Recovers files from hard drives and other media
When you delete files from your PC, you don’t really wipe them away forever. The system simply marks that space as reusable, which means that erased files can be actually be recovered with apps like PC Tools File Recover.
This program features three different modes (Quick, Deep and Physical) to scan your computer in search of previously erased files. I specially liked the possibility to filter this scan, either by file type, file size or even specifying letters or words that must be found in the file’s name.
Of course, the most thorough the scanning method you choose, the longer it will take to be completed. On the upside, a Deep scan shows far more results than the Quick one and the Physical scan can be useful in case of corrupt hard drives.
However, I was disappointed to see that this trial version doesn’t allow you to recover any files. It scans your PC and displays the list of all erased files, but if you want to recover any of them you’ll need to register the program. I understand this is a shareware version, but I think users would like to have some kind of guarantee that they’ll be able to recover their data. And maybe a good way to do so would be to have a fully functional version for a limited period of time, or at least allow users to recover a few files before registering the program.
File Recover allows you to recover critically important documents, or other files, which have been lost by accidental deletion. These files may be lost by emptying the Recycle Bin, or using other deletion actions that bypass the Recycle Bin altogether. Such actions include Windows Shift-Delete, command line deletion, deleting excessively large files or using applications that delete files without the Recycle Bin.
When a file is deleted from the Recycle Bin, or if the recycle bin is bypassed altogether, the file can no longer be recovered by the Windows OS. The content of the file still remains on the drive, relatively intact, until the section of the drive it occupies is overwritten by another file.
File Recover identifies the contents of such lost files on the hard drive and allows you to recover them. If a file has been partially overwritten, File Recover attempts to reconstruct as much of the file as possible with the remaining contents. This allows you to salvage at least part, if not all, of that recovered file to continue using it as required.
