Data Recovery Free Help

How Do I Get Back Deleted Photos from My Samsung Galaxy S3?

2013-04-17T20:11:00.000-07:00

[Update August 3, 2016: this guide should work for Samsung Galaxy S4, S5, S6 too.]

A reader who's using Samsung Galaxy S3 phone sent me this question:

"I don't know whether I have chance to retrieve the accidentally deleted photos. Since I am always used to rely on my handy Galaxy S3 to take photos, yesterday I took about 100 shots in a friend’s wedding. Today when I was playing with my phone and due to misoperation, I couldn't believe I erased an important album which contained all the wedding photos. Oh my god. Can you tell me if it is still possible to get those precious pics back? They are urgently needed at the moment! Please help!"

After reading the question, I feel the panic she has experienced. Personally I've made several mistakes on my Android phone. One mistake was that I didn't lock my phone and a younger family member took it and erased some photos (I guess he tapped on the wrong buttons).

Anyway, back to the topic, it is still possible to recover some or all of the pics you've removed from the Samsung Galaxy S3. But there is no guarantee that chances can be 100% due to the nature of data recovery.

Why is that? Because the Samsung S3 phone is different from other storage devices. On one hand, it offers users 16-64GB internal memory; while on the other hand a MicroSD card slot is provided. So simply put:

If your deleted photos were stored on the mass memory (MicroSD card), they can be relatively easier to to be retrieved. In general, you only need several steps:

Connect your phone SD card to a PC or Mac. You may need a card reader to load the MicroSD card first, and insert it into the USB port on your computer.
Open your web browser and download a free photo recovery tool. If you're on a Windows PC, I recommend Recuva, see tutorial here (or Pandora Recovery is great too). For Apple Macs, check this post for some free Mac file recovery programs.
Install the recovery program and launch it. Scan your phone sd card and recover those pictures it finds. The whole process should be quite easy.

However, if the erased photos were saved on the internal memory of the phone, things can be a little tricky. As you know, Galaxy S3 does not have UMS mode (USB Mass Storage), so no software is able to recognize the device as a USB mounted device. Therefore third-party programs like Recuva won't be able to pick up the device and allow recovery of deleted images.

But that does not mean you should give up. Here are two solutions:

If you haven't rooted your Galaxy S3 (what is rooting?), a professional Android data recovery software should help. See this article for a list of best options in 2016.
If your phone is rooted, check out this post how to enable UMS mode in Galaxy S3 for a step by step guide. After that, try Recuva or Pandora Recovery.

Good luck! Remember to back up your phone on a regular basis.

Ontrack Capable of Retrieving Data from Crashed iPad

2013-01-24T04:54:00.001-08:00

At CES 2013, we talked to Ontrack Data Recovery who told us they were able to recover data from a customers iPad that was heavily damaged in a plane crash. What Ontrack Data Recovery do is take apart the device, in this case an iPad, and take the physical memory chips off. After this step, they image the chip raw, and then piece the data back together in the same pattern that is normally done by the controller chip.

Impressive! Take a look at the video below.

Any Freeware to Undelete Items Emptied from Mac Trash?

2012-09-23T22:55:00.000-07:00

I received a question from a student, asking me this Mac related recovery question:

I just emptied the Trash bin on my MacBook and later found I just made a big mistake as I have deleted an important folder (full of desperately needed documents & pics). From the net I know that as long as those files are not "secure deleted", chances of recovery are there. But I have spent a lot of time working on it by trying several Mac undelete software, none of free trial versions allow me actually recover my folder & files unless I register the application (which means I have to pay for it). Please help me out and give me some freeware for undeleting trashed mac files. PLEASE tell me I am still a student. I'm desperate for help.

[update on June 20, 2016: if your MacBook is with a solid state drive (SSD) instead of a hard disk drive, things can be quite different. Simply put, when you erase a file from SSD-based Mac, it’s beyond recovery. This is due to how the “Trim command” organizes a file in a SSD. Thanks to Lorena for pointing out this. Read her macbook tip here.]

Well, unless the Mac disk has been completely destroyed or broken, there is a chance to retrieve the files. So, my first advice would be try your best to protect your Mac machine from any physical damage.

And then the next step to recovering your data is to stop using the drive containing the lost files. Mac OS X overwrites free space very quickly with temp files. If your missing files are on your boot drive you will want to shut down your Mac right away.

Freeware to Undelete Trashed Files on Mac

If your Mac is running OS X Snow Leopard or above (including latest Yosemite, El Capitan), you can rely on this powerful backup tool - Time Machine, which is equipped with Mac machine that can backup almost anything and everything on a Mac timely. Once you deleted or lost some files, just enter your Time Machine browser, you'll easily restore your trashed Mac Items. This video shows how:

If you haven't set Time Machine or it just fails to retrieve your data, then I suppose the only way is to use a third-party Mac data recovery tool, see this list of totally free Mac data recovery software.

In fact, when a file is deleted off your Macintosh hard drive or partition, it's only the address of the file that is deleted from the files table. It's like having a huge book that has come unbound and lost its table of contents. The pages are there, but without the table of contents, it's much harder to find a specific chapter. Mac undelete software rebinds the book and scours the deepest parts of the hard drive that you can't access.

How to Recover Data from External Hard Drive Not Recognized by PC

2012-02-29T02:48:00.003-08:00

Whether you are using a PC or a Mac, having a handy external hard drive (such as Western Digital Essential 500GB, Seagate FreeAgent 1TB etc) is definitely necessary when it comes to backing up important data just in case.

[Update July 12, 2016: I now use Google Drive for additional backup. You can also use other online backup services. Price of such services have been dropping. In my opinion, due to constant risk of using hardware for backup purposes, it's best to turn to cloud storage]

But the question is what if your external drive cannot be recognized or detected by your computer? How do you recover data from an external HDD not even recognized? These problems do happen here or there.

Today I'm going to show you how to fix two common issues related to data loss from an external HDD.

If Your External Drive Can be Detected by a Computer, but It Shows Errors...

In this case, your drive should be found via "Disk Management" or "My Computer" (or "This PC" if you are under Windows 10) when it is connected to a PC. But typical symptom is when you attempt to access the drive, it pops out some error messages such as “the drive is not formatted”, "The drive cannot be accessed", "RAW drive is not initialized" etc. The cause for this can be the drive is corrupted, faulty due to improper usage, or simply because the disk has been used for too many times (every technology has its own lifespan(.

Here're some general fixes:

Step 1: See if you can use Recuva (or Pandora Recovery) to retrieve some data. Connect your external hard drive to a PC first, then download and install the recovery program to start a quick scan (no luck? go Deep Scan after that).
Step 2: Once you retrieve your data, try formatting the faulty external using Windows internal format option. Go to Disk Management and select your drive and click "Quick Format" function.
Step 3: Now your drive should work normally again. Note: if you have important data, you can re-use the data recovery software to scan your device again. Because a quick format won't erase the data immediately. Learn more from this external drive formatted recovery guide as it explains how.

If Your External Drive Cannot be Recognized or Detected…

There are many possible causes for this issue, for example, outdated Windows driver, bad sectors, faulty USB cable, physical damage etc.

Try these steps to see if you can fix it.

Step 1: Re-connect your external drive to the PC via another USB cable (to eliminate faulty issues). If it doesn't work, go to next.
Step 2: Check if there are some drivers missing or you forget to install on your PC. The best way is to go to the official website of your external drive provider and download the latest drivers. Western Digital here, Seagate here.
Step 3: If there is no problem with the driver, then most likely your external drive has suffered physical damage or severe bad sector errors etc. I highly recommend you contact your device manufacturer for services.

Happy Holiday Season to All

2011-12-24T01:13:00.000-08:00

We all are waiting for the big days coming.

We all look forward to a new year – 2012.

Best regards to all of my family, friends & my blog readers.

Known, unknown… does not matter.

Let's just enjoy the happy holiday seasons!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

How to Recover Deleted or Lost Files from an iPad (The Right Steps)

2011-12-17T07:03:00.003-08:00

This post was last updated on July 24, 2016. Revised outdated content due to Apple's iOS feature upgrade, cleaned a few dead links.

Holding an iPad tablet is a cool. But have you ever deleted files such as notes, Contacts, photos, videos, music, email etc off your iPad simply by accident? Or even worse – your iPad got stolen, broken or water damaged, now it is unable to power on? Is it still possible to recover data from iPad?

Today I'm going to show you how to perform data recovery from an iPad.

What you may need:

Your iPad device.
A PC or Mac
Your iCloud account (optional)
iTunes backup files (optional)
An iOS data recovery software (optional)

If your iPad is stolen, do this first!

This interesting article by Joshua Johnson is definitely worth for reading. It teaches you how to find your stolen iPad for free by using a program called MobileMe (GPS tracking), together with Google maps. Once the guy who stole or found the device turns the pad one, its position will be positioned and you'll get the notification. Pretty cool.

[update: now Apple has an app called FindMyiPhone that allows you to track your lost device as long as your iPad is turned on and connected to the Internet. Learn more here]

Step 1: check "Recently Deleted" folder

Image credit: Gotbemobile

This trick works for pictures and videos only (iOS 8 or later). Once you delete them, they will go to a folder called "Recently Deleted" first. You can access the folder via Photos > Albums > Recently Deleted. Note: the folder only keeps items for up to 40 days.

Step 2: check iCloud

Chances are that you've somehow used iCloud service to back up your files. If you accidentally deleted some files off your iPad, the files are probably still stored in iCloud storage. This Howtogeek article shows you how to recover the files step by step.

Step 3: check if you have iTunes backup

If you've regularly backed up your iPad using iTunes, or have enabled auto-backup when your iPad is connected to your PC or Mac; then perhaps you could restore all your lost files via the iTunes backup. This Apple support article has more. Note: this works only when your your files got removed after you had an iTunes backup.

Step 4: use an iPad data recovery software

If none of the above methods works, your next option would be to use a recovery software. See this iPad data recovery software review and choose one that best fits your situation. Note: it's not guaranteed that you'll be able to retrieve all your items, but it's worth a try.

Step 5: data recovery services could be your last resort

If your lost iPad files are critical to you, and you've tried all the above methods but in vain. Your last option will be to send your device to a data recovery center for services. Be aware of those remote ones (due to scam concerns). Best to visit a local one in person before letting those guys touch your iOS device.

Remember: the best way to prevent iPad data loss is -- backup. Learn how to back up iOS data from this Apple support article. Good luck.

Find this article helpful or have other questions? Leave a comment below.

What to Do When Camera SD Memory Card is Corrupted?

2011-07-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

While I was reading this awesome post by Camera Repair and camera across a user asking this question:

"Some of the photos on my SD card are corrupted. My Fujifilm camera did not have any options for formatting except to erase everything, so I tried connecting my memory card to my PC and formatting it, but it wouldn't let me, saying it 'cannot formt the drive'! I've closed all my programmes, but it won't work. Please help!" - zoey

Here's CR's Answer:

Wanted to make sure that the first thing that you have tried to do, is to save and back up whatever files/photos that you have on that card onto your computer. If you couldn't do it directly by attaching your camera to your computer, you should use your computer's card reader. If the card reader doesn't recognize your card, and your computer is more than a couple years old, see below about purchasing a USB card reader.

But if all of the above has been tried, then give the computer quick format one more try.

There's two possible causes that may be preventing the quick format. The first is that you may have accidentally placed the tiny write switch on the side of the SD card in the locked position. Could you first check to make sure that it's in the upward "unlocked" position (toward the terminals)?

The second thing I can think of is that the card may be a 4GB or higher SDHC card, and your computer's reader may be too old to recognize SDHC format. Have you ever been able to read this card in that reader before? If this is the first time you've tried to use that reader, and your computer is more than a few years old, chances are that it can only read standard SD cards (2GB or less). In that case, just purchase an inexpensive USB SDHC card reader (they're only a few dollars). Try an Amazon.com search for "USB SDHC card reader".

If an old card reader was the problem, SKIP formatting the card for now, and attempt to recover your photos directly using the USB card reader. After recovering the photos, then format the card in your camera to prevent this from happening again. That option is there, usually in the "Settings" menu, just below the "Reset" option. Just tell me your model, and I'll tell you exactly where you can find it.

Finally, keep in mind that some of these individual corrupted photos once recovered may only be partial photos (bottom part of photo may be cropped off). This is because the write process may have been interrupted or stopped, for whatever reason, preventing saving of the entire file. There's nothing that you can do in that case. But keep in mind that formatting the card (after you've tried to save/backup/recover the files) should prevent this from happening again.

Personal note: it seems this kind of card corruption issue still happen here or there today. Look at these GoPro SD card errors or this Nikon card error, the best tip to avoid data loss from card corruption is to prepare several smaller-size cards instead of one large-size card. Because like any other old technology, memory cards have their own lifespans. Sooner or later, you have to throw them.

Last update: August 5, 2016

Recuva Review 2016: The Best Windows Data Recovery Freeware

2011-07-06T05:36:00.000-07:00

Recuva is a 100% free file recovery program that makes it extremely easy to retrieve files that were accidentally removed or lost due to many reasons. It can recover files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera memory card, MP3 player, and more. The wizard-like approach and intuitive user interface all make it very simple to use.

Note: this post is a review of Recuva. If you want to download the free data recovery utility, or learn how to use it. See these:

Download links: from FileHippo, or from Piriform official site.
How to use Recuva: step by step tutorial.

Recuva for Mac?

Recuva is only available for Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10, there is no Recuva for Macintosh. If you're looking for a free program to recover lost data, turn to Exif UnTrasher or check out these totally free Mac data recovery programs

Disclaimer: this Recuva review is based on the following five parts. Disclaimer: this review is purely based on my own test and using experience, I'm here to show my personal takes on the software. Due to the complex nature of data recovery, it's impossible for me to test all features. As such, please be aware that the following opinons are my own.

#1: General Part

Interface: it offers a wizard for general users to recover deleted files. The step by step guide makes it incredibly easy to perform data recovery on your own (no technical skills required). Advanced users can cancel the wizard to access advanced features.

Commercial Use: Allowed, you can make donations.
Download Size: 5,345 KB (version: 1.53.1087)
Supported Languages on Interface: about 40 languages

Strength: Pretty easy to use for both general and power users. The option "Enable Deep Scan or Not" makes it easy to deal with different data loss situations (for general deleted recovery, you don’t have to use Deep Scan). You can also choose a certain file (say pictures or video files) format to scan. The scanning process is quite fast (depending on the disk volume and scan mode, it may be a little bit time intensive). Moreover, it is able to show found file state (Excellent, Poor, Unrecoverable) which let you know whether they are recoverable or not.

Weakness: Only photos with JPG format can be previewed. Also it is said the program is not great to handle formatted recovery cases and partition reocvery (which I haven’t test).

Overall Rating: I give 8/10 for Recuva. It could have been better.

#2: Recovery Capability Part

It succeeded in finding all my deleted files. And the scanning process is quite fast. (I used "Quick Scan" mode, if you enabled "Deep Scan" then it will take a bit more time). So recovering deleted pictures, music, documents, video, compressed is no problem. The program also claims to be able to recover emails and other type of files like .js/.html/.css (part of them did found on my test). Moreover, it support folder scanning which make things more easier if you know exactly where the lost files located.

Sub-rating: ★Excellent★

#3: Preview Effectiveness Part

Recuva is only able to preview photos in JPG format, no other picture formats or document formats. This may make it difficult to find what you need to recover particularly when you only lost just several important files such as documents but the scanning results display several hundred files. Also, some found files are corrupted.

Sub-rating: ★Average★

#4: Ease of Use Part

Recuva is suitable to use for any computer users with different technical levels. The guide information on the software interface is super intuitive. You should have no problem handling it at all.
Sub-rating: ★Excellent★

#5: Help/Wizard/Documentation Part

Yes, with wizard the first time you install the program on your Windows PC. You can cancel it and don’t let it show next time (but I don’t recommend you do this).

Sub-rating: ★Excellent★

This post was last updated on April 24, 2016. Revised outdated content and added correct download links for Recuva.

5 Tips to Increase the Chances of Data Recovery

2011-06-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

As you may have already know that data recovery is still possible no matter you perform deletion or formatting options on your hard drive or external storage device. Data recovery tools may handle most of the data lose cases and help you rescue those lost files if you are lucky.

However, not all cases are successful and no data recovery companies can guarantee 100% recovery rate due to the complexities of data recovery nature. To increase the chances of data recovery or decrease the possibilities of data overwritten, here are several useful tips.

Tip 1: Do Not Save More Data to the Drive Where Your Lost Data Were Stored

Keep saving more data to the drive which contained lost data makes data overwritten much easier to happen especially when the drive volume is limited. The smaller the disk capacity is, the possibility of data recovery is lower. Important data should always be backed up.

Tip 2: Do Not Store New Files in the Root Directory

Files, which are stored in the root directory, are sensitive to loss by quick formatting, because file entries are set-aside in the root. Avoid storing files directly in the root since the file disappears, if the directory entry is damaged. Someone can recover data very quickly if it is in a sub-directory.

Tip 3: Do Defragment the Drive Regularly

Data is stored in successive clusters, if sufficient connected free storage location is available. Repeated deletion and write operations fragment the drive.

Here is a simple example:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) - should represent 8 small files
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) - now files (2), (4), (7) and (8) were deleted
(1) (9) (3) (9) (5) (6) (9) (9) - disk is fragmented if a larger file is stored

If data is deleted from the disk, new data can take the free place. If the new data is larger than the old one however, the data is net set aside in coherent range, but in fragments. When reading fragmented data the head of the hard disk has to 'jump' (i.e. the head moves to the looked track). Thus the reading and write speed is reduced. In order to make the read and write procedure again more efficient, it is necessary to reorganize the fragmented disk. After defragmentation, the data is in sequential order and then look in such a way:

(1) (9) (9) (9) (9) (3) (5) (6) - after the drive is defragmented

A usually fragmented disk will degree the efficiency of a data rescue, if e.g. the FAT is overwritten by a quick format or a virus. Then it is necessary to analyze exactly, how a file scattered over the disk lies. If however connected data is present, a data-rescue is very quickly possible on the basis of the information about its position and size.

Important note: A non-fragmented disk will increase you rate of recovery because the complete data is stored at the beginning of the first cluster of a file.

Tip 4: Do Not Install Recovery Software or Save Recovered Data to the Source Drive

When you are using a data recovery software. The program should remind you that you should not install the application to the source drive that contains data which you need to recover. Otherwise data could be overwritten and success on a data rescue becomes smaller. Also saving the recovered data to the drive will make similar effects. So for the data recovery it is recommended to prepare a second hard disk.

Tip 5: Do Put the Device on Safe Place before Data Recovery

This way it protects the device from any physical damage such as falling onto the hard ground etc. Note: hardware errors are much more difficult to handle than software errors. So if your lost data are located on the hard drive of your PC, better do not move it. If you are using a digital device say digital camera, camcorder etc, better remove the memory card out of the device and put it into a safe place. Check out these camera tips for how to protect your data.

Hope you find these dos and don'ts helpful.

How Can I Retrieve Files Emptied from Windows Recycle Bin (Free Options Only)

2011-06-21T18:41:00.001-07:00

A question submitted by a blog reader. It's related to recover trashed recycle bin on Windows.

“I deleted a batch of files about 2 month ago and it should go into the Recycle Bin of my computer. And a few days after that I accidentally emptied the Bin without knowing there are several documents I need desperately. Is it possible for me to recover those files got emptied from Windows Recycle Bin?” – by Marisa

JZ’s Answer:

Well, the chances of recovery depends on how many new files you've already generated to the same hard drive. Your documents are only recoverable provided that they are not fully overwritten by new generated data.

I'm not going to elaborate the technical how here, as that may sound boring to you. But in case you are interested, this MakeUseOf article explains what is data recovery and how it works

Yes, it's possible that you can recover those files even if you have emptied the bin. Bear in mind that that it’s not 100% sure because there are many factors affecting the results due to the nature of data recovery.

The first thing you should do is immediately stop writing more data in the drive where your deleted files originally located. More specifically do not save, edit or move any files on that drive.

Then you need to rely on a data recovery program. Usually, Recuva works best and Pandora Recovery is also great. These two programs are totally free and support major Windows OS versions. Note: in case your PC uses an SSD (solid state drive), read this Recycle Bin recovery article for tips to retrieve instead.

One more tip: you’d better install the file recovery program on another drive. For example, if your deleted files were saved on Drive C: then install the app on Drive D: or E: etc.

Good luck.

[This FAQ is last updated on: June 9, 2016. Note: revised the part of content that is outdated.]

How to Recover Deleted Photos from SD Card for Free

2011-06-15T04:23:00.000-07:00

[update: this post was last updated on May 5, 2016. Revised the content for accuracy and removed several dead links.]

I recently received a question from a reader regarding recovering photos deleted from a SD memory card. Here it is:

Question asked by Emily

"Can you help please? I recently deleted some precious photos from my digital camera with a SD memory card inside. I know there are so-called digital photo recovery programs that can retrieve them. So I downloaded and installed a utility to give a try. The result is that the program found my deleted photos I could not save them or use them for anything without buying the program. Wondering if there are some freeware which can help me bring those deleted photos back for free? Your recommendations will be highly appreciated."

Here's my answer:

You must be using the demo or trial version of a commercial data recovery software. There are tons of such programs in the market, I have tried a handful. Personally, I feel they are pretty much the same. By that, I mean how they designed the functionality of the software -- usually they offer a trial version (labeled "free download") which allows you to free scan your device i.e. camera SD card, some even allow you to "preview" thumbnails of the found images, but eventually you'll need to get a license to fully recover your photos -- meaning you have to take your credit card out of your pocket :)

Well, I'm not against such kind of commercial software, but I'm tired of seeing their false or over-exaggerated marketing messages (e.g. 100% guarantee, free SD card recovery software, the best data recovery program, etc.)

Okay, back to the topic. Any real freeware to help retrieve deleted pictures from an SD card? Fortunately, the answer is yes. But before I jump into my recommendations, make sure you have prepared the following conditions for recovery.

Things you'll need:

Your camera SD card.
A personal computer (PC or Mac).
Internet connection (for downloading a data recovery utility).
A bit nerves and time. Get a coffee :)

Recovering SD Card Photos on a PC

Step 1: remove your SD card out of your camera and connect it to your PC via a card reader (or USB cable), make sure it can be recognized by your computer.

Step 2: download and install a free Windows data recovery utility on your PC. Recuva is probably the best one out there, Pandora Recovery is also great. Open the link in a new tab, as I've shared a ttutorial on how to use the program in details.

Step 3: scan your SD card, preview, and recover. Note: all the software I recommend above is totally free.

Recovering SD Card Photos on a Mac

Step 1: likewise, connect your SD card to a Mac machine. Ensure it your card can be detected.

Step 2: download this free app called Exif Untrasher. Note: the app recovers only images in JPEG format. So, if your photos are in RAW format, move yourself to this this free Mac data recovery software list.

Step 3: let the program scan your SD card and you should have no problem recovering any images it finds.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

There is no thing that data recovery software will guarantee 100% recovery rate. Any software providers who claim so are probably scam.
To increase your chances of recovery, best to put aside your SD card and do not write any new data to the source card.
Do not damage your SD card as it would make things worse, you could lose all your data if the card can not be detected by a computer. That said, if it's damaged, check out this sd card recovery guide for how to fix it.
Always remember to make backups -- the golden rule for data security. Online backup services like Dropbox is great; Traditional external hard drives are also nice options.

Hope my answer is helpful to you. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Pandora Recovery Review & Step by Step Tutorials 2016

2011-06-12T22:53:00.000-07:00

This post was last updated on March 5, 2016. A few updates have been added to better reflect the accuracy of Pandora Recovery.

Data recovery couldn’t have been more easier since Pandora Recovery launched. I have only two words for this free file recovery utility: easy & powerful. Yes, you can recover deleted files easily with the powerful software for free.

As usual I am going to show you the full review of this program in 3 parts: basic information, how to use it with step by step tutorial, and my review of this recovery software.

Note: Pandora works on Windows PCs only, there is NO Pandora Recovery for Mac. If your are on a Mac, try Exif Untrasher (for external devices only) or see this list of free Mac data recovery software. If you're using an iPad, see this iPad recovery post.

Pandora Recovery – Basic Information

Pandora Recovery is a 100% free data recovery program for Windows that helps you find and recover your deleted files from both NTFS and FAT formatted volumes. It allows you to scan all directories and files on any logical drive of your personal computer with supported file formats. Also, it provides a step by step Wizard to assist you through the whole process. Once the scanning is complete you have full control over which files to recover and what destination to save them to.

Download Version: 2.2.1
Download Links: from Pandora Recovery site or get from CNET download.
Size: 3.12 MB
Platform: Windows (10, 8/7/Vista/XP/2003/2000)
Price: FREE
Supported Operation Languages: currently 4 (English, Spanish, Serbian, and Russian), the provider claims they will extend.

How to Recover Deleted Files with Pandora Recovery: Step by Step Tutorial

To start with, I deleted a batch files (containing various file formats) by dragging them into the Recycle Bin and hit empty option to get them wiped like many computer users do. Those files were saved on logical drive E: of my computer running Windows 7 Home Basic (32 bits).

# 1 Install and launch the program. You will see the interface showed as below. Centered is the “Pandora Recovery Wizard” which is very useful to those who are not good at using data recovery software. Note: if you don’t want the wizard to appear again, just disable “Start this Wizard the next time Pandora Recovery starts”.

# 2 Follow the Wizard instructions. If you have checked the Recycle Bin, just choose “No, I did not find my files” and click “Next>”. Then select the disk drive you want to recover files from. Choose a scan mode from the 3 options (Browse, Search or Deep Scan).

# 3 Scan and Preview the found files. After selecting the recovery method, the program will start to scan the drive for deleted data. After a while there will be quite a lot files found and listed on the window. Preview the files to see if your deleted ones are there.

# 4 Recover and Save the found files. Just highlight the files you want to recover, right click to choose “Recover to” and save them to the destination you desire.

Note: Pandora only works to retrieve data from traditional storage devices, if you are using a modern phone that runs iOS or Android mobile operating system, see reviews from data recovery faq where the author shows some more comprehensive options.

Pandora Recovery - Overall Review

I have to say this is definitely one of the best Windows data recovery programs out there. The user experience is superior. Recovery capabilities are also powerful. It successfully recovered ALL my deleted files with no problem, great job!

Here's my personal review towards this program.

The Good

Simple operation interface with considerate wizard and help contents make the process a breeze. And you don't need any extra skills to perform data recovery even if you are not a computer person.
The 3 scanning modes make it more complete. You can choose the one that best suits your data loss situation.
Supported file formats almost cover every existing file format like documents, media files etc.
Preview function lets you evaluate recovery quality in advance. You can preview photos, documents (show as text only).
File filter function also makes it easy to find your files more efficiently.

The Bad

Supported files under Deep Scan mode are limited. Such as for media files it can only find .mp3 format.
Unable to preview video files.

In conclusion, Pandora Recovery is an excellent free data recovery program. Let me know how you like the program, did it help you retrieve your files?

Exif Untrasher Review & Tutorial 2016: Recover Photos from Digital Media on Mac for Free

2011-06-06T19:18:00.000-07:00

Note: this post was last updated on February 22, 2016. A few corrections related to Exif Untrasher was added to the content.

If you are looking for a completely free Mac photo recovery software to recover those deleted or formatted pictures from your digital camera, Exif Untrasher is the one.

Yes, it's a freeware which can help retrieve images deleted or lost from external devices (digital camera, USB flash drive, memory SD card etc.) right on your Mac machine.

You don't have to pay for commercial apps to do that. See instructions and reviews for Exif Untrasher below.

Please note: Exif Untrasher works under Mac OS X only, there is no Exif Untrasher for Windows. If you are using a PC, try Recuva or Pandora Recovery (free without any limitations).

Part 1: Basic Information about Exif Untrasher

It is a JPG photo recovery tool that will locate images on your digital camera’s memory card (CF card, SD card, memory stick or anything else) and save them to your Mac. It won’t succeed in every case, but a lot of people got pretty good results using it. It is especially useful for recovering pictures that you have taken with your digital camera but trashed accidentally.

Download Version: 1.5 (10/07/2014)
Download Links: from the official site
Size: 186 KB
Platform: Mac OS X 10.6 or higher (Intel), including latest OS X El Capitan.
Price: FREE
Commercial Use: Allowed, you can make donations.
Supported Languages on Interface: English, German, French and Italian

Part 2: How to use Exif Untrasher: a step by step tutorial

Though Exif Untrasher claims that it is a program to recover JPG photos from digital camera on Mac, the fact is it not only supports digital camera (sd card, memory stick etc) but also USB flash drive (device I used to test). So I would like to describe the app as a free Macintosh JPG photo recovery software for removable media.

To start with, I don't have a digital camera or sd memory card at hand. So I replaced the test device with my handy 2 GB USB flash drive. I put a batch of photos (contaning formats JPG, PNG, GIF,TIF etc) with quantity of about 120 (note: most of them are JPEG format) to my USB drive. And hit Delete option to get them erased (which was done under my HP laptop with Windows operation system). Then I plugged the thumb drive in my Mac machine with Exif Untrasher installed already. Now come to the step by step test or tutorial.

Step 1: Open the software. Choose the Source Volume which you want to recover photos from. As you can see in the picture below. The internal Macintosh HD has been disabled to select (Exif Untrasher is unable to recover photos from internal Macintosh HD). So I selected my USB drive (shown as JOHN’S USB). Then chose the Destination path which used to store the recovered photos. After that pressed OK.

Step 2: The Program will pop out a new windows indicating it needs to create a disk image of my USB drive in order to retrieve any images in it. It’s actually doing a clone of my USB drive. Simply click “OK” as it won’t do anything bad to the recovery.

Step 3: Just wait a moment until the disk image is created. I waited about 30 seconds before it came to the scanning process.

Step 4: The scanning process takes time depending on the storage volume of your external drive. It took me about 5 minutes for my 2 GB USB flash and found 95 photos. All are JPG format, no other PNG, GIF or TIF ones found as you can see clearly from below.

Part 3: Review of Exif Untrasher

Pros:

Can recover photos deleted or formatted from external device son Mac OS X for Free. You don’t have to pay for any commercial programs as you may know 99% mac photo recovery software on the market are not free (usually not cheap at all).
It’s a freeware with GUI (Graphic User Interface) which makes photo recovery more simple. From this sense, it’s far more better than the other free mac data recovery freeware called PhotoRec (command line tool).
Before you are about to perform the scanning, the program will do a disk image (something like make a backup) just in case

Cons:

Cannot recover photos with formats such as PNG, GIF, TIFF etc or other media files (videos, music etc.)
Unable to recover data from internal Macintosh HD.
The program will recover the found files directly without asking you which need to recover, or which you don’t have to. You have no choice to select.

These are the pros and cons with Exif Untrasher. But, it works as it says and remember it's totally free. If Exif Untrasher won't help, try some other Mac data recovery programs. This review from anysoftwaretools in 2016 seems great. If that still doesn't work out, your last resort would be send your device for data recovery service, but I have to warn you the recovery chance is not 100% guaranteed.