Review: Iolo Search and Recover 4 undelete application

The Windows Recycle Bin is useful when it comes to quickly recovering a simple deleted file, but in terms of features it's very limited.

Search and Recover 4 is Iolo's alternative file recovery application. It aims to recover all manner of files, including those stored on external devices, such as digital cameras and mp3 players.

The interface is straightforward and well-designed. You can perform an entire disk recovery should you wish to find and restore every previously deleted file, or carry out a recovery on a folder-by-folder basis.

If you don’t want to waste time and disk space recovering unwanted temporary Windows files and files in too poor a condition to be reconstructed, you can enable the Smartscan tool.

Files are not always found in perfect condition, particularly if a lot of disk usage has taken place since deletion.

When a disk scan is complete, Smartscan will examine each file found to see how successful a restoration will be. You then have the option to save the recovered files to their original location or wherever you specify.

Search and Recover 4’s searching methodology can be enhanced by running Iolo’s own proprietary technology called Strongscan.

It performs a powerful, sector-level scan of the hard disk which radically improves the chances of recovering long-deleted files and picks up far more than a regular scan.

This does take significantly longer and it's best to leave your PC alone while running it.

Novice users will appreciate the ability to recover music, photo and video files from peripherals, such as portable audio players and digital cameras, without having to specify file types and remember drive letters.

Retrieval of lost email is made easier by Search and Recover 4’s ability to recognise the file formats of many common email packages and handle them accor dingly.

Having demonstrated that previously deleted files are not necessarily gone forever, Search and Recover 4 and similar programs raise privacy concerns.

To counter this there is a termination feature in this program which can be used to more permanently erase files.

While hard disk data can never be fully destroyed, except by manual means, this comes close enough to thwart the efforts of other file recovery programs.

Helpfully, it’s accessible throughout Windows via a right-click context menu. Alternatively, you can terminate previously deleted files within the program.

If you buy this package knowing that you’ve already deleted a valuable document, you can run the file rescue wizard directly from the CD to guard against the potential of overwriting data during the install process.

Overall, Search and Recover 4 is a powerful undelete tool that, despite its range of features, is relatively easy to use.

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