With its added ability to recover data from storage volumes with defective or deleted file systems, DiskRecovery is claimed to be the perfect complement to O&O UnErase.

"DiskRecovery functionality begins where other programs leave off, probing every sector of a hard disk, memory card, or digital camera to find lost files," says Mike Smith, O&O product manager at New IT. "Even when files systems are formatted or destroyed, it is possible to reconstruct the deleted data."

Over 300 file types can be recognised and restored, Smith adds, including Word documents, Excel workbooks, Access Databases, and virtually every sort of commonly used graphics, photo, movie, and music formats (JPEG, AVI, MPEG, MP3, WAV, BMP, TIFF, Corel Draw, Photoshop, Framemaker, Adobe Illustrator, and many more).

DiskRecovery aims to take advantage of professional data recovery algorithms, which, until now, were only available in specialised laboratories.

Specialised search algorithms are designed to sense deleted files on already formatted data volumes and, even if the file structure is completely destroyed, data can still be found and reconstructed, the company adds.

The DiskRecovery Assistant is designed to guide the user step-by-step through each recovery. No previous knowledge or experience is necessary, and a DeepScan function scans for even those tiny files that other programs miss, the company says.

Highlights

* Said to support ATA IDE/EIDE and SCSI hard drives, floppy and removable media (e.g. ZIP), as well as memory cards (e.g. USB sticks, or CompactFlash) and most digital cameras;

* Designed to recognise and reconstruct over 300 file types;

* Integrated O&O RawScan aims to make data recovery possible on data volumes with damaged or destroyed files systems (e.g. formatted);

* DeepScan said to pick up even the smallest of files;

* SmartScan aims to simplify and accelerate the data recovery process by hiding undamaged areas of the data volume;

* Easy-to-use Assistant designed to guide users step-by-step through the data recovery process;

* InstantDiskRecovery claimed to recover data without prior software installation.

DiskRecovery and UnErase are two separate software products that are designed to complement one other. Whilst UnErase enables the restoration of deleted files and folders simply and quickly, DiskRecovery goes one step further by being able to recover data even on formatted hard drives or memory cards, the company says. On a system-wide level, this program is designed to scan for data and reconstruct it. Using both products is claimed to provide the ultimate in data protection.