How to Choose a Right File Recovery Program

A good file recovery software is one of the most important factors to ensure the success of file recovery. There is a plethora of such programs out on the Internet, but it’s not that easy for an inexperienced user to choose the right one, especially when all vendors claim that their products can do wonders and recover everything in all cases. Of course, a conclusive answer can be obtained only by a real test, but the huge number of such programs makes that approach practically impossible. Still, there are some tips that can help you to quickly tell which program is worth looking at. 

But before we proceed to the tips, the first question is which software to choose, free or paid? It is common thinking that paid programs deliver better results. This is true in general, but not always. In many cases free recovery software can produce results equal or better than their commercial counterparts. For example, if you need to recover deleted photos from a SD card, you may use free programs that show an excellent performance. So why to pay when it’s not necessary?

And now some tips to choose a good file recovery program:

1. The program should have a good standing on independent software reviews. Do not limit your search just by one review. Some reviews are prepared for marketing or advertising purposes only. Even well known and established online tech resources sometimes range the software because of an affiliate program involvement, sponsor listings or other payback interests. Find and read at least couple independent reviews before picking up any of the software for your personal review and tryout. We can recommend the online reviews at DataRecoveryDigest.com or at Business.com but it’s always better to browse the net yourself.
2. A free trial, limited demo version or a light free version is offered by the most software development companies to estimate how well it can solve your problem before purchase. Usually programs run in their trial/demo mode allow recovering some limited size files or checking found files content in a file viewer. If even just small files can be recovered in the trial/demo mode successfully, chances that the rest of files can be recovered are high.
3. A clear and understandable user interface or even a wizard-type one is much preferable. That will greatly reduce time required for a non-experienced user to understand what and how should be done for successful file recovery.
4. The program should use two file recovery methods – one is to analyze a file system on the disk, and the second one is to use a raw file recovery, that is, searching for specific file types by their signatures. The first method will recover not only the contents of the lost files, but their file names, and, possibly, the entire folder structure. The second method is used when the file system on the disk is too damaged to reveal something meaningful, and quite often becomes the last resort for the file recovery. Check a list of the supported file types to be sure that all required file types are in that list.
5. A good documentation, including a help system, a file recovery guide, and articles describing how to use it various file recovery scenarios is a must accompaniment for a trusted product as well as a swift responding 24/7 support and regular updates.

Now, when you find a file recovery program that meets all of the above points, it is worth downloading and a closer look in a real action.  If the program fails, try the next in your checking list until you find a one that brings the best results for you. Good luck!