Data loss is no fun. I know this first hand. As what some might call a power user, I go through hard drives and other digital media pretty quickly and I’ve had my fair share of them just quit on me with no warning. Of course, the first line of defense is to back up your important files regularly, but what if you didn’t do that or you have new files since the last backup? In those cases, you can send your drive out to a professional to recover your files, but you can also try to do it at home.

Recover Lost Files At Home

It seems like every year, there’s newer, cheaper, easier data recovery software on the market. Just last year, I paid about $70 for a program that I’ve sworn by since the first time I used it and this week, I was given a copy of MediaRECOVER Pro. It’s cheaper at only $49.95, is really simple to use, and pretty fast, at least compared to the program I was using before. To compare, I ran both on a 2GB Flip video camera. MediaRECOVER Pro took only 8 minutes to scan compared to 20 with the other software. (My test was with an advanced scan, while a normal scan was significantly faster) My other software also takes a minute or so to load before you can do anything, but MediaRECOVER Pro loaded right away. Both did equally well at recovering old deleted files. The install was pretty simple, too. I clicked “next” a few times and it was ready to go.

The software also comes in a cheaper version, called simply MediaRECOVER for only $29.95 The big difference between the two is that the Pro version includes the optical storage recovery and is only available for Windows currently. In both versions you can also see previews of your files in image form (when possible, ASCII, and HEX).

How To Undelete Files

When you run the software, the first thing you see is the main menu. From here, you can choose to perform a regular or advanced scan, perform a scan on optical storage like a CD or DVD, use Tools, or view the Help.

Most of us just want to dive in and get our files back. You can do this with the normal scan if you’ve just accidentally deleted files, but in other cases, you may need to do a advanced scan, which will scan sector-by-sector for your lost files. Initiating a scan either way is pretty straight forward. You select the drive you want to scan and can narrow it down to a partition. Then click the scan button and wait. The amount of time the scan takes can depend on the size of the drive and how many files it had on it.

Once scanning has completed, you just select the files you want to recover and click the save button to save them and you can get right to the folder they’re in with the browse button. In my test, I ended up with a video from a wedding that I shot over a year ago, which was a fun little surprise.

Professional Data Recovery Services

While FreshCrop, the company that makes MediaRECOVER, tries to “teach a man to fish”, you might say, not everyone is going to be able to just install and recover. There is the rare case in which recovery doesn’t work or you just don’t want to do it on your own. For those times, FreshCrop provides data recovery services. You package up your drive or flash card and send it out and they’ll do their magic on it. Looking at the prices, they’re a lot more wallet-friendly than all the services I’ve seen in the past.

Delete Files For Good

Sometimes you have the opposite problem. You have files on a drive or portable storage that you need removed permanently. After all, with programs like MediaRECOVER, you need to be sure sensitive data is unrecoverable by others. I hate to break it to you, but just emptying the recycle bin isn’t going to cut it. For this reason, FreshCrop included some extra tools.

In the Tools section, you can wipe the media of all files, format it for re-use, and even add Secure Delete, which will let you wipe files from Internet Explorer. These tools are a handy addition to this package.

Conclusions

Admittedly, I haven’t used many data recovery software packages, but I haven’t had to, either. What I had worked well, and this is not only better, but it’s cheaper, too. For $50, the Pro version (which I would buy) pays for itself the first time you recover your vacation photos or the video of baby’s first steps. Easily worth the money, it works very smoothly. Although you may not need it right now, it’s worth bookmarking for when you do. Personally, I keep a copy of my recovery software on a thumb drive with me just in case.