# Data backup and recovery help thread



## Mussels (Mar 15, 2011)

We get heaps of threads on this, so lets make a nice organised list of programs people can use for backing up, restoring, and recovering data.




For a quick start to this, some pointers.

1. If you formatted a drive and did NOT write to it, recovery is possible. If you installed any data over it (such as windows, or copying files to it) then you need to restore a backup, or accept that you will have lost some, most, or all of your data.

2. Backups are not perfect - for example, a virus that killed your machine could also be in your backup. try and backup your important data first, not your operating system and useless files - and store it in more than one place if possible (for example, an external hard drive AND on DVD)




Now to the programs:

*Free Data recovery software*
Piriform Recuva - Highly recommended by TPU users, myself included.


The following were listed by 95viper in another thread, i dont know if he's reccomending them or just listed them.
Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier A nice one.
UNDELETE 360
Free File Recovery 1.1
Glary Undelete
UndeletePlus[/QUOTE]

*Paid Data recovery software*



*Free backup/restore software*


*Paid backup/restore software*
Acronis True Image Home
Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 2011 (Paid)[/QUOTE]


please people, help me fill in the blanks so i can request this to get stickied.


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## 95Viper (Mar 15, 2011)

Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier... I have used before and it worked nicely on some dvd/cds that the files refused to be read normally.

The rest of that listing was just to give the op of the thread a shot at other free ones to use. 

Paid Data recovery software
Paid software(well, I got it for free)... I use Iolo Search and Recover Does what is supposed to.

Paid backup/restore software
+1 on the Acronis True Image
Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite 2011 (Paid)


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## stevednmc (Mar 15, 2011)

This will be mega useful! Im sure you already know I feel that way though...


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## Bot (Mar 15, 2011)

paid

File Scavenger - works for:
Accidental deletion, removal from the Recycle Bin.
Corrupt disk,reformatted or deleted volume or partition.
Partially damaged disk with bad spots.
Broken RAID or spanned volume.

Norton Ghost - works for:
full and partial image back up and restore

SyncBack - works for:
 Copy locked or open files (not Windows 2000)
• Fast Backup and Smart Synchronization
• Versioning (keep previous backup versions)
• Powerful FTP engine & AES encryption

free

GImageX from AutoIt - works for:
image back ups


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## Mussels (Mar 15, 2011)

try editing them so that the name has the link, its easier for me to copy paste then.


also, try and get only the best - we only want 2-3 options in each category for simplicity, so the best paid and free is all we need.


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## freebie (Mar 15, 2011)

Best software i've ever used is "Active @ Undelete" its paid for but amazing bit of kit.


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## Completely Bonkers (Mar 15, 2011)

When people use the SEARCH function on TPU, we need to make sure this thread appears. Therefore here is a string of tags. I hope it helps the vBulletin search function.

HELP
LOST FILES
RECOVER RECOVERY
DELETE DELETED FILE
UNDELETE
FORMAT FORMATTED UNFORMAT
FIND SEARCH DISCOVER
GET BACK RECYCLE BIN SAVE BACKUP
ACCIDENT ACCIDENTALLY IDIOT GEEK SQUAD
FLOPPY HARD DISK DRIVE HDD SSD PARTITION

For Mussels OP
Free Backup software
Cobian Backup
COMODO Backup
MS SyncToy Sync Toy
rsync

Free for limited use applications
Syncrify
Delta Copy


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## Bot (Mar 15, 2011)

Mussels said:


> try editing them so that the name has the link, its easier for me to copy paste then.


done




> also, try and get only the best - we only want 2-3 options in each category for simplicity, so the best paid and free is all we need.



i think norton ghost speaks for itself. 
file scavenger saved my live before, it finds stuff i never thought was still there. thats just my personal experience.
Syncback is mostly free and it's a pretty decent backup tool and it has a pretty nice scheduler. 
GImageX, if norton is out of price range that would be my next option for image back ups


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## robn (Mar 15, 2011)

Excellent thread.

The free and open source solution that gets about is TestDisk and its sister PhotoRec.

Pros for testdisk:
Recover formatted disks (aka. deleted partitions)
Windows and Linux disk formats
Fix boot sectors, file tables, etc.

Pros for photorec:
Picks out 100s of types of files - photos, Office docs, zips...

Cons:
They are "scary" text-only styled  - though you don't type commands, it's all "press Enter to..." so that may put people off.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Mar 15, 2011)

R-Studio is one of the better commercial solutions as well. Know about it from enterprise IT work.


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## freebie (Mar 15, 2011)

Buy a copy of Windows Home Server, set it to do automatic backups of your pcs and files, then you can do restores direct from the server, works quite well for me at home.

At work we use Symantec Backup Exec, thats an impressive bit of software.


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## Dirtypants (Mar 16, 2011)

Free
Gparted
Hirens This is a complementation of pretty much every tool needed, but has a lot of data recovery tools both in the DOS and Bootable Windows section, found on most torrent sites.


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## Mussels (May 27, 2011)

bump, thread fell off the face of the forum for some reason.


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## Bot (May 27, 2011)

i have another good one for this:
Macrium Reflect
has a paid and a fully free version

this lets you create a image of the disk. the image can later be accessed and individual files can be recovered, incremental back up's are supported and a scheduler is included. 
also has a standalone recovery cd.


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## Mussels (May 27, 2011)

Bot said:


> i have another good one for this:
> Macrium Reflect
> has a paid and a fully free version
> 
> ...



whats the key changes between paid and free?


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## Bot (May 28, 2011)

i haven't used the paid version yet and i am missing nothing in the free version, so really i couldn't tell. all the features i mentioned thou are fully available in the free version


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## Bo$$ (Jun 19, 2011)

can you sticky this?


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## qubit (Jun 19, 2011)

Bo$$ said:


> can you sticky this?



+1

Backups are really important, so a help thread for backups should always be readily available.


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## Mussels (Jun 19, 2011)

not a mod of this section, so no i cant.


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## cheesy999 (Jun 19, 2011)

for free backup software, there is the windows built in on vista/7 which is good if all you want it files

i myself use genie http://www.genie9.com/home/home_solutions.aspx


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## JrRacinFan (Jun 19, 2011)

Just wanting to add, if you have a WD hard drive you can obtain a free copy of Acronis True Image Home.


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## cadaveca (Jun 19, 2011)

you need to ask Sneekypeet about the software I pointed him to, and how he recovered near 2x the data the drive could actually hold. I'll let him tell the story, though.


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## qubit (Jun 19, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> you need to ask Sneekypeet about the software I pointed him to, *and how he recovered near 2x the data the drive could actually hold.* I'll let him tell the story, though.



Now that I'd like to hear about!

I'll bet the capacity was simply limited in firmware.


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## sneekypeet (Jun 19, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> ask Sneekypeet about the software I pointed him to



Dave is spot on! He listened to me go at this hard drive for two days with various freewares and out of the blue on the last day of my tinkering, he mentions this software called iCare data recovery. 

Issue with most of the freeware is thew amount of data that it will allow you to recover or back up, that wasn't the case with iCare. Granted I had to pay $70 for the iCare app, but it is fully supported and mine forever. If I want to upgrade the software to the next series I wold have to pay again, but unless it has something you really must have over the old version, there really is no need.

Back to the drive. So I had this 2.5" 320GB drive that just dropped from windows and was not accessible. So after Dave watched me fail for hours, and I took his advice to look into iCare, once installed it saw not only my 280GB of info, but the actual backup file from using iCare came up with roughly 490GB of info that it dropped in a folder for me to use again. Not only did I gain access to all of my work information (280GB of info is a bit rough to loose when your job depends on it), but the software pulled info from the last 17 installs on that drive.

In the end color me impressed and very happy. Granted not everyone wants to shell out $70 for backup software, but in my instance, that $70 investment saved my ass right when I was about to take a hammer to that drive in frustration. 

Thanks again Dave!!!!!


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## Bo$$ (Jun 19, 2011)

sneekypeet said:


> Dave is spot on! He listened to me go at this hard drive for two days with various freewares and out of the blue on the last day of my tinkering, he mentions this software called iCare data recovery.
> 
> Issue with most of the freeware is thew amount of data that it will allow you to recover or back up, that wasn't the case with iCare. Granted I had to pay $70 for the iCare app, but it is fully supported and mine forever. If I want to upgrade the software to the next series I wold have to pay again, but unless it has something you really must have over the old version, there really is no need.
> 
> ...


Sneeky can you please sticky this, loads of people will benefit


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## sneekypeet (Jun 19, 2011)

Bo$$ said:


> Sneeky can you please sticky this, loads of people will benefit



I don't have an issue with it being a sticky, but let's fill up those empty sections of the OP first?


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## Mussels (Jun 20, 2011)

sneekypeet said:


> I don't have an issue with it being a sticky, but let's fill up those empty sections of the OP first?



feel free to help  my real life is getting in the way of my nerdy pursuits lately


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## Widjaja (Jun 21, 2011)

Data recovery

Payware:-
Recover My Files $69.95USD
Has the ability to make deeper scan into HDD than Recuva.
Only issue is the data recovered can be numerous and can take forever to sift through.


Freeware:-
TestDisk by CGsecurity
This is by far the best data recovery software I have used.
There are times when a USB stick ends up saying not formatted when you know there is data on it.
Using this utility can search for partitions then rewrite the boot loader so the partitions are recognized again.
At one stage I had installed Windows 7 on to my Netbook which some how deleted a partition with 200GB of data after doing a image install.
This utility recovered the partition all in tact.


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## sneekypeet (Jun 21, 2011)

Mussels said:


> feel free to help  my real life is getting in the way of my nerdy pursuits lately



Hey man, its your party...I'm just getting $5 a head at the door

I wish I knew more about all this, but as you can see it took hours and hours of my time to figure out what failed for large amounts of information retrieval for free. If not for Dave, I would have been screwed!


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## theeldest (Jun 22, 2011)

Echelon said:


> Free
> Gparted
> Hirens This is a complementation of pretty much every tool needed, but has a lot of data recovery tools both in the DOS and Bootable Windows section, found on most torrent sites.



I want to second the vote for Hiren's Boot CD. I've used it multiple times when the partition table suddenly disappears. One of the tools will scan the drive's sectors and find any existing (or past) partition tables and let you recover them.


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## dataguru (Jul 5, 2011)

*Free data backup*

At the risk of sounding like a spammer- you should try http://cibecs.com free backup software. I used it and I've never turned back!


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## Jetster (Jul 8, 2011)

Ok so really what are the odd of getting data in a bad sector on a failing drive?


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## qubit (Jul 8, 2011)

Jetster said:


> Ok so really what are the odd of getting data in a bad sector on a failing drive?



High enough to worry about. You should _always_ have a minimum of one up to date copy of your data, or you'll lose it.

I currently have two copies and am planning on more.


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## Jetster (Jul 8, 2011)

I wasn't referring to me, Personally I back up weekly all data. replace drives every  3 years

But every ounce in awhile someone wants to recover from a failing drive. I never been successful but maybe someone has


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