Data Rescue for Mac

CNET Editors' review

Data Rescue can help you retrieve lost files, whether they were destroyed in a hard-drive crash or just accidentally deleted by some overzealous trash-emptying.

This app has an easy--and even kind of fun--interface, with 3D animations that show available drives and your options for diagnosis and recovery. Once you've chosen a drive to examine, Data Rescue prompts you for an additional drive to use as "workspace" and gives you six choices: a Quick Scan or Deep Scan to find recoverable files; a Deleted Files Scan (good for an accidental deletion on an otherwise healthy drive); Clone, which makes an exact copy of a drive, good if you suspect mechanical problems and want to do recovery on a more stable drive; Analysis, which will clock your drive's read time, a possible predictor of future problems; and FileIQ, in case you need to teach Data Rescue file types that it doesn't already recognize, such as proprietary formats.

Data Rescue is fairly speedy, scanning a removable flash drive in a few minutes or a larger hard drive in hours, with satisfying animations to keep you entertained; for example, you can see a running count of extensions for recovered files, like MP3s or AVIs, which pop up as Data Rescue finds them. Once the app is finished scanning, you'll see a complete list of recoverable files, broken down by folders such as audio, documents, and images, usually with file names and metadata still intact (depending on the extent of the file damage). From the list, you can preview files or simply recover them.

Data Rescue's demo limits you to previewing and recovering a single file of 10MB or less, but that's enough to see this app in action and get a feel for its friendly interface, good documentation, and impressive recovery capabilities. This is the kind of software that you hope you never need--but when you do, Data Rescue is a great app to have.

Publisher's Description

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All User Reviews
  • All versions:

    3.7 stars

    out of 92 votes

    • 5 star: 50
    • 4 star: 13
    • 3 star: 4
    • 2 star: 4
    • 1 star: 21
  • Current version:

    1.7 stars

    out of 13 votes

    • 5 star: 2
    • 4 star: 0
    • 3 star: 0
    • 2 star: 1
    • 1 star: 10
  • My rating:

    0 stars

    Write review

Results 1-10 of 13

  • 5.0 stars

    "A true savior"

    January 17, 2013  |   By epc.alpex

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    • The scan allows to see which files could be recovered before buying the license. In my case, 100%.
    • The files were recovered with all their flags and attributes.
    • The organization of files were 95% the same as before crashing.
    • The price is very smooth compared to the professional solution (on which I had no guarantee).

    Cons

    • Some files (around 5%) were misplaced.
    • My files were mainly videos, and in most cases, the reading indexes are destroyed and impossible to rebuild : The files can still be read normally, but I can no longer navigate in the files.

    Summary

    My external 3,5" disk could not mount after an electric surge. The computer repairer could not make it and proposed a white room recuperation, that would have costed a fortune. The apple center advisor suggested me to try Data Rescue 3, if I could hear the disk turn, which was the case.

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  • 5.0 stars

    "Highly recommend"

    November 6, 2012  |   By kent1

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    Fast, simple to use and intuitive interface
    Very effective. Good value for money, priceless when it recovers
    your lost data

    Cons

    Can't think of any

    Summary

    A friend of mine recently accidentally re-formatted his External Hard Drive which contained all his iTunes Music library and media. As a long time user of Drive Genius, last night, I purchased Data Rescue 3, ran it all night and recovered all 115GB of his music, and I have now imported the music back into iTunes. I have never ventured into data recovery before, but I have to say that your program is not only effective, but also very intuitive to use. I didn't have time to read the full manual. Just used the deleted Items scan. It took about 7 hours to scan and about 4 hrs to recover.
    I love the way the recovered files are shown in Folders, in this case Music, with each type nested inside, i.e. MP3, AIFF, etc It even restored the song and album name, and the artwork artwork!
    Needless to say we are both very impressed with Data Rescue!

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  • 1.0 stars

    "Mac no longer recognises my drive"

    October 14, 2012  |   By vivi_anne

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    could potentially help with deleted files

    Cons

    risk of permanent damage to hard drive

    Summary

    I had a few corrupted files on my external hard drive and decided to use Data Rescue. No files were save and now my computer doesn't even recognise the hard drive. I lost everything. All my data, the hard drive ($200) and what I paid for data rescue ($100). Be very careful when using this, and make sure you back up your data before attempting to use this software.

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  • 2.0 stars

    "Don't Waste Your Money"

    September 25, 2012  |   By whofukncares

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    None. There aren't any.

    Cons

    I have a demo of Virtuallab Data Recovery and a bought version of Data Rescue 3.

    They cost the same.

    1. Data Rescue 3 doesn't keep the structure of the file system of the files you save. So if you have a picture folder named "Kitty Kitty Cats," you can kiss your organization goodbye. Virtuallab DOES keep all that data intact.

    2. Data Rescue 3's "deep scan" took an hour to do 40 gigs. It only came back with half of the data. Virtuallab's demo did the same scan in the same amount of time and returned 100% of the data.

    What is Prosoft Data Rescue 3 charging for again?

    My issue is I have an old IDE drive that is NOT broken at all. It's just being held hostage via an old dynamic file system ... Windows_LDM that cannot be mounted on a Mac, at all. Not even in terminal command. If Prosoft can't recover much of that drive for the same price as its competition can - then imagine what it can't do for a truly shot to he11 drive.

    I totally wasted money on this meh'ware.

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  • 1.0 stars

    "Not Freeware!"

    August 31, 2012  |   By fisher797

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    None. Didn't activate the software because it doesn't meet my needs

    Cons

    Data limits are out-of-date. Maybe when this was a new product 10 MB of data was a lot - but not today!

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  • 1.0 stars

    "Bad program, stay away"

    August 29, 2012  |   By alongooanab

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    At least it scans for files and tries to recover them..

    Cons

    I couldn't recover my deleted docs

    Summary

    It is a waste of money and left me feeling like I just wasted my money on a useless program.

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  • 1.0 stars

    "I can't use it anymore!"

    August 24, 2012  |   By simonbakerr

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    worked once

    Cons

    Very high price

    Summary

    I bought this for a computer and when I formatted, the software no longer worked and I can't use it anymore.

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  • 1.0 stars

    "No good for recovering music"

    August 21, 2012  |   By zaaaaaak

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    I don't know any

    Cons

    No good for recovering music files of any type...which was my sole purpose for downloading this software
    Not free

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  • 1.0 stars

    "Very high price!"

    August 20, 2012  |  

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    high speed

    Cons

    The files will be named differently so you'll have to retrieve everything to find the one that you'll need, and since the company charge you for the memory size of how many files retrieved, you'll end up having to pay for what you don't need

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  • 1.0 stars

    "Beware of the payment system"

    August 16, 2012  |   By alextrrrr

    Version: Data Rescue 3.2.2

    Pros

    found my file...but...

    Cons

    when I tried to process the payment this was so flawed that by the time I received the key, my file was corrupted, as I was having to use the same computer

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Results 1-10 of 13

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