First Look: Data Rescue II hard disk recovery

No matter how careful or experienced you may be, you will lose files eventually, either by accident or through a hard disk failure. When you lose files through an accident, such as deleting a file by mistake, you can often retrieve that file by dragging it out of the Trash. However, if you lose a file through a hard disk failure, your files are usually gone for good unless you have a special data recovery program like Data Rescue II from Prosoft Engineering.

Unlike traditional hard disk diagnostic tools that try to repair damaged hard disks by physically manipulating a hard disk’s contents, Data Rescue II takes a different approach. The program can either clone your entire hard disk to another hard disk, or temporarily copy a hard disk to another one. That way the program never risks altering the original data, which could cause further data loss.

To recover data from a hard disk, you just need to install Data Rescue II on a Macintosh and plug an ailing hard disk into your computer through a USB or Firewire cable. In many cases, the Finder may not even recognize the hard disk as valid, but Data Rescue II can still find and access the hard disk anyway. This feature alone separates Data Rescue II from other hard disk diagnostic programs and virtually guarantees that you’ll be able to access any hard disk no matter how badly damaged it may be.

To guide users through the process of recovering data, the program offers an Assistant and Expert Mode. The Assistant simply steps users through the process of scanning and recovering files while the Expert Mode offers the same features, but with less hand-holding along with the added ability to clone a hard disk or search for deleted files.





The program offers a Quick and a Thorough scan feature. The Quick scan offers speedy recovery of files, but at the expense of missing files. The Thorough scan exhaustively searches for every file on a hard disk. On a 160GB hard drive, a Thorough scan took over 3 hours.



After scanning for files, the program organizes them by file type, such as MP3, AVI, or DOC files. At this point you can selectively choose which files or folders to recover. Examining a crashed Windows XP hard disk, Data Rescue II found every file and neatly organized them into folders such as Movies or Office.



The program can also recover files from formatted hard disks or removable media such as Compact Flash or Secure Digital cards used by many digital cameras. If your main hard disk goes bad, Data Rescue II comes on a bootable CD, although you’ll still need a second hard disk to store your recovered files.

Data Rescue II is by no means a "magic bullet" solution. While it can perform seemingly-miraculous recoveries from problematic drives, if the drive motor or reading arm are shot, then recovery – using this method – is impossible, since the disk is unable to be read. Data recovery services can circumvent this limitation by disassembling the drive and placing the platter within onto a working drive chassis.

With its non-destructive file recovering ability, simple user interface, and ability to recognize hard drives that other programs can’t even find, Data Rescue II protects your data from accidents and hard disk failures. Best of all, Data Rescue II’s $99 price tag is within the budget of every Macintosh user. You may not use Data Rescue II on a regular basis, but when you do need it, it can be a life-saver.

Filed under: computers, troubleshooting, software
Other story tags: First Look, hard drive recovery