Active@ UNERASER 13.0.0

Overview

Have you recently deleted some of your important files such as images, videos, documents, or even partitions (in worst scenarios) mistakengly or lost them due to reasons beyond your reach. It's still possible that your data is not lost permanently because the space that these files were recently using will remain available for the original data but only if it is not overwritten by new data. Before it gets too late, resort to Active@ UNERASER which is a data recovery software used to restore accidentally deleted files, folders, and partitions as well. It is designed to restore the lost data residing on various types of file systems including NTFS/NTFS5/NTFS+EFS, FAT12/FAT16/FAT32/exFAT, Apple HFS+, Linux Ext2/Ext3/Ext4, and BtrFS. You can even run it directly from USB flash drive or bootable CDs/DVDs which lowers the risk of overwriting the data.

Installation

Installation of Active@UNERASER is really easy and quick as you only need to confirm the setup destination path. Other than that, you can choose the option in the last step to launch it right away. It is compatible with following operating systems: Windows XP/Vista/Server 2003, 2008, 2008 R2, 2012/7/8.

Interface

The GUI of this application is simple, user-friendly, and intuitive. The layout is very straightforward and from its very first look, one gets the idea on how to scan partitions and perform operations to restore the lost files. All the main functions are displayed as icons in the main toolbar including QuickScan Plus, SuperScan, Unerase, LastChance, and Search. The screen is mainly distributed into three panels- the left panel shows the list of all Local system devices (including Extended partitions), the right panel is for the files found in the selected device, and the lowermost panel is meant for logs with details like Date/Time and Event.

Pros

It can restore your lost files, folders, and partitions (volumes) kept on hard drives that are formatted in any of these file systems: FAT12 / FAT16 / FAT32 / exFAT , NTFS / NTFS5 / NTFS+EFS, Linux Ext2 / Ext3 / Ext4 and BtrFS, and FreeBSD Unix UFS. It is even capable of restoring those files that were compressed, fragmented, or encrypted on NTFS file systems.

You can perform two types of scans for your lost files - QuickScan Plus is a quick and basic scanning procedure that detects the recently deleted files and partitions; SuperScan is a more thorough and slower scan which processes the entire hard drive to detect all possible deleted files.The settings for SuperScan procedure are configurable so you can define the specific areas to be scanned, analyze and detect deleted or damaged partitions (like NTFS, FAT/exFAT, and HFS+ for Windows), and define how the file should be recognized by their signatures.
As the name suggests, 'LastChance' feature is the last resort which can be taken to restore the lost data after the scanning methods have failed to detect the required deleted files and partitions. This method analyzes all disk surfaces to detect and recover the files recognizable by their signatures.

You can expand your search for the deleted files by defining criterias like file name, file type, created data, modified date, size, and ID in the Search dialog box.
It has the capability to recover files from not only hard disk drives but also from SSD (Solid State Disk), external USB & eSATA, USB Flash drives, camera cards, and floppy disks.

If you want to make sure that the deleted or damaged files detected after scanning are safe for recovery and that the data has not been overwritten on the drive, then you can preview the content of those files before recovering them.
While recovering a disk, if the Windows is unable to identify a volume it might be possible that it was corrupted by a virus or was overwritten. In this case, Fix Boot Sector command lets you replace Primary Boot Sector with its copy (or vice versa), or lets you copy the Boot Sector Template into both Boot Sectors to fix this problem.

Cons

The free version does not allow to recover more than one file per recovery session. Also, in the free version previously saved SuperScan results cannot be loaded.

Alternatives

Software that can be used as alternatives for Active@UNERASER are Recuva, Easy File Undelete, and Glary Undelete. Recuva is a very user-friendly file recovery tool that can recover accidentally deleted files from computers, USB drives, MP3 players, and even memory cards. Easy File Undelete is also a reliable file recovery program that supports four types of search methods, namely - Fast Search, Complete Search, Recycle Bin Search, and Temporary Internet Files Search. Glary Undelete is an undeletion utility that can find old, previously deleted files and can undelete files from hard drives, memory sticks, SD cards, and more.

Conclusion

Active@UNERASER is quite efficient in detecting most of the previously deleted files. Its user-friendly interface helps novice users to easily recover the files, plus it supports some advanced features like Fix Boot Sector, Disk Editor, Restore Partitioning Information, and more to be used by more advanced users. All in all, this is a nice way of recovering the lost files, so we recommend it to all the users.