Prosoft Data Rescue PC4 - Review 2022

Prosoft Data Rescue has a long and distinguished reputation among data recovery software. Its latest Windows version, Prosoft Information Rescue PC4, is fast and powerful. Its interface is adequate for technicians and anyone else who is getting paid by the hour to recover files, simply it's non as suitable for real-globe users who need to become back a deleted file as quickly as possible. Under the hood, however, Prosoft performed extremely well at finding deleted files, though it wasn't able to identify some of the files it plant in a manner that lets nontechnical users figure out what those files are. It's a very proficient app, but Editors' Choices Kroll Ontrack EasyRecovery and Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery are our tiptop choices for Windows data recovery.

Pricing

Data Rescue PC4 comes with no time-limit on its use—unlike the annual licenses required by Ontrack EasyRecovery and Seagate Premium Recovery Suite—but information technology tin can only be used on 5 disk drives, unless you purchase a $299-per-twelvemonth Professional license, which has no limits on usage. Prosoft doesn't include an option to delete data deeply—a feature included in most rival products—simply then again, y'all probably don't admittedly need that feature in an app designed to recover data. Like Ontrack and Seagate, Prosoft offers a high-priced mail-in service that attempts to recover data from concrete drives. For Apple fans, nosotros also reviewed the $99 Mac version of Prosoft Data Recovery. In that location's more than on the mail-in service and Mac version below.

Getting Started

When y'all launch Data Rescue PC4, information technology presents a laconic carte du jour listing your current drives, and—in about cases—you simply select a bulldoze that you want to scan for lost data. A dialog box asks if you want a Quick or Deep scan—and, every bit in all the other products nosotros tried, you'll almost certainly want a Deep scan considering a Quick scan is unlikely to observe the deleted files that y'all want. Data Rescue PC4 now starts scanning the drive. An Advanced push optionally displays technical data most the verbal location that is being scanned on the drive, only you'll probably accept no utilise for this kind of detail. At the cease of the browse, the app shows a confusing card of dissimilar items that you can view, but if yous choose Constitute Files from this menu, y'all'll become to what you're looking for—a clearly organized menu of document types that the app is able to recover.

Testing and Functioning

When I tested Information Rescue on a traditional spinning hard drive, on which I deleted a batch of files and then emptied the Recycle Bin, it instantly found all the deleted files. It didn't arrive easy to locate the files in a densely cluttered, tree-structured listing of files that it found, and I had to apply the app'southward Observe tool to search for the files past name or extension. In one case I found ane of the files I was looking for in the menu, however, information technology was easy to see the rest. Data Rescue won't win any prizes for its interface, but the information you need is in that location—if y'all know how to search for information technology.

I as well ran a similar exam on a solid-state drive (SSD). Here, Information Rescue, like the other file-recovery apps I tested, claimed to find all my deleted files, but when I recovered the files to disk, every single one was corrupted and unusable. This is exactly the performance I expected with an SSD, and no other service did any better.

When I tested Data Rescue with a USB flash drive that I reformatted later on copying a dozen files to it, Data Rescue'southward deep-scan option found every deleted file. Only Kroll Ontrack EasyRecovery matched this performance. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery came close, but only constitute xi out of 12 files. Like these other apps, Data Rescue listed these files is a tree-structured brandish divided into Archives, Pictures, and Documents, only information technology didn't provide a preview pane like Stellar Phoenix, and it fell short of Ontrack in identifying file types.

Data Rescue'south deep scan identified the two recovered Give-and-take DOCX files merely as ZIP archives, not every bit documents, and gave no hint that a file named "21488.zip" was actually a Word file. In contrast, the quick-scan option that I was able to use with a traditional spinning hard drive correctly identified DOCX files.

There's a reason that the Deep browse failed to recognize DOCX files: In reality, DOCX files are Nada archives, but every operating system, and every other data recovery software we tried, recognizes and displays them equally DOCX documents, using identifying data included in the file. But Data Rescue, in its deep-scan mode, failed to recognize that a DOCX file was, for all real-world purposes, a document. The DOCX format is at present more x years former, and it seems reasonable to await software to recognize a DOCX file when it finds one. So if you want to recover a lost DOCX file using Data Rescue'southward deep scan, you'll need to recover a Nil file identified simply by an capricious numerical proper name, and and so change the extension from .ZIP to .DOCX—not exactly a user-friendly procedure.

Saving A Recovered File

Information Rescue seems specially clunky when you lot want to save a recovered file to disk. There's a Recover button at the foot of the window, but you can't but highlight a file and click the Recover button, which seems like the obvious thing to do. When y'all click the Recover button, a dialog pops upwards telling you to correct-click the file then that "a red bank check mark will announced"—and you can then press the Recover button to recover files that have those ruby cheque marks. And what the dialog tells you isn't exactly right anyhow: It'southward not enough to right-click on the file; y'all have to right-click and so choose Cheque from a pop-upward menu before the red check-marking appears, and then you can recover the file.

There is one option that Data Rescue offers that you won't detect in rival products. If a drive is physically failing, yous can tell Data Rescue to attempt to clone it to a unlike physical disk, and so that you lot tin attempt to recover files from the clone. Rival products offer an alternative solution by letting you create a disk image of the failing drive. A disk image is a unmarried file that you can salve to any existing disk that'due south large enough to hold it, while a clone requires a total partition to itself. Both methods get the job done, merely cloning will be less user-friendly in most cases.

Prosoft Data Rescue on the Mac

If y'all're a multiplatform household and you lot're considering Prosoft's tools, you'll be pleased to hear that Data Rescue is one of the top data recovery utilities we've tested for the Mac. The Mac version of Prosoft Data Rescue offers very powerful and very usable data recovery (the Mac interface is much friendlier), although height honors in the Mac data recovery space get to Alsoft DiskWarrior.

Prosoft Information Rescue Center

As with Kroll Ontrack EasyRecovery and Seagate Premium Recovery Suite, if you tin can't become your files back with Prosoft Data Rescue, in that location's besides a mail service-in service backing upward the app. If your drive is so borked that it's clicking or grinding or unrecognized past your organization, there'southward still a good risk that the engineers at Prosoft's Data Rescue Heart might be able to retrieve your data in their ISO 5 course 100 cleanroom. You'll have to consult the company for cost. Seagate doesn't give you any indication every bit to price either, though Kroll's service does at least let yous know the minimum fee is $300. Prosoft says its standard turnaround for a standard recovery job is 7 to 10 business days. Seagate, by comparison says jobs go washed in 2 to 21 days. Kroll promises to become your bulldoze analyzed within four to 24 hours, depending on its size, and to recover your information in an average of seven days on its standard plan (you can pay more than for faster recovery).

Powerful, Albeit Complex, Software

All in all, Prosoft'due south Data Rescue is technically impressive in its raw power, but not impressive plenty in the fashion it makes that power available to the user. Technicians and users with fourth dimension on their hands will accept no trouble navigating the menus and figuring out that a file identified every bit a zippo archive is actually a Word document, only worried users desperate to recover their lost photos and videos will be better off with a friendlier culling, like the Editors' Choice Stellar Phoenix Windows Information Recovery or the slightly less friendly, but slightly more powerful Kroll Ontrack EasyRecovery.

Once you've gone through the process of recovering your lost files (hopefully you got them all back), next on your agenda should be doing your best to ensure that you never lose any other data. Information recovery software is all well and good, afterwards all, but even meliorate is not having to go through the terror of realizing y'all need it, and hoping it works. You tin can go a long fashion toward protecting yourself from needing to fire upwards your information recovery app past making sure to use backup software. For extra protection, you lot should also consider bankroll up your information to the cloud, then that even a disaster that wipes out all your local hardware won't destroy your data. For this, you'll want to use an online backup service.