Data backup and recovery help thread

[Mussels]

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.

 

[95Viper]

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)

 

[stevednmc]

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

 

[Bot]

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

 

[Mussels]

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.

 

[freebie]

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

 

[Completely Bonkers]

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

 

[Bot]

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

 

[robn]

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.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

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

 

[freebie]

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.

 

[Dirtypants]

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.

 

[Mussels]

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

 

[Bot]

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.

 

[Mussels]

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.

whats the key changes between paid and free?

 

[Bot]

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

 

[Bo$$]

can you sticky this?

 

[qubit]

can you sticky this?

+1

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

 

[Mussels]

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

 

[cheesy999]

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

 

[JrRacinFan]

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

 

[cadaveca]

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.

 

[qubit]

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.

 

[sneekypeet]

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!!!!!

 

[Bo$$]

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!!!!!

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