Typically, it takes no more than a couple of mistaken clicks or a tiny system error to destroy a pile of important files. Rescuing them, on the other hand, may become a real pain in the neck, especially when you cannot boast any technical background. Free undelete tools downloaded from the Internet simply do not work in expected the way, seasoned IT guys from the communities start throwing around terms you even have to google… If that sounds awfully familiar to you, then it’s likely you’ll want to try the following utility. Raise Data Recovery is an attractive alternative for users who have scarce computer skills, but for some reasons, usually related to finances or privacy, do not want professionals to deal with their data loss troubles.
Regardless of how your files were lost — by accidental deletion, a software bug or other malfunctions, for just $24.95, this simple yet efficient program will get them back in no time, provided that the issue is purely logical and doesn’t require any physical repairs. The software recovers data from almost all storage devices, such as internal and portable hard drives, USB sticks, memory cards and other external media, including even most standard NAS boxes and RAID. A large set of supported formats makes it possible to regain information not only from Windows (FAT/FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, ReFS), but also from storages used under macOS (HFS+, APFS) and under Linux (Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS). The installation file is available in three variants as well: for Windows (from XP with Service Pack 3 up to Windows 10), macOS (version 10.7 and later) and for Linux (Debian 6.0 or compatible and above).

The installer itself is very lightweight, up to 20 megabytes, and gets downloaded really quickly. Yet, do not forget that it must not be saved to the storage that lost the data. Few system resources are required to open and launch the app — any Intel 32-bit/64-bit processor or AMD64 and 1 GB of RAM. The setup wizard will offer you right off to choose the preferred language: English, German, Ukrainian, Spanish or Portuguese. The installation procedure is really easy thanks to the clear guidance for provided for each step. You will just have to carefully read all the precautions and the usage terms, accept them, select a folder for installation (or keep the default one) and voilà!

The program can be run immediately from the installer’s window, or later with the help of its shortcut in your computer’s main menu. Initially, it starts in the Trial mode, so you don’t have to order a license unless you decide that it is worth the money. Until then, all the existing functions will be available to you for an unlimited time, except the option to save files with a size lager than 256 KB.

The first thing you notice upon launch is a straightforward interface with a modern design that promises an absolutely intuitive experience. The right-hand pane contains a quick overview of what should be done on each stage of data recovery, and that really makes the whole process a no-brainer.
The first screen of the app prompts you to choose the affected storage. This can be not only a logical volume, but also a physical storage device. The latter can be selected when you are not sure what partition the files were stored in, or you simply don’t see it among the displayed options — this often happens in case of severe logical corruption. Also, you may quickly check out the content of the volume you’ve picked by putting a checkmark next to the “Open existing file system” box. If you want to proceed to a scan straightaway, then simply leave it empty and hit “Continue” to initiate the process.

After that, you will have to wait for some time till the operation is completed. The scan is progressing considerably quickly, with elapsed time registered on the screen. Yet, the speed, of course, depends on many factors, such as type of your device, its capacity, how it is connected to the computer and so on. What is really important to note is that the tool simply reads out the available information, without writing or fixing anything within the storage, so you can be confident in its total safety for your files.

When the scan is completed, you can see what has been found presented as a tree-like folder structure that resembles Windows Explorer. Most of the files have their original names and directories. Yet, some of them may lack thereof due to damage and be placed to the $LostFiles, Found files or Extra found files catalogs with some numbers instead of the real names. If the names were recovered but are not displayed correctly, it is possible to change the encoding used to represent the characters. The restored deleted files may be also separated from the rest of the content by switching to the “Deleted files” tab. Also, you can tell them from the normal ones by the red color as opposed to black.

In order to get back the data, you will need to pick out the items you want. This can be done manually using the checkboxes, or automatically with the help of the “Select all” button in the lower left corner. Specific files can be quickly found through the search field below. A built-in viewer can show you the graphic files (including digital camera raw formats), *.txt files, and Adobe Acrobat documents (*.pdf). Their hexadecimal content can also be opened in a separate window.

When the required elements are selected, the program prompts you to choose the storage to copy them. You may alter the name of the target folder that will be placed in the root of the chosen drive. In fact, this way the app prevents you from saving recovered files to the source drive, as by doing so you may overwrite the lost data. Alternatively, you may use the “Custom location” button. It will allow you to navigate to the needed location and, if necessary, create a new folder within it. Still, in this case, make sure that the storage is different from the source drive and has enough storage space.

If the sizes of files you’ve selected exceed 256 KB, you will be prompted to buy a license for the software. It is very convenient that the app itself specifies the license type required for your storage (for Windows, Linux or macOS file systems). The license, however, can be applied under any supported OS. For example, an external drive formatted for Windows (with FAT/FAT32, exFAT, NTFS or ReFS) can be recovered with the program installed on a Mac using a Windows license. If you need more formats later, they can be easily enabled along with the previous license.

Having decided on the destination folder and, if necessary, activated the license, you may start the copying process. The existing files with the same name in the folder can be overwritten, renamed, or skipped. Upon completion of the process, it is possible to open the folder with recovered files using the “Recovered data” button. Also, the software will generate a log that can be saved to an HTML document and analyzed at a later date.

In general, Raise Data Recovery is a real find for novices and advanced users alike. The program is nice and affordable, provides clear steps to follow, doesn’t require any extra efforts and demonstrates high performance for file recovery under all popular file systems.

In the absence of a proper backup, accidental operations, hardware and software mishaps, electric outages or cyber attacks are likely to escalate into a real data catastrophe. Though to many computer users that sounds like a terrible nightmare, with a well-thought-out data recovery strategy, it is usually possible to prevent irrevocable loss of important files. This basic data recovery guide will teach how to act under such unfortunate circumstances so that you could restore the data in the most efficient manner and minimize the associated stress and costs.

Content

1. Self-made data recovery VS professional services

2. Data recovery software: how to make the right choice

3. What else is required for a DIY data recovery procedure?

4. Important precaution rules to avoid destroying your files

5. Data recovery process step-by-step

-Preparation of the storage

-Search and retrieval of the needed files

Professional services VS self-made data recovery

It is no secret that there are two ways of approaching the problem data loss: one can employ specialized data recovery software or hire professional services provided by a data recovery center. In general, the latter can be used to solve recovery tasks of any complexity, but is usually considered the last resort due to exceedingly high prices and the time it takes for the company to receive and then process your order.

Still, it is relevant to note that expert help shall not be neglected when the storage device shows any signs of physical damage, like unusual noises, constant crashes, weirdly long access times, SMART warnings and others or is no longer recognized by the system under its valid name. Only professionals can properly perform its diagnostics, if needed, open the device and replace defective components or utilize dedicated instruments to keep its lifespan sufficient for data extraction. Failing storages are extremely sensitive, so any amateur manipulations with them may not only result in a doubled service fee but also damage the data beyond recoverability. If you don’t possess specialized skills, the only viable option is to power the device off, carefully remove it from the computer and contact a data recovery company well-received in your local area. Also, make sure that you pack the storage well enough to avoid its further damage during shipment. Hard disk drives should be put in static-resistant bags, it is also recommended to use the original manufacturer packaging or a cardboard box with protective foam padding.

By contrast, data loss scenarios that do not involve defective hardware are usually typical and can be addressed on site using a software-based approach, which is found to be much cheaper and less troublesome. Yet, you should be aware that this method will only work when the data is still physically present on the disk, namely wasn’t overwritten or wiped out by a file shredder, low-level format or the TRIM command initialized automatically on most modern SSDs.

Data recovery software: how to make the right choice

When choosing a utility that will be used to restore your files, there are three key factors worth drawing attention to — safety, functionality and efficiency.

Needless to say that safety should be given a top priority as intrusive programs may do more harm than good and even spoil whatever chances you have to recover the data using other means. In terms of data recovery, safety normally implies the absence of any writing operations to the affected storage. Safe data recovery tools are non-destructive, they simply read the data from the problem disk, create a virtual representation of its file system and allow you to copy files to another location. In no event shall they offer you to modify the initial content of fix anything directly on the storage. Another thing to check is whether the software has a digital signature: it prevents the program code from being corrupted by some third party and will inform you about the origin of the application you are going to run.

As far as functionality is concerned, even a quick Google search will provide you with a variety of options, from basic free tools to expensive professional series. In some cases, a simple free utility may fit for your task, but, in fact, the majority of them are limited in their capabilities. Such software may not support certain file systems, especially non-Windows ones, rarely restores the original folder structure or file names, hardly ever works with additional storage technologies, like RAID, encryption or virtualization. That being so, it will be useful to consult the program specifications and find out whether it can handle your storage.

If you decide to purchase a paid utility, it is important to realize that any trustworthy data recovery tool should offer a free trial version with the possibility to estimate the result you will obtain with its help. Take care to preview the files to ensure that they can be recovered, otherwise, you can simply buy a pig in a poke.

In case you are looking for a tool that meets all the outlined criteria, UFS Explorer and Recovery Explorer are popular data recovery solutions that really deserve consideration. The software operates in a safe read-only mode, can be tested for free and is represented by a range of editions suitable for diverse data recovery tasks, storage media and numerous storage technologies utilized in Windows, Linux and macOS.

What else is required for a DIY data recovery procedure?

A reliable piece of data recovery software is certainly the major element of the whole operation, but one should not entirely forget about the hardware part. The actual list of the needed components depends on the type of storage to be recovered.

First of all, you need to prepare a computer on which the utility will be launched. If the loss of data occurred on the system partition (the one from which the OS is booted), it is highly recommended to use a different PC in view of a high likelihood that the lost files will be implicitly overwritten by some system process. This approach is also applicable when the problem computer won’t start. In case of a non-system partition or any external storage device, you can use the same computer under condition that it is bootable and nothing will be saved or installed to the affected logical volume, even the data recovery application.

Secondly, arrange the equipment you will use to connect the device to the computer. Internal SATA hard drives provide the maximum speed when attached to the SATA connectors located on the motherboard, however, if there are no vacant ones or for any reason you are not able to make it to the computer’s inner parts, you can also employ a USB to SATA adapter or an external disk enclosure. A memory card, depending on the form factor, can be inserted into the embedded card reader or an external USB adapter. A portable disk can be connected using any available interface, yet, it is preferable to use faster ones, like eSATA. A USB stick should be simply plugged into any computer’s USB port, but USB 3.0 is preferred over USB 2.0 because of the higher speed.

And finally, find a storage large enough to locate the recovered data, as you cannot save it to the partition from which it is being recovered — this mistake usually leads to the severe damage of files or even their destruction.

Important precaution rules to avoid destroying your files

Although several precautionary measures have been mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, in the context of data recovery, any bad decision could entail irreversible consequences for the storage and files, that is why it is essential to know and strictly follow all the safety steps and rules.

1. Prevent data overwriting by all means.

Once you notice the data is missing, your best bet is to stop using the storage entirely. The more information is written to it, the lower chances are that you will get back your files. The space they occupy is marked as free by the operating system and can be filled in anytime, depending on its algorithms. Thus, even launching an Internet browser can potentially damage the data, not to mention more intensive writing operations.

2. Don’t try to repair or format the storage.

After you connect the storage device, you may obtain an error message that will suggest fixing or formatting it for further use. Before you recover the data, reject any operations of this kind, even if they seem harmless — new structures written to the storage may cause serious problems or even the total loss of data. Likewise, the attempts of physical repair are likely to have disastrous effects.

3. If you are not sure about your actions, work with a clone instead of the original device.

A clone of a storage can be easily created with the help of any external disk imaging utility or an embedded function of data recovery software. Having made a disk image, you will protect the source storage from any further damage. A data recovery program can read from such a file the same way it does from a physical disk, plus it won’t be bounded by the speed limitations of the connector, so the process will be carried out much faster. Moreover, a disk image file is much more portable and can be loaded onto an external storage, without the need to transfer the original disk to another computer.

Data recovery process step-by-step

Preparation of the storage

Unless you are recovering data from a non-system partition of a workable PC or use a disk image, the first step of the data recovery procedure always includes storage connection. While portable devices (thumb drives, memory cards, external USB disks) can be attached to the PC without any difficulties, traditional SATA drives used in computers and NAS devices require certain technical skills. Here is a brief algorithm you can rely on in the process:

1. Turn your computer/NAS off and wait for the system to shut down.

2. Ground yourself to work with the hardware’s inner parts. You may use a special anti-static wrist strap or simply touch any grounded metal object. This can be the metal side of your system block, if the computer is plugged into a grounded socket.

3. Open the tower/NAS box. For this, it is recommended to refer to the user manual of the device.

4. Carefully eject the hard drive. If you need to work with multiple drives (RAID, span, etc.), remove them one by one and mark each drive in accordance with their order.

5. Power off the machine that will run data recovery software and connect the extracted disk to it.

A. If you are going to use its SATA ports for connection, open the system unit and connect the SATA data cable of the drive to a SATA port on the motherboard — such ports are commonly labeled and grouped together.

After that, find a free power cable and attach it to the larger connection port of the drive. Finally, insert the SATA data cable into the smaller SATA port on the drive.

B. If you are going to use USB to SATA adapter, make sure that it is equipped with a power supply or prepare an external one, like an AC/DC adapter and a Molex to SATA Power cable for it. Power the drive by connecting its power cable to the Molex to SATA Power cable attached to the power supply. After that, connect the SATA data cable of the disk to the USB to SATA adapter. Lastly, attach the USB cable (USB plug) of the adapter to the computer’s USB port.

6. In case of multiple disks, repeat the procedure for each of them. If the system lacks free SATA connectors, use USB to SATA adapters or disk enclosures.

7. Once the drives are connected, you can boot the system. Ensure that the disks were attached properly by entering BIOS or by running Disk Management. Find the disk(s) in the list of devices — if missing, shut down the system, unplug the computer and check the contacts.

Search and retrieval of the needed files

After all preparations are completed, you can get on with the data recovery itself. Install the chosen data recovery utility on the partition that doesn’t contain the lost data and launch the software. Here the procedure is described on the example of UFS Explorer RAID Recovery downloaded from the official UFS Explorer website.

1. If you’ve created a disk image and want to use it instead of the source drive, you can open the image file with the help of the “Image file or virtual disk” option from the “Open” item in the main menu.

2. Explore the list of connected devices in the left pane of the main screen and find your storage. You can recognize it by the name, size or the applied file system. A RAID-based storage can usually be identified by a special icon, RAID level or the number of the drives.

3. To start the scanning a volume/storage, select it in the list and use the “Start scan” button or the corresponding option in the context menu.

4. Define the desired scan parameters, start the procedure and wait until it is finished.

5. Explore the presented result: you can sort the files by name, date, type, use quick or advanced search and preview images, videos, audio files or PDF documents.

6. Press “Define permanent selection” and choose the items you need to save by putting checkmarks next to them.

7. Click “Save selection” and choose a destination folder for the recovered files. Don’t use the source storage for this purpose.

As you can see, data recovery is straightforward enough to be accomplished even with basic technical skills and when performed by the rules will never damage your drive or affect your computer.

For more than a decade UFS Explorer has been providing users with quality and uncompromisingly reliable software tools for professional-level data recovery. In parallel, the product is constantly evolving to break new grounds and be up to ever more complicated data loss challenges. The latest upgrade of the software has traditionally introduced significant improvements to both functionality and usability of the product, making the work of specialists much more smooth and efficient, especially when it comes to the tasks related to serious data corruption or its extraction from unstable or defective storage media.

Enhanced procedure for opening storages

A new advanced mechanism for opening storages added to all software editions of version 8 allows specifying the preferred method of data access and an I/O timeout for cases when reading issues are encountered. The upgraded Professional Edition also provides an option to read out the storage only once and save the data that has already been read to a SDLSparse image file so that the further read requests could be addressed to the “cache” instead of the original location — this feature is particularly useful for failing drives as it greatly reduces the time needed to extract the necessary data and prevents further degradation of a disk. Moreover, a “Stop device” function is available in the application to turn off the drive programmatically when it is not needed and put it to “sleep” in order to save its resources.

Apart from this, the loader of disk image files from fragments has been reworked and now indicates the virtual sizes and types of components and performs their automatic sorting.

Advanced possibilities for creating disk images

Saving a standard bit-to-bit copy of a disk may not be viable when the cloned storage has certain physical issues or contains bad sectors: defective blocks may cause the process to freeze, the drive may stop responding and is likely to fail due to the heavy load. By contrast, the new disk imaging instrument available in all software editions of the 8th release makes the process fully configurable. It allows saving an image of the whole disk or customize the imaged area with the possibility to define multiple regions that will be included to or excluded from the image file and specify such parameters as sector size used for imaging and reading settings, like direction, block size, timeout and protocol (direct ATA/SCSI). In case of a reading error, the software can be configured to skip a certain number of blocks, try to reset the disk, or check whether it is responding by referring to a predefined “safe zone” which is guaranteed to be readable. Such an approach helps to minimize the possible disk wear and increase the speed of imaging.

All the bad sectors are mapped out during imaging which results in the creation of a defects map file. Such a map can be applied to a storage to avoid areas with defects in the process scanning and recover as much intact data as possible from the rest of the disk.

Furthermore, the Professional Edition of the product now supports map-based imaging which may be useful for saving an image of free/occupied file system areas, a certain group of files and similar tasks.

Virtual emulation of defects

The Professional Edition of the 8th version is capable of transforming the information about the space used by a certain file system (or space considered to be free from its perspective) to a mask emulating bad blocks. Applied to a storage/partition, such a mask allows separating the data necessary for a particular operation from the one which should be omitted. The masked areas can also be filled in with a pattern defined as plain text or as a hexadecimal value. The feature is supported for various file systems of Windows (FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, ReFS, ReFS3), macOS (HFS+, APFS), Linux (EXT2-EXT4, XFS, XFS5, ReiserFS, UFS, UFS/BE, Adaptec UFS) and VMware (VMFS, VMFS6, VirtualFS) and is applicable to the storages in the “read once” mode as well.

An augmented toolkit for work with raw data

UFS Explorer version 8 provides diverse means for maximally effective operations with raw binary data. Automatic reverse address translation available in the Professional Edition allows tracing the allocation of data for various formats of virtual disks and disk images (VHDX/VHD, VMDK/seSparse, VDI, PAR, QCOW/QCOW2, DMG/DMG4), different types of RAID and RAID-based storages (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 1E, RAID 3, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 6A, custom RAID patterns, Span, BeyondRAID, MS Storage Spaces), volumes created using data mapping (CoreStorage, LVM with thin provisioning, encrypted volumes, etc.) as well as files opened in the hexadecimal mode.

Furthermore, the software now makes it possible to view fragments of a file in a separate panel with their virtual offsets and sizes, save a report with this information, sort fragments by an offset/virtual offset, go to a virtual offset in a file and highlight the currently selected fragment in a hexadecimal view tab.

Besides that, the indication of used clusters makes it simple to distinguish between the actual file system data and “unoccupied” space, instantly move to the next used/free and allows saving an image of the used space only.
Also, the hexadecimal inspector available in all software releases now displays the current position of the cursor not only as a hex address but also as a percentage.

Optimized support of DeepSpar Disk Imager

The Professional Edition of UFS Explorer now allows performing the imaging of drives connected via a DeepSpar Disk Imager on the basis of a bitmap. In addition, the product has been supplemented with the support of split disk images created by DDI.

More supported storage technologies

The list of utilities that work with the BeyondRAID storage technology of Drobo has been enlarged and now includes UFS Explorer RAID Recovery and UFS Explorer Network RAID. The latter has also obtained all the functionality of the RAID Edition, aside from its network-based capabilities. Moreover, UFS Explorer Professional Recovery is now capable of reading volumes with the new Novell NSS64 file system.

Extended scan opportunities

The new software release makes it possible to shorten the time needed to perform storage scan and avoid scanning superfluous areas. The user can choose one of the five options as to the way of processing the existing file system: the program can simply index it, perform the indexing and then proceed to a full scan, ignore any file system structures and scan the entire storage, scan only the space utilized by the file system or exclude this space from a scan.

Expanded reporting functionality

The 8th release of UFS Explorer offers an option to create a report which includes the information about defective/not-imaged files: the number of bad objects, their total size and a list with locations and error types. The report can be viewed in the software interface or saved as a file in the HTML format. The updated software also allows tracing the most important software events with the help of an embedded adjustable log. Such a log includes notifications as to crashes, disk detection events, I/O errors, etc. with their details and can be saved as a report to a separate file.

Modifications related to files copying

The copying procedure now can be configured to write the summary on the number of files, their size and encountered read errors to a log. The Professional Edition also allows copying defective files whilst filling the unreadable blocks with a fixed pattern or moving them to a separate $BadFiles folder.

As can be observed, UFS Explorer version 8 offers numerous advantages over its predecessor, making an upgrade really worthwhile to consider, particularly given that the users of the 7th release with an active support period can obtain it for free. The updated software can be downloaded from the software store as well as from the web page of the corresponding software edition.

The good old 5th version of UFS Explorer did a great job bringing lost files back from the digital netherworld, but information technologies never stand still and after a while even decent data recovery solutions inevitably become outdated. So far this product release has officially reached the end of its life and all users of the Standard, RAID and Professional editions are encouraged to stay on top of things by switching to the latest 7th version. The ones who didn’t put off upgrading note that in all weighty aspects, such as usability, performance and functionality, the new software is a massive improvement over its predecessor. In light of this, if you’re still in doubt concerning a shift, read on this brief overview of the major changes and find out which benefits are you missing out on.

User-friendly interface

When you start any utility of the 7th release, the first thing that will catch your eye is the reworked interface: now it is far more straightforward and doesn’t require so much technical background. The whole data recovery procedure is now complemented with helpful prompts and instructions, becoming hassle-free even for novices. Moreover, auto-detection of additional storage technologies available on logical volumes or physical devices together with the new partition icons make it a lot easier to find the needed storage and access it to regain the missing data.

Highly efficient scanning

On the other hand, the process of storage analysis has been substantially enhanced. Even if the partition table of a disk has been damaged or the information about the location of partitions is invalid, the software is now able to determine their correct positions and align them automatically for absolutely accurate data reading. Moreover, before running a scan, you can define a set of file systems that could conceivably be applied on the storage and perform their search in one go, with minimum references to the device and in the shortest possible time. The procedure itself has also become more convenient thanks to the new options that allow pausing the scan, viewing or saving the interim results, etc.

More supported technologies than ever before

The range of modern storage technologies UFS Explorer is capable of working with has also been greatly expanded: now you can recover data from simple volumes with APFS, Btrfs, ReFS and ReFS 3 as well as complex storage systems like ZFS RAID-Z, Drobo BeyondRAID, Btrfs-RAID, Microsoft Storage Spaces and Apple’s Fusion Drive based on both Core Storage and APFS. Furthermore, Microsoft NTFS and ReFS partitions with activated data deduplication can be handled by the software with the help of their corresponding deduplication databases.

Secondly, partitions encrypted with BitLocker or the encryption mechanism based on APFS can be unlocked and opened directly in UFS Explorer, without prior decryption in the OS.

In addition, the set of supported disk images and virtual disks has been extended with new formats, such as VDI of VirtualBox, QCOW/QCOW2 of QEMU and XEN, Apple Disk Images (DMG), image files created by R-Studio (RDL) and DeepSpar Disk Imager.

Special handling of defective storages

The Professional and the RAID Edition now provide a advanced toolkit developed specially for work with damaged storages. Disks, their images or even arrays which comprise bad sectors can be processed in them with the help of bad sectors maps created dynamically or by compatible software. Apart from this, UFS Explorer Professional version 7 can make use of a Local Area Network to address defective storages connected to DeepSpar Disk Imager and offers the possibility to adjust the read timeout, block size and other settings without any third-party utilities.

Visualization of RAID

The software now makes it much easier to verify the consistency of the assembled RAID and the correctness of the employed parameters by visualizing the content of the array. The mechanism syncs with the hexadecimal data viewer and allows checking parity values, highlighting key structures, such as MFT or MBR, or restoring the unavailable data.

Support of disks with non-standard sector sizes

Earlier, data recovery from SCSI and SAS drives of non-standard block formats (520 bytes, 524 bytes, 528 bytes and others) employed in some systems, such as NetApp, EMC and HP, was not possible without their particular hardware. Thanks to the new sector size mutation feature in the Professional Edition of UFS Explorer such drives can be connected to any computer and processed by the utility without any specialized equipment.

Interactive reports

The Professional Edition now allows saving the result of data recovery as a standard HTML file. It contains a full representation of the reconstructed file system and the information about all the found files. Such a report can be opened on another computer in any web-browser and also features an embedded search function. You can find and select the needed items right in this file, transfer this information to UFS Explorer and immediately start copying the data of your choice.

All new edition — UFS Explorer Network RAID

UFS Explorer Network RAID is a brand-new utility which can boast about the capability to perform distributed data recovery from RAID or any simple storage device over a Local Area Network. It is equipped with almost the same set of functions and tools as the RAID Edition, but allows for the digital media to be attached to another PC or even several computers belonging to the same LAN. The option will certainly come in handy when a single computer cannot host all the needed disks due to various problems, such as incompatibility or an insufficient number of ports.

Revised licensing conditions

The licensing scheme for the current software offers a new option for those who are going to earn money with its help: the Commercial License allows installing the program on one company’s computer and permits its for-profit use. The Personal License now can be applied to any number of home computers owned by the licensee as well as a single computer at work. Like with the 5th software release, a purchased license implies lifetime usage of the software without trial limitations, yet, the period during which you can receive free updates for the product has been reduced to 360 days. The license pricing starts from €49.95 varies depending on the chosen software edition as well as the license type while an upgrade from the previous version can be performed with a discount of up to 50%.

As you can see, the 7th release UFS Explorer breaks a wholly new ground in DIY data recovery, thus, if you are still using the legacy version or simply looking for an efficient all-in-one instrument to rescue your lost files, this new software truly deserves your attention. For any other details, inсluding technical specifications, pricing and download links, you may refer to the official website of the product.

Despite such an abundance of choice, finding a decent piece of software today may become a real struggle, especially when it comes to data recovery. The sad fact is that it’s a fairly common situation, particularly with freeware, when a program meant to bring all of your lost files back eventually gives you nothing but a big disappointment. And if you’ve tried a bunch of free data recovery utilities and none of them has met your expectations, you may also consider drawing your attention to more reliable professional-oriented software, like UFS Explorer, which has a quite strong reputation in the community of experts. Read on about its features and capabilities to decide whether this solution is something likely to fit your data recovery needs.

The software range consists of four separate programs which are able to run in three major OS environments: Windows, Linux and macOS. Though different in terms of supported storage technologies, additional features and the extent of adjustability, they actually share the equal efficiency of data recovery, so you may expect the same quality result even when using the most basic software edition. Among the data loss issues covered by them are accidentally deleted files of all existing types, ones lost after storage format or corruption, software or system crashes, due to activities of computer viruses, power outages and other related problems. Still, a set of devices one can work may vary depending on the actual software edition.

UFS Explorer Standard Recovery
The Standard edition of UFS Explorer is the most budget option from the set which will perfectly satisfy the demands of ordinary users but in certain aspects may appear to be insufficient for seasoned professionals. The storage devices handled by the application include internal hard disk drives of PCs, Macs and Linux stations, USB sticks, portable external disks, memory cards of various types, virtual disks and other simple storages. If the device is suspected to fail soon, one can create its image directly in the program and recover data from this bit-to-bit copy instead. The program also allows working with both simple and spanned logical volumes, evaluating their state and, if needed, reconstructing their damaged file systems. The majority of file system types employed in Windows, macOS and Linux are supported, including the fresh ones, like Btrfs and Apple APFS. The interface of the utility is quite straightforward for all levels of computer users and even contains various instructions and prompts for an easier procedure. Among other benefits are the possibility to directly access the intact data before starting to look for deleted/lost files, pause the process of scanning and resume it later, preview the found files before copying them, use different sorting options and advanced search filters to find the needed items or just save the whole scan result to get back to it later. Another advantage is that, unless severely ruined, the recovered data is presented in the way it looked in the original file browser: with the same folders structure, file names, etc.

UFS Explorer RAID Recovery
The RAID edition of UFS Explorer includes all the functionality of the Standard one, but in addition to that, provides means for work with RAID sets and various devices based on the RAID technology, like NAS or DAS. The utility supports all standard and nested RAID configurations as well stripe volumes with ZFS and RAID-Z. The configuration can be reconstructed automatically by the software or specified by the user with the help of a convenient RAID builder tool, which also allows editing it any moment or save it for future use.

UFS Explorer Network RAID
The Network RAID release incorporates all the advantages of the RAID edition along with presenting a noteworthy feature called “distributed data recovery over LAN” which implies the opportunity to work distantly with a RAID sets whose disk may be attached to different remote computers. Such a feature will certainly prove useful when your computer lacks enough free ports to place all of the RAID disks. In fact, the option can also be applied to stand-alone storage devices – one can attach a disk to a PC and recover files from it using another computer connected to the same LAN. The software also offers the possibility to connect to a DeepSpar Disk Imager device and work with a defective hard drive through it without any additional utilities needed. Disk images made with the help of a DDI device are supported as well.

UFS Explorer Professional Recovery
The Professional edition is designed primarily for data recovery specialists and proficient computer users. The software can boast a comprehensive set of features, which is naturally expected from a professional-level instrument, and even a bit more. Most of the functions are highly configurable which definitely gives you much more control over the procedure, but at the same, makes it quite complicated. Along with the all RAID-related functions included into the RAID edition, the utility offers the support of a big variety of storage technologies, including Apple’s Fusion Drive and Core Storage, both simple and thin-provisioned LVM, MS Storage Spaces and Dynamic Disks, deduplicated NTFS and ReFS partitions, Synology Hybrid RAID, Drobo’s Beyond RAID and ZFS RAID-Z. Also, the software has embedded decryption techniques for different encryption technologies, like BitLocker, LUKS, Apple File Vault 2 and APFS encryption. A special toolkit is also provided for processing disks with damaged sectors: one can work with drives connected to DeepSpar Disk Imager, utilize bad sector maps created by certain third-party solutions (АСЕ Lab PC-3000, ACE Data Recovery MHZ, DeepSpar DDI) and create dynamic maps of bad blocks on disk images. In addition, the program is also capable of working with SCSI and SAS drives with a non-standard size of sectors (520 bytes, 524 bytes, 528 bytes, etc.) employed in some proprietary storage systems without any specialized hardware.

Recovery process
The general data recovery process performed with UFS Explorer will be as follows:
1. First of all, you will need to install and run the software. After that, select the needed storage device or a logical volume from the list of detected devices. You may make your decision on the basis of the size or the file system type of your storage. Also, each partition will have its own icon indicating the state of its data and the presence of some specific storage technologies.
2. Analyze the chosen storage for lost files using the scanning tool from the toolbar. You may select certain file system types to look for, choose “quick” or “deep” IntelliRAW scan, change encoding settings for the names of files or just maintain the default scan parameters.
3. Wait for the storage scan to be completed. The needed time may vary depending on the speed of connection and the actual size of the storage, but you may get oriented by the given on-screen information, like how much of the process has been carried out and how much time this took. You can also pause the procedure, save the obtained result and resume this scan later.
4. After that, the find the data you need by exploring the available directories, sort files by date, type, name or size or employ various search options. Also, you can preview files like images and documents directly in the interface.
5. If you don’t want to copy the files immediately, you can save these results and refer to them later. If you are ready to save the recovered data, simply mark the necessary items and press the save button.
6. In the end, choose any safe location for the restored data and wait for it to be saved.

Licensing and pricing
Any license for UFS Explorer has a lifetime period of validity, applies for one of the supported operating systems and assumes free updates during 360 days. Different types of use require different licensing options: Personal – for non-profit use by a single person, corporate – for use within a company on up to 10 computers, and commercial – for providing services or any other for-profit use. The size of a license fee depends on the software edition and the type of license starting from €49.95. The trial version of the software allows verifying the actual recovery result and save tiny files whose size doesn’t exceed the limit, which is 256 KB for the Standard edition and 768 KB – for the rest of the software editions.

Conclusion
In contrast to many products the software doesn’t have a free version and may require consulting the user manual from time to time, but if you really need the best tool for the job, this software may appear to be exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Step 1: Choose data recovery software

There are plenty of data recovery tools that can be used by home users who have never faced the problem of losing files. Raise Data Recovery will be a good solution for this case. Download and install the software on your computer.

Step 2: Connect the USB flash drive to the computer.

Step 3: Launch the software and choose the pen drive among the detected storages.

Step 4: Scan the storage.

This might take a while: the time needed for scanning depends on the read speed and the capacity of the storage.

Step 5: Browse through the received results, preview the found files and tick the ones you want to recover.

Step 6: Save the recovered files to a safe place. This can be a hard disk drive of your PC or another pen drive.

Dash cams or vehicle camcorders have become a necessity for anyone who spends a considerable amount of time behind the wheel of a car: it is a small digital device which mounts to the dashboard or windscreen and continuously records everything happening on the road. A decent DVR can help you make your way out of a tight corner, providing reliable evidence in case of a car accident, scam or vandalism. Beyond question, such a “black box” can save your money, time and nerves, but the problem is that it is not always possible to protect the recorder itself from the loss or corruption of those critical footages.

Unfortunately, like any digital device, dash cams are not infallible: they often malfunction or get damaged during the accident and data carriers they rely on (removable or internal solid-state storages) are prone to failures as well. Moreover, video recordings may get intentionally deleted by some wrongdoer or destroyed by malware. In general, the most common factors include:

• abrupt damage of a device or removal of an SD card/flash drive while the camera is operating;

• mistaken formatting of a data carrier;

• malfunction of the DVR system;

• SD card/flash drive/HDD errors;

• failure of dash cam’s internal battery;

• corruption of data due to a limited lifespan of solid-state storages;

• connecting a removable data carrier to a system infected with malware;

• incompatibility issues and many others.

The cheering news is that even if the camcorder is not operable, the recordings can still be retrieved from the storage medium if you apply the right tool.

myDriveRecorder Recovery is a purpose-built solution to the video loss issue. Unlike other applications aimed at data recovery, the software will not only undelete the footages or restore them after storage formatting but is also able to manage the most severe cases, like when videos were not written completely and thus got corrupted or the logical structure of the storage was seriously damaged. Special techniques employed in the program check the consistency of the found data and repair “bad” files. If a recording gets partially overwritten due to the lack of space on a storage, the program is able to restore it in part. Files whose pieces are scattered around the storage get reconstructed with the help of a defragmentation algorithm, which finds them all and glues together. The received data gets proved for validity so that the files you get would be fully operable.

The software works with AVI or MOV files and with all common file systems applied in modern dashboard cameras, supporting most devices of popular vendors, like BlackVue, Thinkware, PAPAGO, Garmin, Iroad and many others. You can download the program from the developer’s official website (only Windows installation is currently available), scan the storage, sort the found videos by date or camera, preview and select the needed ones and then copy them to your hard drive or any external storage.

However, dash cam video recordings become extremely vulnerable when lost as when the storage fills up, the camera will automatically start writing over the older files, therefore, you should protect them from overwriting as thoroughly as possible. Once you notice the problem, stop using the device straight away: park your car, turn off the camera, unplug it and remove the data carrier. Also, most dash cams provide the possibility to lock video files and thus ensure they won’t be overwritten — as a rule, you can find a dedicated “lock” button somewhere on the camera body, but if you have no idea where it is, don’t try to take a guess and just leave it alone or consult the user’s manual. Moreover, if the storage shows the signs of physical damage, it won’t hurt to create its disk image and work with it instead of the medium itself.

Overall, when you discover that a crucial footage from your dash cam is missing, try to keep calm and avoid panic — a cool head and proper software may make a world of difference.

These days, with crime rates being on the rise, no wonder that security is what most of us long for, especially when it comes to well-being of our loved ones and safety of a home or business. Thanks to advancements in modern digital technologies, it has become much easier to attain peace of mind through installing various surveillance and CCTV systems, which are getting more and more sophisticated but at the same time affordable. They act as our eyes and ears so that we could work hard or enjoy a vacation, being sure that our property is constantly watched over and if an intruder manages to sneak in after all, at least they will get caught on film. However, as much as it pains to say, no piece of machinery is immune to various bugs and glitches and once in a while they result in the loss of those recordings. Moreover, the offenders may decide to delete the footage in the attempt to cover their tracks.

As a rule, surveillance systems automatically record videos with the help of digital cameras and using DVR/NVR write them on a hard disk drive or any other portable or internal storage. Irrespective of the storage type and its complexity, footages may suddenly go missing due to numerous factors, though the most common among them are:

• intentional/accidental deletion and formatting

• software crashes

• hardware malfunctions

• problems with power supply/connection/cables/wires

• firmware damages

• storage corruption

• malware attacks, etc.

It probably comes as no surprise to you that disappeared files can be easily restored with the help a data recovery utility, an abundance of which one can find on the Web. But the problem is that most CCTV devices make use of their own proprietary file systems which will look absolutely alien to the majority of general-purpose data recovery tools. What’s more, file formats they apply are usually not supported by standard viewers and media players, so even if a video gets successfully retrieved, it appears to be useless as one is simply not able to open it. Still another hurdle lies in the way data is managed in such systems: normally, a video is recorded in the form of stream data which is then packed into a file container when the process is finished. In some cases such a container fails to be created due to a logical mishap or abrupt power outage or even gets lost for no visible cause. Most CCTVs even don’t bother with containers and use “raw” stream data instead. Whatever the reason, the file as we know it doesn’t exist. Also, things become even more complicated when vendor-specific metadata related to footages gets inserted directly at intervals between frames.

Under such circumstances, one cannot do without software which is fine-tuned to work with systems of this particular kind. myCCTV Recovery supports most popular surveillance systems, like Dahua, Hikvision, Samsung, Lorex and many others, employing almost any digital medium as a data carrier, including internal or portable HDDs, memory cards, etc. In addition to that, the application works with virtual storages, allowing to open and scan disk image files.

Equipped with a sophisticated scanning mechanism, the software is able to inspect every single frame of video stream, check it for validity, read and analyze its metadata, put the related frames together according to time properties and wrap ready pieces of video in AVI container files, which guarantees that the video will be intact and can be opened by any media player app. Special search filters are applied to sort the received footages by date of their creation or a camera they were recorded with. The user can instantly preview any of the videos and save the ones they need to a safe location.

The general process consists of the following steps:

• Connect the data carrier of your CCTV to the computer on which myCCTV Recovery is installed.

• Run the software, choose the drive letter which represents this storage and click “Scan storage”.

• Wait for some time until all the found videos will be listed.

• Select the ones you want to recover; you can switch between the tabs “By camera” “By data taken” “By folder” to sort the results or watch any video by clicking on it in the right tab.

• Click on the “Copy selected” button and save the files to a chosen storage.

Nevertheless, it is crucial to remember that every digital video recorder will start overwriting older videos when the drive is running out of space. The time you have to restore lost data significantly varies for different models and is determined by a number of different factors, like the quality of footages, type of compression, number of cameras employed and even the size of the storage itself. Thus, the recovery procedure should be performed as soon as possible, and the device shouldn’t be used before all the necessary information is copied to another storage.

On the whole, whatever case of CCTV video loss you came up against, the right approach and timely measures will help you a happy outcome.

Drive at ease: New software tool will let anyone recover deleted or damaged videos from car’s DVR

With a constantly growing amount of traffic accidents, dashboard cameras have become must-own devices for modern drivers worldwide, giving them peace of mind on the road and providing indisputable evidence which may be used to prove innocence, resolve insurance-related disputes or simply explain the course of events in case of a car crash. However, such a digital recorder may turn out to be useless when the critical footages it contains get lost, corrupted or just intentionally deleted by some ill-wisher.

To tackle this problem and enable any non-expert user to promptly retrieve the missing video files, SysDev Laboratories, the company who created UFS Explorer software products, has launched myDriveRecorder Recovery — an application specialized in data recovery from camcorders employed in vehicles.

In addition to average cases of video loss, like mistaken deletion or formatting, the program will handle ones involving severe damage of files: its recovery mechanism includes special techniques that make it possible to check the consistency of data and repair corrupted files, even when this corruption was caused by an SD card error, malware or a suddenly interrupted writing procedure, which often occurs when a device gets damaged while in operation or its storage medium gets improperly removed. Moreover, its purpose-built defragmentation algorithm allows the software to find all pieces of files that are stored inconsecutively on the disk and basically “glue” them together. However, all the complexities are hidden from users under a friendly interface: they simply choose a storage device, run a scan and and receive fully-functional AVI or MOV files an output, without any modifications to frame data. In addition, videos can be previewed before recovery and sorted by date, camera they were recorded with or found by file name.

myDriveRecorder Recovery supports all standard file systems of modern dash cams and works with devices of most popular vendors, including Thinkware, BlackVue, Garmin, PAPAGO, Iroad and many others, regardless of the DVR system complexity. The application can be downloaded from the developer’s official website.

A new software tool guarantees quick and easy restoration of even severely damaged surveillance recordings

In the present day and age, with the increase of crime rate and consequent people’s concern about their safety, it is difficult to find a street, household or organization which is not monitored by at least one CCTV camera. Closed-circuit television systems play a huge role in preventing illegal activities, gathering evidence and serve as an extra pair of eyes, giving everyone a sense of security and comfort. However, although the effectiveness of this surveillance technology is constantly improving, hardware or software issues still keep occurring and lead to the loss or corruption of critical security camera footages.

The peculiarities of these systems may make it impossible to handle such data loss issues using conventional data recovery tools and leave people no choice but seek professional help. SysDev Laboratories, the developer of UFS Explorer, has introduced a solution to this problem — myCCTV Recovery, a specialized piece of software aimed at enabling everyone to restore deleted or damaged footages with maximum efficiency.

As a rule, CCTV appliances employ non-standard file systems which are not supported by general data recovery software. Moreover, most of them store recordings in vendor-specific file formats or simply use video streams, thus, a retrieved video may turn out to be worthless due to the lack of means to open it. Besides, some manufacturers tend to insert metadata related to footages directly at intervals between frames, which usually doesn’t happen with other videos types and impedes successful recovery of such files, let alone their general proneness to getting corrupted.

Designed particularly for surveillance systems, myCCTV Recovery works with most wide-spread CCTV devices of any complexity, including Hikvision, Dahua, Lorex, Samsung, which may rely on practically any data carrier, like internal and external hard drives, memory cards, USB flash drives or even PCs or servers. In addition to physical storages, the program is able to open disk image files which may be of use when a digital medium exhibits the signs of imminent failure.

Thanks to a technique of selective scanning, the application can ignore excessive CCTV-specific metadata, choosing only the information which is necessary for complete restoration of videos. What is more, the software will not only manage to find the needed footage but also wrap it in an AVI container supported by any media player, making it possible to play it on any computer. At the same time, frame data of a file is not altered in any way.

Armed with sophisticated search filters, the myCCTV Recovery allows sorting the found videos by the date of their creation or a particular camera they were made with. Any file can be easily previewed directly in the program’s interface while a special validation mechanism guarantees that each of them will be fully intact. Regardless of the factors which caused the loss of recordings — system malfunction, software crash, power outage, accidental deletion or a planned attack, they will be recovered unless completely overwritten.

The software can be installed and run on operating systems of the Windows family and is available on the developer’s official website.