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Data recovery software
Losing data from a computer can be very frustrating. And there are lots of ways it can happen. Program crashes can corrupt files. Computer viruses can erase files. And then there’s human error: it’s easy to accidentally delete information. Data recovery software helps in these situations, by recovering lost or damaged information.
Data recovery software comparison chart for 2024
| Rank | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||||||||||||||||
Systweak Advanced Disk Recovery |
Recover My Files Data Recovery |
Iolo Search & Recover |
O&O DiskRecovery 14 |
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Setup
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Data recovery
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Documents
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Photos, video & music
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Email
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Damaged files
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Encrypted files
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Compressed files
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Drives
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Recycle bin
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Power failures
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Formatting
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Bad sector disk areas
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Unbootable hard drives
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Partition problems
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Malware / virus attacks
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Software failure
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Quick scans
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Deep / full scans
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Automatic scans
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Hard drives
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Floppy disks
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IDE
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SCSI
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ATA
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RAID
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FAT32
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FAT16
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FAT12
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NTFS
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Telephone support
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Windows 11
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Windows 10
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Windows 8
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Windows 7
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Data recovery software explained
Data recovery software can help in all kinds of difficult situations. For instance, if you need to:
- Recover lost images or family videos
- Reconstruct important pieces of work
- Salvage your financial spreadsheets
- Undelete an email message you wanted to save
It works by sifting through data on your computer and reassembling it, looking for the imprints of deleted information, and tracing how files were corrupted in order to reconstruct them.
If you regularly back up your files, you shouldn’t need data recovery software very often. It’s really intended as a last resort. But when you do call on it, you’ll appreciate its capabilities!
Getting started with data recovery software
Different data recovery software may use different techniques to rescue data – making it more effective in certain situations. It’s therefore important you choose data recovery software that can operate in the kind of situations you may need it.
Similarly, you can lose different kinds of data. Not all packages will be able to recover compressed or encrypted files, emails, or data saved to a network drive. Think about the data you work with, and where it’s kept. Then choose recovery software that can handle the scenarios you’re most likely to face.
Basic software may simply offer ‘undelete’ functions, to recover files which have been accidentally erased. However, this won’t help if your file is still there, but has been damaged or corrupted. Look for more advanced features if possible.