Downloaded it, played with it, tested it. Did not work

It's been said before in the forums and in this section:
Install the data recovery application on a drive other than the one that contains the "lost" data.

Yes, http://www.recuva.com works perfectly, and is free.

@36 "Let’s face it, if you completely fill up the hard drive, there won’t be any old data left to recover."

Excellent point! Who of us does not have a full hard drive?

Numerous random crashes on Vista (Basic, 32).
Super slow scanning.
Takes forever to find nothing.

Horrible product. No wonder they're giving it away today.

I use Handy Recovery:

http://www.handyrecovery.com/handyrecovery-fw.exe

The link is tho the free version, but an upgraded version 4 is also available for purchase.

downloaded installed activated ok clicked on scan c disc it started to work then nothing just a split gui on screen uninstalled windows xp media centre service pack 3.5

@ PowerPoint2DVD
Undelete Plus is not free as it costs $35/£22. It is however free to try but that requires registering with an email account.

Installed fine rebooted then ran app, app launched chose full scan. Went to next screen and did nothing. Nice app if you want to waste space I wonder did it install something else????? Very strange for an to just do nothing..... Removed the app. Thanks but No. Thanks.

Does not seem to be working for me at all. Downloaded and installed very quickly, but, as with other users, it did not show anything for the scan results, a very unlikely result.

About a week ago the laptop from our sales/marketing manager crashed, just refused to start and Bill Gates keep on saying sorry...
Since everything extremely important (contacts, quotations, the whole nine yard) was on the HD I hat to get it back as quick as possible. Removed the HD and placed it in an external case. On my computer it couldn't even be detected, nil nada, not here!
The same night I downloaded NTFS Data Recovery from Undelete Company www.the_undelete.com, and here we are, C, and D, partition showed up, made a scan and it found 107,369 files after about 15 minutes scan. Nicely displayed as in Windows Explorer. Including all or most of all, long time ago, deleted files still on the disk. Convinced myself that the data can be rescued and bought the software online. One more scan after registration and backed up C, and D, partitions on my computer. Next morning installed everything on a new HD, in the afternoon she was back in business! Last weekend, just for fun, I deleted all on C and D, reformatted, made new partitions, removed them again, made new ones of different size and still 100% could be recovered!
Just now I have tried to scan with todays offer. After about 1 hour scanning it showed only 5 bars progress and I quit, have better things to do!

Comparison:
NTFS Data Recovery: $99.95 worth every single cent!
As it says, works “only” for NTFS system, but it WORKS.
The full version HD Recovery Pro will set you back $139.95 So what, if you can get back all your data!

GRT Data Recovery: $69.95 worth what?

If you are about to loose 3000+ business contacts, several hundred quotations, $ 99.95 means absolutely nothing. Even when, where I write from, $100.00 pays about 2 weeks salary of our office/dispatch boy!

Best regards from the tropics!

Downloaded and installed program on Win XP SP3 computer. Activated program successfully. Deleted install files from C:\temp. Started program and selected "Quick Scan" on C:\. Program immediately went to "Step 2: Please select files to recover" screen but did not show any files to recover even though I had just erased install files from "C:\temp" folder seconds before running program. Re-started program and selected "Complete Scan (recommended)" with same result. Program starts but does not appear to be scanning. Also tried scanning 2 other hard drives, 2 USB keys, and external USB hard drive with same result. Program does not appear to be scanning at all.

Assessment: complete waste of time and probably the most dysfunctional program I have ever tried from GAOTD - uninstalling.

Downloaded and installed. Doesn't work well on Windows 7 at all. Had some test files to play around with (recover) and GRT failed miserably. Downloaded a FREE utility (http://www.recuva.com) and was able to recover all the files I purposely deleted.

Doesn't work under Windows 3.1

Tried to find tiles I just deleted.
Took FFFFFFFFFFFFFFOOOORRRREEEEEVVVVVEEEEEERRRRRRRR.
I'll pass on this one.

This program installed and activated fine on my XP Pro laptop. There were no crashes when running the program but interestingly enough the program did not recognize all of my drives. I ran a full scan ("recommended")on a drive and after 8 hrs it had only reached what I will interpret as the 45% mark. Definitely very slow even for a sector by sector scan but I suppose that if it were important data I was trying to recover it would be worth it given it succeeded. I could not wait for the scan to complete and was confused that there was no cancel scan option. I'm not knowledgeable enough with this type of program to know if this is by design but my only option was a ctrl-alt-delete. Not a particularly good way to stop a program I must say.

I have Win XP. I downloaded and activated this software on 2 separate occasions. I have 2 external HD's plus the laptop I'm using. I ran the software after both installs and it didn't find a single recoverable file on ANY of the 3 drives. I'm not convinced that this software functions properly.

#38, Steelers6, that's hilarious, they're probably trying to get their product to show up in searches for other products. A list of just data recovery software is Data Recovery Software Alternatives on GrtSoft.com.

#41, mike, while it's possible that GRT Data Recovery out-performed Recuva, I'd be surprised. I have two questions. One, you said that GRT also listed non-deleted files. Since it doesn't work on my PC, I can't test it. Were all of the files which you recovered previously deleted? Two, the GRT Data Recovery Screenshots show a major no-no, restoring files to the same volume that they're being recovered from. If you did that, it's likely that deleted files were overwritten. In any case, when there's a difference between two file recovery utilities, one should always re-run the first, to check if something changed on the volume.

As for estimates of file recoverability, they're just that. Files which are marked as damaged or unrecoverable, are. Files which are marked as "excellent" may not be, especially if they're small.

For the people asking about memory cards, USB flash drives, etc., they're typically formatted as standard FAT volumes, so just about any data-recovery software should work on them. If the file tables have been damaged, most recovery software can be requested to do a sector-by-sector ("low-level", "deep", etc.) scan for data, looking for file headers, etc., which identify possibly recoverable files. That only works for files which are contiguous across sectors.

Not very fond of this program. Would not install on Vista 32bit too well and on my computer, it didn't even find any files so I could not even test how well it even found files. Why have this program? Just don't delete any files that you don't want to delete! Just that easy!

This is not good, months here and nothing worth downloading.

Win XP, SP3 - I loaded it, activated it and ran it on my main flash drive. It found several deleted files. I think that it works fine.

For those needing (waiting for a GAOTD version) of a decent software to recover files, keep an eye out for "Data Recovery Wizard Professional".
It has been here a couple of times in the past, and having used it in a couple of emergencies, it worked really well.
I'm not installing todays program for obvious reasons, but much appreciation to the GAOTD folks for giving us an opportunity to try out free versions of software !
Have a good day,,
Mansion Trash

I think I'll hang on to GRT Data Recovery...
Using XP Pro SP3 32 I took a "Qick" look at GRT Data Recovery (sorry -- couldn't resist the "Qick" tease)... Fire this floppy sized (1.3 MB) app up & I get a simple window showing 4 partitions across 2 hard drives. At the bottom there are 2 radio buttons giving me a choice of a Quick or Complete Scan -- I chose quick, selected a partition where I had deleted some files the other day (& hadn't used much since), then clicked the Scan button. After a minute or so I'm presented with a list of folders & files in a new window, with a checkbox next to each. To me it's annoying that files are listed that haven't been deleted -- why? Also there's no indication of which files/folders have a good chance of recovery, which is something I've come to expect from un-delete programs. I expanded the folder tree where the files I'm looking for had been stored, & tried 4 short video clips -- 2 worked after being restored.

For comparison I fired up Recuva & did a quick scan of the same folder... The 2 recovered video clips that weren't playable were colored red -- if GRT Data Recovery had told me they weren't any good I wouldn't have tried. In this case it didn't matter much because I chose small files, but I could have wasted a lot of time if I had tried to restore several gig. What was interesting though was that only 1 of the 2 working clips I had already recovered were listed in Recuva -- GRT Data Recovery found one that Recuva missed.

In a nutshell, IMHO anyway, GRT Data Recovery isn't 1st string, because it's missing too many features... OTOH it's worth keeping as a backup to try if/when you don't get everything you're after using Recuva &/or your other, primary un-delete software.

For those in need, my computer took a nose dive after installing a service pack, lucky for me I found http://www.recuva.com/ it is free and found a great majority of my precious files and pictures.

There is also a freeware to recover lost pictures and right from your digital camera and sim card, http://www.photorecoveryfreeware.com/

This freeware save my photos from my camera and it was free.

To follow up, I purposly deleted files after installation and even kept some in my recycle bin, it found "NONE"!!!

Installed on vista 64 os, kept having to close, finally got it to run a scan but it found "NOTHING". I really do think something is terribly wrong with this software and the developer needs to know right away.

Interesting when I went to their site no help except for e-mail. Also they have listed freeware alternatives listed right on their site look here: http://www.grtsoft.com/sitemap/

Software alternatives to GRTSoft Data Recovery
*Active UNERASERAvira *UnEraseData *DoctorData *Recovery
WizardDisk
DoctorDiskInternals
UneraserEasy
UndeleteEasyRecoveryEasyRecovery
FileRepairEasyRecovery ProfessionalFAT Data
RecoveryHandy
RecoveryHetman
UneraserMareew
File RecoveryNTFS
Data RecoveryNucleus
Data RecoveryPro Data
DoctorRecover
My FilesRecoveryFIXR-StudioR-Tools
TechnologyR-UndeleteStellar
PhoenixStellar Phoenix File
RecoveryUndeleteUneraseUneraserWindows
Data RecoveryUndelete
PlusRecuvaAvira
UnErase
PersonalmmCARD
Recoverysmart
recoveryPC
Inspector File RecoveryGetDataBackOptimum
Data RecoveryDERescue
Data RecoveryBoomerang
Data RecoverySelkie Rescue
Data RecoveryARAX
Disk DoctorOntrack
Data RecoveryPCMesh
Data Recovery and WipeRestorationHDD Regenerator

Either they are very kind to put this in their sitemap which was somewhat hidden when looking for help or perhaps they know something is amiss with their software.

At any rate, something is terribly wrong with this software.

For those with Memorysticks and SD cards perhaps try this one (from the PC-Inspector site). The site should start in English with this link:

http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/smart_recovery/info.htm?Language=1

Try testing this program by deleting a file and then recover it immediately. Those that say it does not work probably waited too long so that their files marked for deletion were overwritten, but who knows? The best way to use these kind of programs is to recover lost files immediately before their fragmented clusters are overwritten. Let's face it, if you completely fill up the hard drive, there won't be any old data left to recover.

XP sp3 after scan it just freezes!

#2 There is a freeware alternative only limitation restricted 4 folders per run Zero Assumption Tool (ZAR) work also with SD cards I think.
Thanks GAOTD
Nándor

# 9 Steve M

9.Free alternative: DiskDigger. It does your standard undelete as well as a sector scan by filetype




YEAH!!

Great tool: I agree with you!!

The only drawback is that it fails to display the files names found, so if you had previously deleted many files of the same format and don't remember the exact name of the file you want to restore it's a pain to track it down.

Another good free alternative is TUNE UP UTILITES 2008 which can be downloaded for free following the instructions at the link below:

http://dottech.org/freebies/6255


It has a DATA RECOVERY MODULE to restore files previously deleted by mistake but, unlike DISKDIGGER, it's also capable to display the files names found.


Cheers from Italy!!

Giovanni

If the complaints and bad reviews weren't enough to put me off this one, the author's other product called "Advanced Woman Calendar" would do it all by itself.

C'mon - you're going to trust your files to the creator of Advanced Woman Calendar? Really?

I don't know what this soft is worth, but what I can say is that it's expensive! (except for today). I've had a bizarre experience a few weeks back, had a data partition gone "raw" and have used a few major data recovery softs lent by buddies with no results...Have also tried most freewares, nada...Then I saw on a forum " File Scavenger " warmly recommended, bought it for 49 bucks and in less than 4 hrs completely recovered perfectly all my data in folders with names and so on....
FWIW....

does it recover my 8gb inca flash?
lost folders.

An older version failed horribly for me on Win 7. I'm not inspired to try again.

Sometimes, it is free for a reason.

While some people have reported success in some environments, the coding must be terrible for it to fail as miserably as it does on my 32-bit Vista system. I couldn't get any scan to complete, the UI would go blank, it wouldn't respond, and it stopped using CPU and accessing the disk (dead). The company is new, anonymous, entering a very crowded and well-established field with an inferior product, and couldn't even spell "Quick" correctly. Further, the quick scan wasn't quick at all.

Most users would do well to stick with Recuva, which is under constant development, free, very quick, has good features (see the Advanced mode; right-click, single-click, and double-click UI), and has portable and slim-installer versions. There are things which I don't like about it, such as listing unrecoverable files and not allowing more sorting options (and the sorting is slow), but on the whole, it works well and has a lot of features. Unlike GRT Data Recovery, it supports virtual drives and standard UI operations (minimize, maximize, etc.)

Of course if you install this product on your hard drive, you will probably overwrite details from your already deleted files. You can only really run an undelete program from a pen drive.

Scan found no deleted files - a joke.
Ten to try again, it semms you have to close the program & re-open it - not that it matters it still can't find any deleted files.

Just as well it didn't find my $69.95 or equivalent in £s

Installed fine.

Tested it by making five files which I then deleted, emptied the trash.
The scan lasted long.... very, very long.
Much longer than some freeware and shareware programs that I've tested in the past.
The scan results... out of the five files I "lost" only four were found, and out of those four only one was properly recovered, the other three turned out to be corrupted after recovery.

Uninstalled fine.

Kept closing every time I tried to scan. I'd totally recommend Recuva, which works amazingly and best of all, is free.

Downloaded and insatlled fine. Easy interface found all my drives and sticks. Tried scanning C: that's C as in crashed!

Ran it on other drives, same result. Anybody have the same problem or a clue?

Regards to all.

Can this software retrieve locked folders and files. or let me rephrase is there a software that can open ,retrieve locked folders.

High time for the publishers of this software to make it open-source. The general public should be allowed to find the bugs.

#15, http://ntfsundelete.com/downloads/ , also ISO image available.

Oh, A denial program... Just what I need!!


Downloaded fine, installed fine, ran with main volume selected, found zero files to recover one system that recently deleted numerous Internet temp files.

Now, I am only a computer forensic scientist, but something tells me, something ain’t working.

Doc
Comment by DrLongBear — September 7th, 2009 at 3:21 am
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Installed and activated ok. When I opened the program got error message " unfortunately has to close" uninstalled and reinstalled but got the same message. This is the first problem I have had after dozens of GOTD programs. Not good enough for $70.00.

Hi installed on windows xp service pack 2 and activated but everytime i run the scan it say it needs to close has it has encountered a problem

Thanks for this article. I didn't know about this program. Two monthes ago I bought Advanced File Recovery when I deleted very important files from my PC. And this tool helped me to rescue all the information. As far as i know, this program can work with different media types. Everybody can download its trial for free.

Windows Vista 32bit working on a 64bit comp, it failed miserably.
OS: Workstation, SP2
CPU: AuthenticAMD, AMD AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, MMX @ 1000 MHz

Module name: C:\Program Files\GRTSoft Data Recovery\frecover.exe

Application data:
VmVyc2lvbjogV2taUVZpTlJZV2RxYzJOMG...etc....etc....etc...A==

I have a pen drive that has locked up and I try these recovery software on this to try them out and this just crashed as soon as I installed it. So its an unistalled

did not find a thing on a 5 year old hard drive, yeah it did not work for me.
installed on xp sp3