For fools like me who forget to backup (Handy Recovery)

Member Name: Fiver29

Product:	Handy Recovery
Date:	15/04/09 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use

Disadvantages: Not infallible

In the last few weeks I had the misfortune to suffer a complete computer crash. I was trying to make a hard disc copy using Acronis but something went wrong and one of the files used to start up Windows Vista was deleted. So I couldn't start Windows or use what Acronis had copied.

I only realised after the event that I should have installed Linux and recovered my data that way, but I realised that too late.

So I had to reinstall Windows from the beginning, but of course this wiped everything from my hard drive, and all my documents, music and photos disappeared. Normally this wouldn't have been too bad, because I back up all my data to an external hard drive on a regular basis. However, I hadn't backed anything up for about a month, so there was a lot of music and photos from a christening that disappeared. Most importantly of all, my essay which I'd only just finished the day before disappeared as well, so action had to be taken to try and recover it.

I was advised to try using Handy Recovery, it's not a free programme, but it has a free trial version for 30 days. So I downloaded the free version, which took about 10 seconds with a 4gig download speed, and installed it, which took less than a minute.

When the programme opens it starts off with a 'Tips of the Day' box popping up, now these really annoy me for some reason, and I close them immediately. So the next box you see is a list of the drives available on your computer. For me this is two NTFS drives, Handy Recovery asks you which drive you wish to scan to recover files, so I selected drive C: which was where everything was stored.

The programme then runs through all the files it can find on that particular disc. When it's finished you'll find you have a huge list of files and folders that can look quite daunting. However, at the bottom of the page there's an option to 'Extend Analysis'. After clicking that you'll get a pop up box with a list of file types which you can check or uncheck. These are initially sorted into files, so the choices are Media Files, Office Documents, and Images etc. Each of these folders can be opened out to narrow down the search further. For instance if you know all your photos are .jpg files, or all your music is .mp3, then you can just check these file types.

Once you've decided which files you want to search for, you click OK and the programme will search again. This can take a little bit of time, so you can go off and make yourself a brew. When it's finished you have manageable amount of files to look thorough.
Now if you look on the left hand side you'll see folders marker 'Unnamed Deleted Files' and under this there'll be a folder for each of the file types you chose, so you might see an Office Documents folder and a Media files folder.

After clicking on these folders you'll have a list of files with names that won't mean anything to you, for example Word files will be named WordDoc_0001, WordDoc_0002 etc. If you click on these files you'll have the option to preview.

Word of warning here though. If you preview the file it means you are taking a file from the drive and placing back on the drive again (there's probably a technical term for this, but I have no idea what it might be), this reduces the chances of the programme being able to recover it. I would suggest just recovering everything it finds and viewing them one by one in the programme that opens them. Anything you already have stored in another place can easily be deleted as you are view them.

Recovering them is easy, you just highlight the ones you want to recover and click the button along the top bar that says recover. And that's it really.

Now this programme isn't all powerful, a lot of files won't be recoverable, but I managed to find virtually all my photos, and 90% of the Office documents that I'd lost. Unfortunately the essay that I really needed was one of the ones that was destroyed beyond repair. I never tried recovering the mp3s because I managed to contact Amazon and they allowed me to re download the files I'd bought.

Despite not recovering the actual file I really wanted, I think this programme was excellent. Easy to use, even for a computer numpty like me, and I managed to get back a lot of photos that were very precious because it's not often everyone in the family gets together at one time.

It also highlighted to me the dangers of selling second hand computers. If I can recover files off a reformatted computer, just think how easy it must be for computer experts with far more powerful programmes, to recover details off a computer you may have sold on. I will definitely be removing any hard drives in future and destroying them completely.

The programme costs $49 at the moment.

Summary: Well worth the cost for the recovery of the photos alone.

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