Disk Drill fan boy

This is not a full blown review, I am working on that. Instead this is a quick evaluation of features I’d like to see in any file recovery tool. A set of features that in my opinion make the difference between a serious data recovery tool and a typical quickly thrown together undelete type tool made to join the file recovery bandwagon. Features that in my opinion should be present before even considering a data recovery tool. All I can say at this point with regards to performance, other than that I like Disk Drill’s feature set as outlined below, is that the times I did use Disk Drill for actual recoveries, the results were excellent.

Also note that I am evaluating the Windows beta 6 version! 

Mandatory tools

Admittedly I was no fan of Disk Drill but this was largely based on older versions. In later versions I see the things I like and ask for in file recovery software. For example, different scan options for different scenarios:

The granularity of the scan options allows for, for example parse the file system and just dig up deleted files rather than try reconstructing an entire file system. If I select a physical drive, I see more good stuff I like to see in a context menu for that drive:

Nothing (IMO) is more frustrating than having to scan an entire drive for file systems when all that may be preventing us from accessing the data is a deleted partition. So a quick partition scan option is mandatory I think.

Equally frustrating is file recovery software running a full scan and reporting nothing was found a couple of hours later. This is often result of firmware issues where reads don’t result in protocol errors and yet return no useful data. This type of error is often associated with NAND based storage devices (SSDs and SD Cards for example) but can also occur on conventional hard drives. So, a right-click menu option (for physical devices and partitions) that I ‘demand’ is one that opens the drive in hex view.

Using hex view we can verify the drive actually returns data. In this case we can see the start of a GPT partition table, but even if you do not recognize such structures it is useful to see a drive does not return zeros or some repeating byte pattern.

Features

If we look at features Disk Drill does not disappoint and offers everything you could ask for, even things like RAID recovery that other software vendors typically offer in their more advanced (and expensive) versions:

I personally don’t care much about data clean up and data protection like features though I suppose you could argue it’s nice to have. But a particularly exciting feature is the specialized Action Cam (Cameras, drones, etc.) option. As you may or may not know about every generic file recovery tool struggles with recovery of videos from memory cards that were recorded using GoPro like action cameras, but also more modern DSLR and system cameras.

Disk Drill offers a dedicated feature to recover such videos that performed exceptionally well during my tests:

Two-pass disk cloning is overhauled and no longer feels like an afterthought:

While previous attempts to image a “SD Card from hell” aided by DeepSpar USB Stabilizer failed, not so in the new version!

Price

The free version aside, which I do not consider very useful anyway, Disk Drill ain’t cheap. But for that 89 USD, you get a lot:

• Life time license while certain competitors ask for just $20 less for a one-month license!
• All functions you could ask for in a file recovery tool
• Advanced features like RAID recovery, NAS recovery, that other software vendors require you to get a more premium and expensive version for!
• Unique features, that you will not find in any other software, like GoPro, DJI, Insta, Canon etc. video recovery
• If you use my coupon, you’ll get a 10% discount!

Coupon, (10% discount, enter when ordering): DSKTN-TN