A Data Recovery Software

We were pro­vi­ded with the soft­ware EaseUS Data Reco­very Wizard, which allows us to test how well a data reco­very works.

For the test, we crea­ted four dif­fe­rent sce­na­ri­os that the soft­ware had to mas­ter. First, we tes­ted an SD card for lost data, then an exter­nal USB hard dri­ve, a USB stick, and final­ly an unpar­ti­tio­ned SATA hard dri­ve.

A dama­ged hard disk was unfort­u­na­te­ly not available to us for this test, so we can­not make a state­ment about how the soft­ware deals with disks in which sec­tors of the disk are dama­ged.

First Task: SD card

First a simp­le task. A 16 GB SD card, which was used in various digi­tal came­ras. This card was for­mat­ted by the came­ra every time the came­ra was chan­ged. Usual­ly, howe­ver, in fast mode.

The scan of the 16 GB card took a good 30 minu­tes and the Data Reco­very Wizard found a total of 677 files. The blue pro­gress bar at the bot­tom of the screen indi­ca­tes the esti­ma­ted remai­ning time.

The files found are dis­play­ed in dif­fe­rent direc­to­ries. At the same time, they are sor­ted the­ma­ti­cal­ly, so that tem­po­ra­ry files and image files can be easi­ly distin­gu­is­hed from each other. This shows that (as expec­ted) for­mat­ting an SD card does not dele­te all files, but still lea­ves frag­ments from the other came­ra.

Now for the exci­ting ques­ti­on. Which file could be res­to­red?

Now you sim­ply sel­ect the files you want to res­to­re. If the soft­ware has doubts and found the infor­ma­ti­on incom­ple­te, it will issue a war­ning.

If you igno­re the war­ning, the soft­ware tri­es to reco­ver the data as best it can. In this case all pho­tos could be reco­ver­ed. In our case the most pho­tos could be reco­ver­ed com­ple­te­ly and los­sless.

Addition: delete secure

We have secu­re­ly dele­ted the remai­ning data via ano­ther addi­tio­nal pro­gram. This is done by dele­ting the files at least seven times and over­wri­ting the sto­rage loca­ti­on. As expec­ted, the soft­ware could not detect the­se files after a new scan, but it could detect the frag­ments of pre­vious saves.

So the SD card was safe­ly for­mat­ted in a next step. Alt­hough the Data Reco­very Wizard still detec­ted 117 files with a total size of one mega­byte, it was unable to reco­ver any of them. In addi­ti­on, they were only tem­po­ra­ry files. So it should be that secu­re­ly dele­ted and/or for­mat­ted media are also for a data reco­very soft­ware a blank sheet.

Second task: external hard disk

The next test will be a litt­le more chal­len­ging. We che­cked an older exter­nal tera­byte hard disk used as a back­up. Here, we had to find dele­ted data, becau­se the disk is stored in the cabi­net after quick for­mat­ting.

Now the first sur­pri­se, becau­se the scan stop­ped and the disk could not be read. Even con­nec­ting it again did not help in this case. The mes­sa­ge “Error when rea­ding the reco­very hard disk” was dis­play­ed. The recom­men­ded recon­nec­tion was also unsuc­cessful and we were always con­fron­ted with the same error mes­sa­ge.

The files found were dis­play­ed, but not a sin­gle one could be reco­ver­ed.

Second try

After the disk at the USB 3.0 ports was not reco­gni­zed cor­rect­ly, we star­ted a new attempt at a USB 2.0 port. And sur­pri­se: sud­den­ly the scan work­ed. A total of 22,593 files were found, most of which could now be res­to­red. Of cour­se, we could only check this ran­dom­ly.

Third task: The old usb stick

Ano­ther clas­sic. Out of the jum­ble of USB sticks lying around, we grab­bed a giga­byte stick that dates back to times when this was a big USB stick. The scan was done quite quick­ly and an ama­zing num­ber of older files could be dis­co­ver­ed and res­to­red.

Fourth task: The deleted partition of an internal hard disk

The fourth task was an older SATA disk, which we con­nec­ted to a USB port via a USB-SATA adap­ter. This was an older inter­nal disk on which we dele­ted the par­ti­ti­on.

In volu­me manage­ment, such a disk is dis­play­ed as fol­lows. The par­ti­ti­on is not assi­gned, but was reco­gni­zed by the ope­ra­ting sys­tem. So if you acci­den­tal­ly dele­ted the par­ti­ti­on of a hard disk and later find out that it was the wrong disk, you would be con­fron­ted with such a sce­na­rio.

Adver­ti­se­ment

An unpar­ti­tio­ned hard disk is mark­ed oran­ge in the Data Reco­very Wizard scan win­dow. The scan took a rela­tively short time. The scan was sup­po­sed to run over­night, but was alre­a­dy com­ple­ted after a good hour.

This hard disk con­tai­ned a Win­dows ope­ra­ting sys­tem which was used for data reco­very in 2011. At that time the note­book of an fri­end had bro­ken and we had actual­ly been able to boot the note­book with an Ubun­tu Linux. This allo­wed us to access the data and trans­fer it to this hard dri­ve.

It’s ama­zing what data could be reco­ver­ed. The soft­ware even found data from 2008. It was an older MP3 coll­ec­tion that has been on ano­ther medi­um for a long time. But also many pho­tos and docu­ments could be res­to­red.

Espe­ci­al­ly with this hard disk, the pos­si­bi­li­ty to dis­play the found docu­ments the­ma­ti­cal­ly attrac­ted our atten­ti­on. The pho­tos are sor­ted accor­ding to the came­ra manu­fac­tu­r­ers and the docu­ments accor­ding to their for­mat. The music and video files are sor­ted by artist.

This is a very useful opti­on if you don’t want to res­to­re ever­y­thing all the time, but want to search for spe­ci­fic data, such as the lost diplo­ma the­sis or the lost pho­to album.

Fazit

Anyo­ne who deals a litt­le with the sto­rage of data will know that often not the data or sto­rage loca­ti­ons them­sel­ves, but only the tables of con­tents of the data car­ri­ers are chan­ged. The­r­e­fo­re, it is not sur­pri­sing that the data reco­very soft­ware works very well with files that have been dele­ted by mista­ke. The same appli­es to the dele­ted par­ti­ti­on, alt­hough it is ama­zing how much data can still be reco­ver­ed from such an old disk.

The soft­ware EaseUS Data Reco­very Wizard did quite well in our litt­le test and only show­ed a weak­ne­ss once. Howe­ver, we have not been able to con­front the soft­ware with phy­si­cal­ly defec­ti­ve sto­rage media, which is pro­ba­b­ly the most dif­fi­cult thing for such data reco­very soft­ware.

Nevert­hel­ess, we were quite impres­sed with the per­for­mance. Just the abili­ty to save pho­tos from a memo­ry card that was acci­den­tal­ly for­mat­ted in a came­ra can be worth its weight in gold.

This soft­ware was pro­vi­ded to me by the manu­fac­tu­rer EaseUS for this test. The manu­fac­tu­rer had no influence on the way the soft­ware was tes­ted, nor on how this artic­le was writ­ten. The screnshots were all taken on your own com­pu­ter during the test pha­se. The links to Ama­zon are pro­vi­ded with so-cal­led affi­lia­te links. This means that with a purcha­se via one of the­se links, I recei­ve a small com­mis­si­on from Ama­zon. This has no effect on the pri­ce.

Adver­ti­se­ment
The free­ware “EaseUS Data Reco­very Wizard Free” can be down­loa­ded from the manu­fac­tu­rer’s home­page. With this free­ware you can down­load data up to 500 MB wit­hout rest­ric­tion and up to 2 GB with one rest­ric­tion. The rest­ric­tion is that you have to click on a share but­ton. Whe­ther the soft­ware was then real­ly adver­ti­sed on the social net­works will not be fol­lo­wed up.

The free­ware is free of adware and com­pa­ra­tively secu­re against mani­pu­la­ti­on, as it can only be down­loa­ded from the pro­vi­der’s ser­ver.

Curr­ent­ly, the Pro ver­si­on wit­hout size limi­ta­ti­on and lifel­ong updates cos­ts 66.96 euros (other­wi­se 84.95 euros).