Glary Undelete is another free file recovery solution. It can recover deleted files from connected storage devices. Users who want to recover deleted files can search for all deleted file information or filter the results by search phrase, size, date or recovery state.

The file recovery tool will then scan the selected partition or hard drive. This can take quite some time depending on the storage size and amount of files that have been on the drive in the past. Glary Undelete will display a folder and file type list in the left sidebar and a file list in the main window. The file list contains file names, the file path, file size and path, a recovery evaluation and the last modified date. Deleted files can be recovered by putting a checkmark in their box and clicking on the Restore button. It has to be noted that it is not always possible to recover a file completely.

Many of the files and folders are recognized by the file recovery software without their original name. They are then listed as folderxxxx in the program. Users who want to install Glary Undelete should pay attention during installation as the program tries to install the Ask toolbar on the user’s computer. Both options in the dialog have to be unchecked to avoid this from happening. Glary Undelete is compatible with most Microsoft operating systems including Windows XP and Windows Vista. It’s a good choice for a second or third try to recover deleted files on a computer system.

The data recovery software is completely portable and will display all hard drives and removable drives that are connected to the computer system after startup. The next page provides a checklist of various file types that can be recovered by DiskDigger. It is divided into the three categories photos and images, documents and Audio & Video. All files are selected by default but it is possible to uncheck file types so that the program is only scanning the hard drive for those file types.

Several popular file formats are missing in the list. The documents category for instance contains only Microsoft Office documents and the pdf format. That’s a limiting factor as it is not possible to add file types to the list.

DiskDigger will display three tabs after that selection that contain the various file formats that have been found on the selected hard drive separated into their three categories. Previews are available for some file types, mainly those located in the image category. What sets DiskDigger apart from other tools that can recover deleted files is that it acts independently of the file system. It should theoretically work with damaged partitions. Other file recovery tools might fail because of that.

Here is a list of alternative programs that can be used to recover deleted files: (all link to Ghacks)

Forensic Data Recovery Software
Smart Data Recovery Enterprise
File Recovery Undelete My Files
Data Recovery Tools Encopy
DVD Data Recovery Software
Recover Deleted Files

Got any software to recover deleted files to add? Let us know in the comments.

Pandora Recovery is compatible with all Windows NT operating systems including Windows NT, Windows XP and Windows Vista. The recovery software provides some interesting features that most of the other software programs do not offer. It lists the available partitions and hard drives and the user can start a scan immediately by clicking on one of the partitions. This will scan the partition for all deleted file information.

The user can browse the partition after the scan. The software application is displaying the name of the deleted file, the path, the creation and modification date and the percentage that it is overwritten. Overwritten files have a lesser chance of being fully recoverable.

Pandora Recovery provides access to a file search as well which can be used to find specific files on a partition. Files can be filtered by partition, name, size and date. The application is also displaying overall statistics about the amount of deleted files that are not overwritten, partially overwritten and completely overwritten.

To recover deleted files the user would simply right-click a file or folder and choose the Recover To option from the context menu. It does also provide the option to quick view the file which can display the contents of the files or show the contents as text if no viewer has been found for the file.

The third function is a deep surface scan which can find file information in the following three cases:

• Recovery of files whose MFT record has been reused by OS.
• Recovery of files from reformatted media.
• Recovery of files from discs with damaged or missing file allocation table.

Think of it as a deep scan which takes much longer to be performed but is more thorough. The additional information and the surface scan are great aids when trying to recover deleted files on a partition.

The Data Recovery Wizard software retails for $69.99 usually and can be compared to recovery tools like Recuva although it provides a far more sophisticated way to search for and recovery files. Supported operating systems are Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Windows Vista.

All you need to do is download the application from the Gotd website and install it today. This activates the software and you can use it.

The important question however is what the software is capable of. You can recover files with it much like Recuva does. Most devices and hard drive file systems are supported and you can even recover compressed and encrypted files in NTFS. Files can also be recovered from deleted partitions and formatted hard drives.

One of the most valuable features in my opinion is the Disk Image one. You can create a disk image of a hard drive or partition and use that to recover files afterwards. This is excellent if you want to make sure that no other sectors are overwritten during recovery or if you want to recover files on another computer. Just make sure you have a hard drive that is big enough to contain the disk image.

The question that some might ask is why one could recover deleted files at all. This is actually a very good question. Windows does not delete the file at all when you press the delete button. It simply deleted the reference to that file and makes the space the file occupied writable again. This means that you can recover most files if you are just fast enough. One freeware that can do the job is Recuva which is supposed to be pronounced recover.

It is developed by the same team that created CCleaner. Recuva scans the hard drive that you have selected and displays all deleted files that it finds in a list. It found more than 60000 files on my E: drive that I could try and recover. Information like filename, path and size are displayed to make it easier to find the files that you want to recover.

Recuva has fortunately a filter option. Just enter part of the filename or path and it will display only those files. It took 53 seconds to scan my 140 GB partition and display the 60000 entries.