Introduction
Hi everyone, those of you who have read my reviews will be aware I normally review hardware and peripherals, well today I am breaking from the norm and doing a review on software.
EaseUs is one of those companies that often pops up when you do a search for software to handle disk management that Windows, OSX, IOS and Android fails to cope with, this could be advanced partition management or disk recovery tools.
Today on Workstation 1138 I have the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional 12 software to review. Lets see how it performs.
Specification
All-in-One EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard
Help to retrieve lost or deleted files, photos, music, audio, emails, etc. from the hard drive, memory card, USB, digital camera, mobile devices and other storage media.
- Deleted Files Recovery
- Formatted Recovery
- Recycle Bin Emptied Data Recovery
- Lost Partition Recovery
- Hard Disk Damage
- OS Crash Recovery
- Virus Attack Recovery
- RAW Partition Recovery
Closer look & Installation
After downloading a relatively small installer of around 41MB by clicking on the Free Trial, we are met with a standard installation wizard, nice and familiar without jumping through hoops.
During installation we are helpfully reminded to install the application on a different drive to the one we want to recover data from, if the drive were failing the software could crash trying to recover data resulting in further loss.
Once installation is complete the installer opens up a browser window showing that installation was successful and hinting at a tutorial. My issue with this is opening webpages as part of an install is often associated with malware activity, the set of icons that are the 10 second tutorial could be placed at the top of the screen when you first run the software, this is an unnecessary and for some confusing action with the aim of selling a license.
Launching the application for the first time presents us with the main screen along with a Buy Now and Activate button, from Buy Now you get back to the product page with the various license options available. Clicking Activate allows you to enter a product key, EaseUS have kindly supplied a sample key for the Pro version of the software.
On a much better note, entering the supplied product key did not ask for any further information, no registration form to fill in, however details are of course required for when purchasing a license. Now the main screen shows up without the Buy Now and Activate buttons. You will notice there are more drives showing, I have connected a broken hard disk in order to test data recovery capabilities. This drive will prevent windows from booting properly and windows disk recovery fails to complete.
Data Recovery Test
Selecting what was the C Drive of the old Windows 8 system this disk came from followed by the Scan button brings up the Scan program. With this Wizard you don’t have to give the software lots of complicated information such as partition size, block size or media specifications which some advanced software can require, the whole process is automated, don’t expect it to be a quick run as media with bad sectors, checksum errors and other data corruption can take quite a while to be read and understood by recovery software. Expect the possibility of a job taking several hours, which is determined by media size and the problems encountered.
Once the quick scan and deep scan have completed we are presented with a big long list of all files found on the drive, including some folders of lost files that can be rebuilt. The drive is 1TB in size yet the software estimates almost 4TB of recovery possible, this will be due to deleted files and multiple versions of the same files being available for recovery. Carefully go through the list and pick out which files you would like to retrieve, especially if your recovery location can’t take the whole data set.
When selecting a destination, the software allows you to create new folders to help keep this data separate from your normal files. You can also choose different drives, it is highly advisable not to recover your media to the same medium it came from.
Hitting the Recover button and selecting the file location is all you need to do at that point and off it goes. There was one occasion where the screen went black with a red border and a not responding message in the title bar, however after a few moments it recovered itself and continued with the restore. A full tutorial on how to recover deleted files can be found at https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-deleted-files.htm
Once complete the software presents you with a Deep Scan Result, this allows you to browse into the folders that have been restored to check the files are back. I am happy to announce that the software did a great job recovering images and documents that had been lost on the drive. Once you are done and close the software you are given the option to export the scan results, this is especially useful if you wish to go back another time and do further recovery without rerunning the entire scan.
Conclusion
Well after a few hours probing the broken disk drive, EaseUS Recovery Wizard Pro did a great and generally painless job of getting at files. This software will especially suit those without advanced knowledge of the workings of various types of media, while hard drives rarely fail, SDCards and USB sticks can be more susceptible to failure, especially cheap ones. Priced at £71.99 at the time of writing it may seem pricey for software that just recovers files, however many retail stores will charge upwards of £100+ for a single recovery run, EaseUS provide a lifetime license with all patches and software upgrades included free of charge, so the software would pay for itself after just one use. Other versions are available including one that includes WinPE to allow for a full Windows recovery for £95.99.
Whats Hot
- Excellent media recovery software with a deep scan that can retrieve lost files along with data from failing media.
- Incredibly easy to set up and use, no advanced knowledge of media technology needed, the wizard takes you through the process step by step.
- The license lasts a lifetime and includes all patches and future software updates at no extra cost.
- There is a free trial, while limited to recovering 2GB of data, would give you an idea of how it works.
Whats Not
- Installation brings up a webpage at the end which is both unnecessary and the type of behavior some untrustworthy software uses.
- During recovery the screen went black with a red border with a not responding message, some users may not wait for it to come back and prematurely terminate the process.
- More helpful messages are needed.
Our Verdict
There is quite a lot of competition out there for recovery software, finding something reliable and cost effective can be a bit of a minefield. EaseUS have come up with a product that is pretty good value considering the lifetime license and the easy to use wizard makes this software suit just about anybody. I am happy to award EaseUS Recovery Wizard Pro a Silver award for a well rounded recovery application.
Many thanks for EaseUS for sending the sample key to test the software.
