Made by an established company selling truckloads of data recovery tools, we approached DiskInternals Partition Recovery with high expectations. DiskInternals Partition Recovery looks promising – at least on paper. Supporting all popular file systems, applying multiple recovery modes and employing all known tricks to extract the last bit of usable data from the disk is no less than we’re about to accept.

Spec-wise, DiskInternals Partition Recovery supports all types of Windows file systems (all revisions of FAT and NTFS), can recover files and folders as well as repair damaged file systems, restore corrupted partitions and recover inaccessible hard drives by fixing the MBR (Master Boot Record) blocks. Let’s see how it does in the lab.

Performance

In the lab, DiskInternals Partition Recovery was nothing close of exceptional. It passed our usual torture tests with flying colors, finding and saving all files we deleted from both the hard disk and the test flash stick. It did just as well with the formatted stick (however, please read below on some restrictions that may apply when restoring formatted media).

Our usual testing schedule does not involve intentionally corrupting the file system or deleting partitions, so this tool is one of the few we do these tests for. What we did was deleting all partitions from our test drive, and then creating another set of partitions.DiskInternals Partition Recovery was able to locate the deleted volumes, and successfully restored them to give us access to information stored there. Impressive stuff.

Just like the other DiskInternals tools, DiskInternals Partition Recovery comes with complete support for previewing files before the recovery. The toolkit is exactly the same as in other general-use DiskInternals tools, so let’s just say it’s one of the better solutions out there. The preview can display pictures, playback sound and videos, enter compressed archives such as ZIP and RAR, show Word documents and Excel spreadsheets complete with formatting, and so on, and so forth.

Still, the product is not without a couple of quirks. Chances of successful recovery are still buried deep in the file properties – instead of being shown right beside them in the file list. Also, unlike some other DiskInternals tools, DiskInternals Partition Recovery only comes with English user interface – no localized versions are available up to date. These gripes are quite minor, and won’t stop us from recommending this product to everyone who needs it.

A Word on Formatted Media

Note that, while DiskInternals Partition Recovery can recover all types of filesfrom formatted disks and memory cards, completing a full format of a hard disk will overwrite all data stored on the disk. Full formatof the hard drive makes files completely unrecoverable. Quick format or full format operation performed on a memory card by digital cameras, or an interrupted full format of a hard disk will leave you some chances, so it’s worth a try nevertheless.

Value

As the value goes, DiskInternals Partition Recovery plays in a league of its own. $139.95 buys you a complete recovery suite that can fix disks, repair partitions and make inaccessible volumes accessible. All that in addition to best-in-class recovery of deleted files and folders. Up to this day, we know of no competitor that comes even close. Conclusion: if you need it – buy it.

Features

• Supported file systems: NTFS, NTFS 4, NTFS 5, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, VFAT
• Supported operating systems: Microsoft® Windows® 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 Server, Vista
• Supported file formats: recovers all types of files, including compressed and encrypted files. Original file names are supported
• Folder recovery: check. Folder structure is also preserved.
• Recoverable system areas: file systems, partition tables, MBR
• Supported media: all types of storage media is supported including hard drives, solid-state drives, flash, and all types of memory cards
• Step-by-step recovery wizard and full Explorer-like UI are available
• Full pre-recovery preview
• Additional features: can save recovered information locally (another disk or partition, burn CD/DVD) or remotely (LAN, FTP)

Drawbacks

• Chances of successful recovery buried deep in file properties (instead of being displayed alongside files in the file list)
• English only UI

Manufactured by a well-known company selling a dozen or so products, all in the data recovery area, one can expect good performance from one of their latest offerings. Naturally, spec-wise DiskInternals Word Recovery looks not only good but great. Supporting multiple recovery modes and allowing to fix Word documents even if they were deleted or stored on a crashed disk, DiskInternals Word Recovery is one of the universal tools out there. Let’s see how its real-world performance compares to how it looks on paper.

DiskInternals Word Recovery supports all versions of Microsoft Office up to the latest Office 2010, and can fix DOC, DOCX, RTF, and a few other formats produced by Microsoft Word and OpenOffice. Documents stored on all types of Windows and Linux partitions can be recovered.

Performance

In the lab, DiskInternals Word Recovery demonstrated exceptional performance. It passed the tests with flying colors, locating and recovering each and every Word file we deleted. A formatted memory card (see our “word on formatted media” below) was handled with no issues; all documents were recovered.

Recovering deleted or missing files is just one side of the coin. Another is the ability of DiskInternals Word Recovery to repair corrupted documents if they sustained damage. The tool did not disappoint in this respect, reliably reconstructing the intentionally corrupted documents we were throwing at it. A truly impressive performance in the lab.

DiskInternals Word Recovery comes with full pre-recovery preview, allowing us to preview documents on the fly before they are about to be recovered. That’s quite refreshing after seeing what some of the competitors do. In our opinion, the preview is the best way to go when evaluating any data recovery tool. Word Recovery can recover text, formatting, pictures, and all types of embedded objects such as tables, charts, graphs, equations and alike. All embedded objects can previewed.

Our only gripe with DiskInternals Word Recovery is the speed. If you have one particular Word file to repair, or a folder with such files, you simply can’t make DiskInternals Word Recovery fix them without scanning the entire disk first. The disk scan in the quick mode is not that long, but its’ several minutes lost for no reason. DiskInternals, are you listening?

A Word on Formatted Media

Note that, while DiskInternals Word Recovery can recover documents from formatted disks and memory cards, completing a full format of a hard disk overwrites all data stored on the disk, and makes files completely unrecoverable. Quick format, full format of a memory card performed by digital cameras, or interrupted full format of a disk leave you some chances, so it’s always worth a try.

Value

Feature wise, DiskInternals Word Recovery competes with DiskInternals Word Recovery only. For $79.95, it’s not exactly cheap, but its features and high quality make it well worth the money.

There’s also DiskInternals Office Recovery, a $149.95 product that recovers Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and a variety of other Office formats in addition to Word documents. Get this suite if you have other MS Office documents to recover.

There’s also Recovery for Word made by Recoveronix. While not even half as good as DiskInternals Word Recovery is, Recovery for Word has one thing that DiskInternals Word Recovery does not: the ability to repair certain password-protected documents. Granted, the ability is limited to older versions of Word and known passwords only, but if you need the feature, it’s the only product that has it. Also, Recovery for Word lets you pick a particular file to recover, making the entire recovery deal much faster.

Features

• Supported file systems: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS (NT 4), NTFS5 (2000, XP), ISO9660, UDF, LinuxExt2, Ext3, Raiser
• Supported operating systems: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 Server, Vista, Windows 7
• Supported applications: MicrosoftWord 95, 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007, StartOffice, OpenOffice 1.x, OpenOffice 2.x
• Supported file formats: DOCX – MicrosoftWord 2007 Document, DOCM – MicrosoftWord 2007 Document, DOC – MicrosoftWordDocument, RTF – RichTextfiles, DOT – MicrosoftWordDocument, SDW – StarOfficeWord, ODT – OpenOffice 2 Text
• Recovers text with original formatting, pictures, and all types of embedded objects
• Step-by-step recovery wizard
• Full pre-recovery preview

Drawbacks

• You just can’t recover a single document of your choice without running the disk scan, which is a waste of time. 

Performance

Recovery for Word is a plain and straightforward tool. Its user interface, if we can call it that, is a single window with a folder tree on the left, a file list on the right, status window and a couple of buttons. No step-by-step wizards, no modes to select and no configuration settings to adjust.

Recovery for Word demonstrated solid performance in the lab. It fixed all the DOC and DOCX files we deliberately corrupted. In most cases, everything was recovered, including backgrounds, pictures, and mostembedded objects such as charts and formulas, and of course the original fonts and formatting.

Naturally, it does not come without limitations. The Web site lists that it can’t recover VB modules (we didn’t have any), and can only partially fix documents created with Mac versions of Microsoft Word. Having no Mac PC on hands, we could not verify it. Also, the manufacturer states that not all OLE objects can be recovered; there’s a list of what Recovery for Word supports, and that includes most MS Office applications except Office Drawing 2007-2010.

Unlike competition, Recovery for Word does not come with any sort of preview for the documents you are about to recover. To evaluate the tool, you would be looking at a partially recovered document, trying to guess whether any missing parts are due to the trial status of the tool or if they are genuinely lost. Us, we’ll take the preview vs. partially recovered document any day of the week.

There’s naturally a strong point to Recovery for Word. Namely, the tool can recover password-protected documents produced by Word 97-2003 and provided that the password is known. While limited, the featured offered here is unique to Recovery for Word and not offered by any of the competitors we tested so far.

Value

Licenses for Recovery for Word start at $69. Recovery for Word has many inherent limitations; too many if you ask us. Its inability to deal with deleted documents or restore files from a crashed hard disk are just too limiting to many users. The range of OLE objects that can be recovered by Recovery for Word is also very, very limited and restricted by certain applications that are parts of Microsoft Office Suite.

However, there is one strong point in Recovery for Word: it can repair password-protected documents produced by Word 97-2003 and provided that you know the password. No competitor tested thus far can do that.

In order to compensate for the lack of features when dealing with deleted files, Recoveronix offers a free tool named FreeUndelete. While being the worst undelete tool ever (among those we tested in the lab at least), it shows they at least tried to address the issue. Still a long way to go to match the quality of any competitor.

Competition wise, there’s Diskinternals Word Recovery ($79.95). For some $11 more than the price of Recovery for Word, DiskinternalsWord Recovery packs lots more into the package. A nice user interface with guided step-by-step wizards, fully visual pre-recovery preview, the ability to recover all types of embedded objects and not just those included with the Office Suite. And of course, the ability to recover deleted files and extract documents stored on crashed disks and memory cards.

For a few more dollars, DiskInternals offers a comprehensive Office Recovery suite that, in addition to Word documents, can also recover Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and a variety of other documents in Microsoft Office and OpenOffice formats.

There’s just one area where Recovery for Word has an edge over Diskinternals Word Recovery. That is the ability to repair password-protected documents. While severely limited to known-password, Word 97-2003 documents only, this is still something that makes Recovery for Wordstand out. If you don’t need this feature, the choice of Diskinternals Word Recovery over Recovery for Word should be very clear. If you have a password-protected document that fits the list of limitations imposed by Recovery for Word, then you might have a second thought here.

Features

• Repairs RTF, DOC and DOCX files produced by Windows and Mac versions of Microsoft Word
• Repairs corrupted Microsoft Word6.0/95/97/2000/XP/2002/2003/2007/2010 documents
• Supports Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7
• Automatically finds all MS Word documents
• Safe to use: won’t modify the original documents
• High speed
• Trial version provides partial recovery

Drawbacks

• No pre-recovery preview
• No support for deleted files, corrupted disks, or formatted partitions
• No support for legacy versions of Windows (95, 98, ME)
• Documents produced by Mac versions of MS Word can be only partially recovered
• Only recovers some (not all) OLE objects
• Does not recover OLE objects in Office 2007-2010
• Does not recover Office Drawing 2007-2010
• Does not recover VB modules and drawings
• High price for the limited feature set

A Word on Flash Recovery Tools

With SSD drives gaining popularity, growth of the size and speed of commercially available flash memory cards and USB drives and dramatic decrease in prices per gigabyte of storage capacity led to more and more users relying on those devices to keep their important information. Many users will only have a single copy of their files, documents and pictures held on a single memory stick. If that stick fails, and they do fail from time to time for a variety of reasons or for no apparent reason at all, they’re stuck.

 Demand for dedicated flash recovery tools led supply. Different companies took different approaches when trying to fulfill the demand. Some manufacturers (like DiskInternals) simply re-branded their regular recovery products into something having a word “Flash” in the name.While it may seem awkward, there’s no principle difference in recovering information from hard drives and solid-state media, at least from the point of view of software running on top of the drivers that communicate with the flash device (and we’re yet to see a single driver-mode data recovery tool for the consumer market).

Other manufacturers release genuinely different versions of their data recovery tools that can (or, rather, will) handle solid-state drives exclusively. In most cases (in fact, that’d be all tools that’s been through our lab to the moment) the limitation is just that – a simple lock in the program preventing it from recovering data from non-flash media. Again, tools such as Diskinternals Flash Recovery don’t have the lock, offering essentially the same functionality as their regular recovery tool. 

Which brings us to MediaHeal for Flash. The tool is distinctly different from all other tools offered by the company, so we test it in hope to see if it’s any different than its lacklusterMediaHeal for Hard Drives.

Performance

MediaHeal for Flash offers an extremely basic, Spartan user interface. A window with a folder tree, list of files, and two buttons. No wizards. No pre-recovery preview. No toolbars. None of the usual bells and whistles.Unfortunately, there’s no performance either. While MediaHeal for Flash was able to list and recover some freshly deleted files on a healthy memory card, it failed miserably when presented a formatted one, displaying a completely blank window that should’ve had the file list. Mildly put, we were very surprised. Apparently, there’s no signature-search algorithm of any kind in this tool.

A Word on Formatted Media

Note that, while MediaHeal for Flashshould’ve been able to recover files from formatted disks and memory cards, completing a full format of a hard disk overwrites all data stored on the disk, and makes files completely unrecoverable. Quick format, full format of a memory card performed by digital cameras, or interrupted full format of a disk leave you some chances, so it’s always worth a try.

Value

Pricing for MediaHeal for Hard Drives starts at $49, yet, performance-wise, it’s simply not there. We’ve seen free data recovery tools doing much better than this. Simply put: stay away at any cost, and that’s not just our opinion: it’s a given fact. Get a fine general-use data recovery tool such as Handy Recovery ($49) or Diskinternals Uneraser ($39), or invest in Diskinternals Flash Recovery ($49) if you must have something flashy, and you’ll be surprised at how far a quality flash recovery tool can bring you.

Features

• Supposed to work with a variety of memory cards
• User interface for the Spartans among us

Drawbacks

• Doesn’t work, period

 MediaHeal for Hard Drives features two data recovery modes covered by two distinctly separate (“granular”, as they refer it on their Web site) tools. The first tool presents us the familiar, if a bit plain, wizard-based approach, allowing us to see what’s there on the disk in a few moments. Unfortunately, the wizard-based tool, while fast, can only gather information from the file system, and can therefore access files that have been deleted relatively recently. This “quick and simple” tool, in large, won’t work with formatted or corrupted hard drives.

 Which brings us to Data Browser, a separate add-on tool that incorporates Recoveronix’ own version of what we presume could probably be a signature-search algorithm. “Own version”, “probably” and “we presume” are quite deliberate here, as there’s very little information provided by the manufacturer about what this tool does and on what principles it performs.

Performance

MediaHeal for Hard Drives left us with mixed impressions. The quick, wizard-based part works fast enough compared to other tools’ quick modes. The number of files it can “see” in this mode is naturally limited to files and folders that are still listed in the file system. In other words, those are freshly deleted files and folders only. Verdict: quick, but unconvincing compared to pretty much anything that’s been through our lab tests.

The Data Browser add-on, a tool to extract individual files from corrupted disks, should supposedly improve on the quality, but it just didn’t happen. Maybe it’s just us, or the lack of convenient user interface (there’s no step-by-step wizard here, just a plain window with a file system tree on the left and a list of files with their properties on the right), but we were simply unable to locate anything on a freshly formatted memory card (read below on how we prepare formatted media).A truly lackluster performance in the lab.

Another thing is, in the free demo version you don’t get to see what’s in the files that are about to be recovered. Yep, there’s no pre-recovery preview in the free demo. What you do get in the demo version is the ability to recover deleted folders with empty files in them. A very unusual arrangement that doesn’t really make you confident about what exactly the product will recover after you pay your hard-earned cash for it.

A Word on Formatted Media

Note that, while MediaHeal for Hard Drivescan recover files from formatted disks and memory cards, completing a full format of a hard disk overwrites all data stored on the disk, and makes files completely unrecoverable. Quick format, full format of a memory card performed by digital cameras, or interrupted full format of a disk leave you some chances, so it’s always worth a try.

Value

Pricing for MediaHeal for Hard Drivesstarts at $99. Considering its performance, or rather lack thereof, it seems to us an awfully bad value. Add to that the existence of excellently performing Handy Recovery ($49) and Diskinternals Uneraser ($39), and you’ll be stunned to imagine how Recoveronix manages to survivein this saturated market. Verdict: stay far away, and shop elsewhere.

Features

• SupportsNTFS, FAT12, VFAT12, FAT16 andFAT32 file systems
• Works in Windows 2000 and XP, 7, Vista, 2003 Server and 2008 Server
• Supports long and localized file names (exactly as other tools do)
• Recovers the original file and folder structure (again, as other tools do)
• Pre-recovery preview is available
• Wizard-based user interface in quick mode
• Fast speed
• Data Browser, aseparatelyavailableadd-on, canpreviewandextractindividualfilesfromcorruptedharddisks

Drawbacks

• No support for legacy systems (Windows 95, 98, ME)
• Lackluster performance quality-wise
• Data Browser can only recover individual files
• Demo version offers no pre-recovery preview

Performance

With our sample of deliberately damaged Excel files, Recovery for Excel demonstrated solid performance. It did recover what it claimed to recover, including embedded objects, pictures, formulas and conditions. Note that there are limitations, too; Recovery for Excel will not recover Visual Basic modules and drawings, and for some strange reason will not recover cell names. Another obvious limitation is Recovery for Excel’s inability to deal with any sort of deleted files, files stored on formatted disks, and so on.

Recovery for Excel supports the recovery of password-protected spreadsheets providing that you know the original password. We tested this feature and found that it works, although the results are somewhat less convincing than for non-password protected spreadsheets. This is probably related more to the way Microsoft Excel encrypts documents rather than to the recovery algorithms in general. Anyway, it’s good to know the feature is available when needed.

Unlike some previously tested products, Recovery for Excel supports newest Excel formats such as Excel 2007 and 2010 in addition to legacy Excel 5.0, 95, 97, 2000, XP, and 2003.The company warns on making backup copies of everything being repaired. 

Notably, Recovery for Excel provides no way to preview what’s being recovered. With pre-recovery preview quickly becoming a de-facto industry standard for this type of tools, the lack of one in Recovery for Excel seems strange at least. So how do you evaluate the free trial version then? Competitors will display a full preview of what you’ll get after using their tools. Recovery for Excel, instead of displaying a preview, will save a partially recovered file with some randomly selected objects and sheets that will be there. Whether you like it or not, there’s no way to determine whether or not you’ll be able to recover a particular feature of your spreadsheet.

Value

Pricing for Recovery for Excel starts at $149. While Recovery for Excel has inherent limitations such as the inability to deal with anything deleted, there are strong points to it, too; namely, the ability to recover password-protected spreadsheets (even though you have to supply the password yourself). So far no competing products could offer this feature. 

Notably, the company offers a free undelete tool called – you guessed right! – FreeUndelete. Supposedly, this tool helps overcome inherent limitations of Recovery for Excel in that it can undelete erased files. The tool is extremely basic however, and doesn’t even nearly touch the quality of some of the better undelete tools. 

The product seems to be constantly updated. With yearly service plans available, Recovery for Excel seems to be a safe investment.

Competition includes Diskinternals Excel Recovery, which is available for about half the price of Recovery for Excel. For$79.95, Diskinternals Excel Recovery can recover deleted spreadsheets and XLS files located on formatted, corrupted and inaccessible disks. While this seems to be a much better deal, there’s one caveat. With Diskinternals Excel Recovery, at least in its currently available version, there’s no support for repairing password-protected spreadsheets. If this feature is important to you, there is simply no alternative to Recovery for Excel.

For a few dollars more, DiskInternals offers a comprehensive Office Recovery suite that, in addition to Excel spreadsheets, can also recover Microsoft Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and a variety of other documents in Microsoft Office and OpenOffice formats.

Features

• Repairs corrupted Microsoft Excel 5.0/95/97/2000/XP/2003/2007/2010spreadsheets
• Supports Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7
• Automatically finds all MS Excel documents with manual selection available
• Safe to use: won’t modify the original spreadsheets
• High speed
• Trial version provides partial recovery

Drawbacks

• No pre-recovery preview
• No support for deleted files, corrupted disks, or formatted partitions
• Does not recover cell names, VB modules and drawings
• High price

Reviewed today is a dedicated tool that claims to recover damaged Excel spreadsheets produced by Microsoft Excel versions up to 2003.

Performance

According to the company’s marketing materials, R-Excel features a new IntelligentRebuild technology. The technology supposedly allows its users to reconstruct damaged *.xls files object after object, theoretically allowing to recover more information than competing tools.

In our lab, R-Excel demonstrated average performance. While being extremely fast to locate, preview and repair corrupted XLS spreadsheets, it hasn’t actually demonstrated any better performance than other Excel recovery tools. Maybe that’s because the other tools we tested in our lab shown exceptional performance. 

One can’t fail to notice that R-Excel is quite limited in what it does. R-Excel will NOT recover any spreadsheets you deleted, and will NOT deal with files stored on formatted, corrupted or inaccessible disks. Too bad for R-Tools, because their competitors can do all that, and more.

In addition to abovementioned limitations, R-Excel can only repair XLS files produced by Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, XP, and 2003.That’s it. No support for Excel 2007 and 2010 is mentioned, and no roadmap is available. No hint of recent updates, too, which makes us believe the development of this tool has ceased, and the tool itself discontinued.

Value

Priced at $78.99, R-Excelcomes with too many limitations to make it a viable proposition. Sure enough, it does what it’s supposed to do – namely, it repairs corrupted Excel spreadsheets provided they’re saved in legacy formats. With no support for the latest Microsoft Office releases, which are five years old at least, R-Excel cannot be recommended. 

There are viable alternatives though.Diskinternals Excel Recovery is available for roughly the same price ($79.95), and looksway more convincing.  Diskinternals Excel Recovery can handle deleted spreadsheets, and deals well with formatted, corrupted and inaccessible storage media. Excel 2007/2010 formats are fully supported, too. Diskinternals Excel Recovery is actively developed by its manufacturers, with minor updates coming out on a monthly basis.

For a few dollars more, DiskInternals offers a comprehensive Office Recovery suite that, in addition to Excel spreadsheets, can also recover Microsoft Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and a variety of other documents in Microsoft Office and OpenOffice formats.

Features

• Repairs corrupted Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP/2003spreadsheets
• IntelligentRebuild technology parses XLS files object by object
• Supports Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista
• Automatically finds all MS Excel documents with manual selection available
• Safe to use: won’t modify the original spreadsheets
• High speed
• Pre-recovery preview

Drawbacks

• No support for new file formats introduced in MicrosoftExcel 2007 and 2010
• No recovery wizard; can be cumbersome for inexperienced users
• No support for deleted files, corrupted disks, or formatted partitions
• Appears discontinued

Performance

The first thing that comes to our attention is that R-Word does not deal with any sort of missing files. Deleted documents, formatted disks and similar stuff remain far beyond the abilities of this modest tool. As such, we had to modify our regular testing schedule to include some (deliberately corrupted) DOC files and see what’s going on.

Unfortunately, R-Word was quite disappointing even with what it’s supposed to do. It only supports legacy DOC formats produced by Microsoft Word versions 97, 2000, XP, and 2003. With the oldest version of Word being available on our test bench being Office 2007 (with the newest Office 2010 available alongside for testing the very modern office recovery tools), we had to resort to saving the documents in compatibility mode. Sure enough, R-Word was able to repair minor corruption, while extracted a certain amount of usable information from badly damaged document – but is it really the point?

Value

Priced at $68.99, R-Word can only repair existing documents produced by legacy versions of Microsoft Word. No support for deleted files or formatted disks is available, and no word on supporting Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 formats. The tool urgently needs updating. However, as that didn’t happen in the last five years or so since the release of Office 2007, we can safely conclude that the development of R-Word has been halted, and the tool itself discontinued. As such, we’d advice against purchasing it.

Alternatives? Diskinternals Word Recovery is available for only $11 more ($79.95), and is a much more comprehensive solution. Diskinternals Word Recovery can locate and recover deleted documents, restore Word files located on formatted, corrupted and inaccessible disks, and includes the company’s proprietary signature-search algorithm enabling surefooted recovery from all sorts of bad media. All that, and the ability to repair Word 2007/2010 formats makes Diskinternals Word Recovery a clear winner.

For a few dollars more, DiskInternals offers a comprehensive Office Recovery suite that, in addition to Word documents, can recover Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and a variety of documents produced by other Microsoft Office and OpenOffice products.

Features

• Repairs corrupted Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP/2003 documents
• Supports Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003, and Vista
• Automatically finds all MS Word documents with manual override
• Savesrepaired documents in either Microsoft Word (.doc) or text (.txt) format
• Safe to use: won’t modify the original files
• Very high speed
• Pre-recovery preview

Drawbacks

• Nosupportfor.docx formats introduced in MicrosoftWord 2007 and 2010
• No recovery wizard; can be cumbersome for inexperienced users
• No support for deleted files, corrupted disks, or formatted partitions
• Appears discontinued

Diskinternals Office Recovery is designed specifically for office users in emergency. If you need to recover a host of office documents in a variety of formats, the tool can come extremely handy. Office Recovery comes with the ability to undelete erased documents, extract files stored on damaged and inaccessible disks, and is able to repair corrupted and partial documents. The supplied version of DiskInternals proprietary signature search algorithm is limited to recovery of popular office formats such as DOC, XLS, RTF, and so on. However, unlike the cheap Diskinternals Music Recovery, Office Recovery has something to offer that’s not available in any other product. Sophisticated algorithms are included that allow the product to repair corrupted documents and extract information out of incomplete and partial files.

Needless to say, Diskinternals Office Recovery supports all types of file systems and storage media, and can recover documents from damaged, formatted and inaccessible disks. 

Performance

 In the lab, Diskinternals Office Recovery proved to be a solid performer. It recovered all documents stored on a flash drive we formatted. Later on, we corrupted a bunch of documents by trimming parts and overwriting some of their content with random data. Office Recovery was able to extract most of the original data from trimmed documents, and recovered respectable amount of information out of documents we damaged with random data. Notably, Microsoft Office was unable to open the damaged documents; however, files reconstructed with Office Recovery opened up swiftly.

Diskinternals Office Recovery supports on-the-fly preview for deleted and damaged documents, which is handy if you seek to recover only the latest (or best preserved) version of the file.

A Word on Formatted Media

Note that, while Handy Recovery can recover files from formatted disks and memory cards, completing a full format of a hard disk overwrites all data stored on the disk, and makes files completely unrecoverable. Quick format, full format of a memory card performed by digital cameras, or interrupted full format of a disk leave you some chances, so it’s always worth a try.

Value

This product has no competition. Other data recovery tools can recover deleted files, but Diskinternals Office Recovery goes the extra mile by repairing the damage caused to the documents being recovered. This ability comes with a price tag attached. The tool isn’t exactly cheap at $149.95, but can be well worth the money if you’re an office paying employees the usual hourly rate.

Features

• Supported file systems: exFAT / FAT / FAT32 / NTFS / HFS
• Recoverable files: DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX, RTF, MDB, ACCDB, PST, VSD, PUB, SDW, ODT, MAX
• Recoverable partitions: none. This tool recovers documents only
• Recoverable media: all types (hard drives, memory cards, USB flash drives, digital cameras, MP3 players , etc.)
• GUI: step-by-step wizard, full UI available
• Recommended for: office use, intermediate and advanced computer users
• Pre-recovery preview: available for most documents with on-the-fly repair
• Displays chances of successful recovery: yes, in file properties
• Speed: high
• Additional features: extended filtering at the recovery stage

Drawbacks

• Chances of successful recovery are buried in preview
• Assistance via F1 (Help) is unavailable
• Unlike other DiskInternals tools, it only supports English UI

Basic features of Diskinternals Music Recovery are similar to other data recovery products, with the obvious limitation allowing to recover music exclusively. Music Recovery can recover audio files in mp3, wma, asf, wav, ogg, wv, ra, rm, vqf, mid and voc formats from a variety of storage media including all popular types of memory cards, flash drives, and MP3 players directly (via a USB connection). Oddly, FLAC, AAC and APE formats are not supported, at least in the current version.

exFAT, FAT, FAT32, NTFS, and HFS file systems are supported. User interface is a simple step-by-step wizard that can be easily mastered by the least experienced users. The company’s proprietary signature search algorithm (PowerSearch) used throughout the entire range of its data recovery products is greatly simplified in this tool. PowerSearch helps recover files stored on badly corrupted, formatted and inaccessible disks and memory cards. While the full version of PowerSearch is able to detect more than two hundred types of files, the limited version here only works with a handful of music formats. This is not entirely a bad thing; the speed of complete disk scan is faster than when the full version of PowerSearch is engaged.

Performance

In the lab, Diskinternals Music Recovery demonstrated exceptional speed and reliability. It was able to process a formatted 4 GB flash stick in under 7 minutes, recovering 100% (158 in total) audio files in a variety of formats. Impressive performance; we did not expect any less from DiskInternals.

Pre-recovery preview is supported via a built-in media player. It can play back music files before recovery, allowing to estimate whether or not a particular file is intact.

A Word on Formatted Media 

Note that, while Handy Recovery can recover files from formatted disks and memory cards, completing a full format of a hard disk overwrites all data stored on the disk, and makes files completely unrecoverable. Quick format, full format of a memory card performed by digital cameras, or interrupted full format of a disk leave you some chances, so it’s always worth a try.

Value

Diskinternals Music Recovery costs $39, which is exactly the price of Diskinternals Uneraser. The latter tool supports the recovery of all types of files, including music, and comes with built-in media player as well. Granted, the complete version of PowerSearch included with Uneraser works slower than the stripped down signature-search found in Diskinternals Music Recovery. Music Recovery is also a simpler, more straightforward tool that is easier to use by the least experienced folks. As such, we recommend Diskinternals Music Recovery to absolute beginners or to those who’s only need is the recovery of their collection of music (e.g. stored in an MP3 player). Everyone else will be better served by Diskinternals Uneraser.

Features 

• Supported file systems: exFAT / FAT / FAT32 / NTFS / HFS
• Recoverable files: audio in mp3, wma, asf, wav, ogg, wv, ra, rm, vqf, mid and voc formats (click for full list of supported audio formats)
• Recoverable partitions: none. This tool recovers music only
• Recoverable media: all types (hard drives, memory cards, USB flash drives, digital cameras, MP3 players , etc.)
• GUI: step-by-step wizard; simplified
• Recommended for: strictly beginners
• Pre-recovery preview: available via built-in media player
• Displays chances of successful recovery: yes, in file properties
• Speed: extremely high due to stripped-down signature search

Drawbacks 

• Current version does not support FLAC, AAC and APE formats
• No filtering by file type
• Stripped down signature search limits the recovery to audio files
• Chances of successful recovery are hidden in file properties