MultiStage Recovery Professional

File recovery tools are only as good as their results, and this one is a couple of stages short of liftoff. MultiStage Recovery's interface looks like a typical folder tree, but with limited functionality. Click a fixed drive, and MultiStage Recovery immediately scans for salvageable files. You can't shorten the scan time by selecting a specific folder. It's an all-or-nothing process.

MultiStage Recovery covers most drive types, although we had occasional problems working with USB drives. The program's most helpful feature is a preview window to display or play the recoverable file, but even this was flawed. You could click an MP3 file and play it, but the song title displayed never matched the song that was playing. The demoware will only search for files 35k or smaller, and you'll have to register the program to find out if items are completely recoverable.

MultiStage Recovery is simple to operate, but not as flexible as others in the market. As such, it wouldn't be our first choice as a file recovery tool.