMf
Don't blame today's software, SSD’s cannot be treated in the same manner as normal hard drives, this is a quote from an informative link regarding them.:-
It goes without saying that solid-state drives are well-worth the investment in order to give your PC some responsiveness, but with all the benefits they can offer, there’s one lesser-known issue that we’ll talk about here. That issue is simple. As soon as you delete a file on a TRIM-enabled SSD, the data is gone, for good.
This is the actual link:-
http://techgage.com/article/too_trim_when_ssd_data_recovery_is_impossible/

I have been working with this program for many hours, trying to recover data from a "failed" SSD. It seems to find the deleted partition but can not recover the data. As a matter of fact, it locks up after a brief search and I need to force a shutdown using the task manager in W7. And yes, I have waited several hours for the process to complete. YMMV but my experience with this software is dismal at best. The statement claiming to recover from, "damaged or formatted hard drive; lost or deleted partition" was a rather bold one which proved to be untrue.

I own this software and have tried several of the free and paid offerings and always come back to 7-Data Recovery. I have accidentally wiped out an entire drive on which I had saved everything I had collected over the years and you can imagine the panic I felt when I realized what I had done.
But....7-Data Recovery to the rescue, and rescue it did! It took several hours, maybe even overnight, as I recall, BUT...I was able to recover every single file from that disk....every single one!
Of course you can't install it on the same disk if you want to recover an entire disk or partition; it wouldn't have done me any good if I had because that disk was wiped out. Anyway, that's my take on 7-Data Recovery. If I didn't already have it, I'd be jumping at this offering.

@18: I respectfully disagree, as someone who has been a go-to guy for messed up storage media and "lost" files for longer than I care to think about, I have to say:

NEVER work from the media you are trying to recover / ALWAYS run recovery software from another drive and save files to another drive.

Why? Because recovery software needs room to store temp/part files and/or recovered files, and possibly info on media structure, and if you have files on the same drive you are working from that need to be recovered it might overwrite the very blocks that you are trying to recover.

I found that out, years ago, trying to recover pictures of a granddaughter who has since died. Some of her best pictures were lost forever, and ever since I have adhered to the simple maxim: never, ever, work from the drive you are trying to recover. Period. Always connect it to other media for the recovery program AND storage of recovered files.
John

Keeping this for a rainy day. Hopefully it wont let me down. Thanks GAOTD :) Nice day!!

Data recovery is mostly hit n miss. Once upon a time I experienced data loss. I tried everthing. Recuva, stellar phoenix, remo recover, etc. Recuva was a failure. Stellar wasn't anything like its name suggested. Remo recover was the only one that saved my backside. I didn't even have any hopes but it worked for me. I did set me back by 30-40$, don't remember exactly how much. And it has stayed on in my system since then.


BTW, why does GAOTD coax users to install speedupmypc by uniblu systems? Its a virus people. Please do stay away.

Re: “Do not install on the drive you want to recover”… LOL

Folks, this is simple: it means do not install if you've ALREADY lost a file. That's because the very act of installing may overwrite the space on the hard drive where that file was located.

BUT if you install it NOW, it will be there, ready for action sometime in the future when you need it.

Will it recover (or format recover) from the infamous Drobo, that destroys all data once it fails, accidentally delete files, or accidentally re-format the drive. AFAIK, unlike other RAID system, Drobo is the only system that has no field, user recovery method. AND commercial companies only have limited recovery options at great expense.

once installed the sw, I connected my S3 with debug USB enabled, but the sw doesn't recognise my mobile. That seems to be a common problem, as demonstrated by claims posted on the company's website (http://7datarecovery.com/enable-usb-debugging/)....I'm sorry but it's useless.....uninstalled...thumbs down

I know Tenorshare also provided such software to recover data from disk. Also, i used iPhone data recovery provided by Tenorshare and think it is fantastic! You can get the free trial download here: http://www.tenorshare.com/products/iphone-data-recovery-win.html

@3 jpotato

Recuva is good software, but has the same problem.
If you install Recuva on the only drive, it will also destroy data on the drive; it needs space to install.
The same problem.
In your case: if you lose data, donnot start Windows at all. Windows writes on the drive some temp files and therefore overwrites space.
Take your drive to a different computer en recover the data.
Or boot your PC from a Boot-device and then recover the lost data.

@7 krypteller
Portable program's has a flaw: Windows has to start and maybe destroy the data, that are lost.
To be certain, use a Boot-device, USB or CD.

What makes today's program any better than the 20 other recovery programs that have been offered here this year?

Karl test confirmed with my tablet with Android and iPad. Actually it has recovered files pretty well and it seems really good to recover from mobile devices.

As several alternatives paid and free have been mentioned here, let me add one more which occurred to me as an absolute positive surprise. After a major crash of two of my USB 3TB discs I tried a range of recovery tools just to try how good they are should I really need them. (I had backups of the discs, of course). And I found that the best one that managed to find and recover most of the files – almost all of of them untouched was StrongRecovery – a software hardly promoted and almost unknown as yet. Quite inexpensive.

@3 jpotato

“Do not install on the drive you want to recover” is somehow misleading!
And I think it's no good idea to store all your data on Windows partition because Windows always has something to write.

My advice is:

If you need recovery on your Windows partition you should have a bootable recovery software medium ready, Linux or Win PE based. If not available, please generate it on another computer (nearly impossible for GOTD)! Because if Windows starts or continues all your potentially recoverable data may be overwritten by Windows itself and that's it!

And please use for recovering a whole partition a software which leaves the partition to recover untouched, e.g. by manipulating an image of this partition only. Thus you get a second (etc.) chance with other softwares.

For file recovery you should try different softwares anyhow as it's difficult to foretell which software will produce best results for some file. So you can combine successful results. And never forget to try "Deep scan" too if needed.

Best remedy is a regular backup in time (best: several generations) and at least for your system partition by using an imager. There are free ones and some given away here from time to time! But backups are up-to-date only a short time!

And it's like insurances: If you haven't got it you'll need it and vice versa (which doesn't mean dirty poems! LOL).

By the way I only twice needed a recovery software:
1 An USB-stick for SD-card with photos: Windows moved the contents but as there is no verify available (in contrast to Fastcopy), I couldn't guess that all target files where defect. I then was succesful with free PCInspector FileRecovery/SmartRecovery.
2 A lost partition being written on at that time (somehow destroyed by a defect internal CD writer opening and closing again and again). I couldn't recover it till now and I think it's no use anyhow as I found lots of bytes with zero contents there. And I lost some very useful big selfwritten programs from another OS forever (hardware and media recycled in between as bad luck happens). I hadn't done a backup yet and I wanted to use my programs in an emulator. But as I had partitioned this hard disk all other partitions where still fully functional after failure. If somebody tells you that partitioning is obsolete nowadays don't believe him.

Installed and registered without any difficulty, opened to a very clean and functional interface.
Tested with Deleted Recovery, extremely rapid scan of eight gig SD card, found a few deleted files.
Used Complete Recovery on the same card, scanned at a rate of one gig per minute and it found many files.
When switching between the preview modes the response was very fast, Thumbnails appearing almost instantaneously, selectable on a really pleasant and functional interface.
The last time this was offered I was not in the least bit impressed, a very different story this time.
A well designed piece of software that is easy-to-use and very rapidly in its operation, if you're looking for a recovery program then get this while you have the opportunity, well worth having.

Undelete-360 and Recuva both are good but I mostly use Undelete-360 . Unfortunately Undelte 360 is no more fully freeware and it's unregistered version has some useful features disabled.

I used to recover data from damaged Bitlocker drive, it found nothing, then I search in Yahoo Answer and find M3 Bitlocker Recovery , saving all my data from Bitlocker drive.

Used this from the last GOTD, works great, better than a lot of the free ones :)

Installed and registered on a Win 8.1.2 Pro 64 bit system. The program warns you, not to install on a drive, where you want to recover corrupted files. That's good.

A Chinese company with address, phone, fax and a Google map:
SharpNight LLC started up in Hong Kong by two founders in 2012, as a small software company but we dream big

A resizable Windows8 style windows opens. You can select the language, look for updates, contact the homepage, facebook or twitter.

You select your recovery options and, yes, there is an Android recovery, too.

This was the one, I tested. Connect your Android device, select USB-Debugging in the Android option and start...

In a new, clear structured window you select the partition or drive on your phone/tablet. You can select, what you want to recover (media files, or documents or ..) and scan the device.

The full scan of an internal 2 GB Android storage took some 5 minutes, it build up a directory tree of that storage and you can search for your lost files and preview them before recovering.

The information are complete - compressed or encrypted files, raw files.

I am rarely impressed. This time a simple : Whow!

In my short test this program makes an excellent impression. You have deleted data recovery (those deleted from the recycle bin, but existing), partition recovery, total drive recovery and a (in my test) working Android recovery.

I'll keep it. Maybe some errors occur later, but I did not found them in this test. One of the really good recovery program. Congratulations to Hong-Kong!

"Do not install on the drive you want to recover"… LOL
Useless… I don't need a thing that i can't use on my only drive, I always backup my portable devices, then if you have only one disk a thing like recuva is good…

But I like the "Preview" of files that recuva lack, and it is what picked my interest at first… but after seeing this message when installing I don't want to see what come next…

...or Rescue Kit (free) from Paragon who I've come to trust now

Another file un-deleter. I'll stick with the free version of Recuva