Data Rescue Pro

Data Rescue Pro is a program designed to scan a hard disk or storage device – including camera memory cards and USB memory keys – and list all the files it can find that have been deleted from it. It will give each one a star rating out of five to indicate the likelihood of being able to restore it – four or five stars indicate a good chance and no stars means things don't look so good.

It was very simple to use and automatically picked up all our computer's attached disks and memory cards, listing them in the main window. After you select the disk to scan the program does its stuff.

When the results come back they can be organised in various ways. We recommend using the Report view that allows sorting by date, size, type or star rating. Once that is done you select the files you want to restore using the mouse.

Some files – such as the JPEG images produced by cameras, text files and Word documents – appear in the preview window to the right of the main list so even if the file name doesn't make sense you can tell if it's the one you are after.

You can also choose the location to which deleted files are restored, and then Data Rescue Pro will do the rest.

Alternatively, the program also lets users search for individual files using sophisticated search options such as the file type, the date it was created, its size, whether it was compressed or not, whether you think it was stored in a particular folder and so on.

To get the best out of this program it's important to follow the golden rule: as soon as you realise you have deleted something by accident, stop working and, whatever you do, don't save anything else on the disk where the lost file was stored.

Instead, start Data Rescue Pro and run a scan. The manual has good information on how best to use the program and so is well worth reading.

We retrieved deleted photos, videos, text files and Word documents without any problems, though the fewer stars the file is flagged with, the smaller the chance you've got of recovering it.