Free PC Data Recovery Software

It's happened to everyone: you fire up your computer, open the application where an important document or classic picture was last stored, and find that it no longer exists. You search through additional folders, wade through the Recycle Bin, and even restart your computer in hopes that the lost file might reappear. Usually, this frantic search is conducted in vain. Your children might have been playing on the computer without your permission, or maybe you accidently pressed just the right combination of keys to send your lost file soaring off into oblivion.

If you perform a Google search on Data Recovery, you'll find several options, many with exorbitant fees attached. One such search result reads, "Data Recovery from $299." Do you really have three hundred dollars to spend on the recovery of one document, no matter how important it might be? Can you justify spending even $100 on data recovery?

If not, I have an alternate option for you that costs nothing and that allows you to recover an unlimited number of files from your computer. Sound too good to be true? Oddly enough, the Germans created PC Inspector File Recovery 4.x, which is one of the most useful software programs on the net for recovering lost files and folders.

The Benefits

First of all, PC Inspector is Freeware, which means that it doesn't cost anything to download. The creators do accept donations via PayPal, but this is not required to use the program. PC Inspector is created by Convar, which is a Germany-based, 15-year-old company active in data recovery, e-commerce solutions, repair & service and IT development.

With most data recovery software programs, you will find that there is a "cap" on the size of the file, folder or program that you are able to recovery. This isn't true with PC Inspector. You can recover any size file using their state-of-the-art technology, and in most cases recover the original time and date stamp on the document.

With PC Inspector, you get the following free capabilities in addition to file recovery:

Smart Recovery - A revolutionary data recovery program from Convar for Flash Card, Smart Media, SONY Memory Stick, IBM, Micro Drive, Multimedia Card, Secure Digital Card and many other digital camera data carrier. It helps you recover pictures, sounds and videos that you have accidentally deleted.

E-Maxx - Using Convar's direct DMA support, data can be deleted from hard drives in high speed mode with speeds up to 3.3 GB per minute.

Clone Maxx - A professional hard drive copying software program from Convar. You can copy data at speeds up to 3.3 GB per minute.

Drawbacks

In using this program, I've discovered only a few minor drawbacks. First, the data that you recover may not retain the same file name as the one under which it was originally saved. Often, it will have a strange prefix - such as DX - thought it can always be renamed once recovered. Also, the more recently the file was deleted, the easier it will be recovered. I've tried to recover data from two or three weeks previously, and PC Inspector had a difficult time finding it, if at all.

The second problem I found was that the help manual, in HTML format, is difficult to follow and not at all conclusive. I believe that the help manual was translated from German to English - and poorly. If you can read German, you will probably be better off downloading that version of the manual.

Formats

I have not attempted to recover all of these types of files, but according to the PC Inspector website, the following formats can be recovered:

.ARJ; .AVI; .BMP; .CDR; .DOC; .DXF; .DBF; .XLS; .EXE; .GIF; .HLP; .HTML; .HTM; .JPG; .LZH; .MID; .MOV; .MP3; .PDF; .PNG; .RTF; .TAR; .TIF; .WAV; and .ZIP.