EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro
Chinese software company EaseUS has been in the disk recovery business for some years, with its Data Recovery Wizard first appearing in 2005. With free and paid versions for Windows and Mac and availability in 20 languages (10 for Mac), it has become widely relied upon for disk recovery.
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Plans and pricing
The current release of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro, v14.2, is available in a limited free trial and three premium options. The free trial automatically ends after 30 days, but doesn't recover software anyway – instead, it simply scans and displays what files you'll get back if you cough up.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro ($69.95/£59.95 a month with automatic renewal) will recover unlimited volumes of data, has a preview feature so you can confirm what is being recovered, and lets you recover from deleted, hidden, lost, and RAW partitions. There is also online support for what EaseUS describe as "necessary cases."
The second premium option bundles in a bootable media feature ($99.95/£70.72 for annual renewal) which allows the creation of a bootable USB stick to aid data recovery following system failure. Note that there is also a lifetime upgrade option for the eye-watering price of $149.95 (£129.95), which saves money long-term.
Key recovery features
Various file recovery features are available with this software, from straightforward undelete (whether accidental or from emptying the recycle bin) to recovering data lost by formatting a disk drive. Hard disk drives, SSDs, SD cards, flash drives, USB drives and others can be recovered with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro.
RAW file systems (where the MBR is corrupt or partition table damaged) that cannot be recognised by your computer's operating system can also be recovered. With flexible scanning to find deleted files quickly or scan storage sector-by-sector, one of the most useful features of this software is the pre-recovery preview. This reassurance lets you observe lost files before they're fully recovered.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro will also, its website boasts, recover data loss caused by power failure, system crash, hard drive failure, viruses, and accidental or poorly planned operating system reinstallation.
Finding files
Running EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro on a Dell G5505 running Windows 10, we attempted to recover data from an unmountable 16GB SanDisk Cruzer Blade USB thumb drive.
Launching the software presents you with a list of devices and partitions. Along with physical devices, for example, you might find a recovery partition. Newly connected or inserted devices can be found by clicking the refresh button, and if you can't find a partition it be found discovered by re-scanning the device.
Clicking Scan on a partition will commence the process of discovering lost data. When the scan completes, the detected files will be listed with an accompanying file structure. To learn more about an individual file, check the file size, date modified, and file type. The Preview feature lets you take a closer look at the file, while the search box gives you the opportunity to find specific files.
To recover the data from the disk, select the files you want and click Recover. Simply select the recovery destination and wait for the process to complete.
Recovery performance
Recovery Wizard Pro was surprisingly slow. Scanning the 16GB USB device took around 10 minutes, far longer than expected. This could be due to the performance of deep scanning techniques, but these are par for the course in recovery software.
Rather than perform the same scan every time, however, the tool features the option to save a scan session. Whether this acknowledges the slow scan time or not isn't clear, but it is a welcome option, enabling you to instantly load up the previous scan when restarting the software. For added convenience, the scan tool also includes pause and stop buttons for interrupting the process when necessary.
Perhaps crucially, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro missed files uncovered by lesser tools. This puts the software in quite a difficult position. Given that the free trial option is 30 days of scans but no actual recovery, why would anyone spend $69.95 or more for a tool that recovers less than a free alternative?
Support
EaseUS's website claims that licensed users will get "high-quality remote consultation" for what it deems "necessary cases." In truth, this undersells the support options on offer from EaseUS. Along with pre-sales support, you'll get online and email support for after sales issues with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro. You can also arrange a TeamViewer session with an EaseUS specialist.
However, it is not clear from the website whether post-diagnostic intervention is available free or if a further charge is applicable.
Final verdict
Feature wise, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro does everything it needs to. It looks good, the user interface is intuitive, and it detects and scans unmountable disks. On the other hand, it is expensive, and as well as being slower than competing tools. Recovery is effective, although there is some confusion as to how complete the files are.
Perhaps most disappointing, however, is the limitations of the 30-day trial. Scanning for lost data and displaying it is all very well, but preventing any access is somewhat cruel. A data cap, perhaps limiting the user to 1GB, could easily demonstrate the potential of EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro while enticing the potential customer. As it is, the lack of a cap seems self-defeating, especially when so many other EaseUS tools have fully functional free and trial options (or thereabouts).
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