Overview
Data recovery software gets installed on the worst day of someone's month, so what matters is that it does the obvious thing without needing to be understood first. Point it at a drive, let it scan, look through what it found, tick the files that matter and write them somewhere else. That is the whole workflow and this tool keeps it that way.
Two scan depths cover most situations. The quick scan reads the file tables and recovers anything whose records still exist, which handles ordinary deletion and an emptied recycle bin in a couple of minutes. The deep scan reads the volume sector by sector and rebuilds files from their signatures, which is what recovers a formatted partition or a disk whose file system is no longer readable, at the cost of losing original names on some results.
The bootable environment is the part that separates this from a simple undelete tool. Written to a USB drive, it starts a machine that will no longer boot and gives the same recovery interface with the internal disk mounted read only, so nothing is written to the volume being recovered. There is also a disk image function that captures a failing drive to a file first, which is the correct order of operations when the hardware itself is going.
What it does well
Two scan depths
A fast pass over the file records for ordinary deletions, and a full sector level signature scan for formatted or unreadable volumes.
Preview before recovery
Documents, images, video and audio preview inside the results list so you know a file is intact before spending time on it.
Bootable environment
A USB environment that starts a dead machine and mounts the internal disk read only for recovery.
Image a failing drive
Capture a whole disk to an image file and run recovery against the image instead of the failing hardware.
Broad file system support
Recovers from the current Windows file systems as well as the common removable card and external drive formats.
Changes in this build
- Deep scan made significantly faster on large volumes.
- Signature set extended with more current camera raw and project file types.
- Bootable environment rebuilt with a newer driver set for current storage controllers.
- Results filtering improved with type, size and date range controls.
- Fixed a stall when scanning drives with a large number of bad sectors.
What is in the package
- Data Recovery Wizard installer, 32 and 64-bit
- Bootable environment builder for USB media
- Disk imaging tool
- File signature database
- Multilingual interface files, 18 languages
System requirements
| Processor | Any x86 or x64 processor |
| Memory | 2 GB minimum, 4 GB for deep scans of large volumes |
| Graphics | Not applicable |
| Storage | 1 GB for the tool plus space for recovered files on a different drive |
| Display | 1024 x 768 minimum |
| System | Windows 7 through Windows 11 |
Installation
- Install onto a different drive than the one you are recovering, never the affected volume.
- Extract the archive and run setup on a healthy machine if the target will not boot.
- Build the bootable USB environment before touching a failing system.
- Run a quick scan first, then a deep scan only if the quick pass misses what you need.
- Recover to a separate drive with enough free space for everything selected.
Before you start
Never install to, or recover onto, the drive you are recovering from. Writing to it destroys what is left.
If the drive is making noise, image it first and recover from the image.
Deep scan results often lose their original names, sort by type and preview to identify them.
Questions about this title
Can it recover from a formatted drive?
Often yes, using the deep scan. Anything overwritten since the format is gone permanently.
Does it work if Windows will not start?
Yes, build the bootable USB environment and run recovery from there.
Will file names survive?
Quick scan usually keeps them. Deep scan rebuilds by signature so many results come back renamed.
Can I recover from a memory card?
Yes, card and external drive file systems are supported.
About this listing
This entry was checked on a clean install of Windows 7 / 8 / 10 / 11 before it was published, and it is rechecked whenever the package is rebuilt. The figures on this page come from the site index rather than from the publisher, so the download count is what people here have actually pulled.
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