Handy Recovery is pretty neat software, there is occasions when I’m using Windows and I need to recover something or I’ve deleted something by mistake (I have a habit of using SHIFT+DEL so it’s not even in the recycle bin.

I usually use Active Undelete and was pretty happy with it, I got a chance to try out this software though and looked pretty cool.

I have to say I do prefer Handy Recovery to Active Undelete, it’s faster, small (Only 876kb including installer) and the best part is it gives an actual probability of data recovery for each file.

Plus it has a pretty neat filter/search system for finding specific files if you don’t know their location. The program supports FAT 12/16/32, NTFS and NTFS 5 + EFS file systems. This tool can recover files from deleted and formatted partitions or create disk images for deferred recovery. It shows probability of successful recovery for each file and features in-depth disk scanning for certain file types. According to Microsoft, Handy Recovery turned out to be among the first 100 applications that have earned the “Certified for Windows Vista” logo.

The Interface is nice and simple and it runs through the analysis stage pretty quickly, it’s very easy to recover files (recommended to recover to a different partition to reduce chances of permanent data loss) and just takes a couple of clicks.

The trial version is limited to recover 1 file per day and can be download here:

Handy Recovery

There is also a freeware ‘lite’ version here:

Handy Recovery Lite

System Requirements

Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP/Vista
File systems: FAT12/16/32 or NTFS/NTFS 5.

You can purchase Handy Recovery here:

Order Handy Recovery

It’s pretty reasonably priced at $39US for 1-4 copies with discounts if you buy 5 or more.

Data recovery is an important subject and it’s definitely a good thing to have a positive understanding of data recovery and how it could effort you personally or your business.

So someone told me about this Data recovery article which is a decent original reference to data recovery which contains some good original information, links to other similar resources, free data recovery downloads and an explanation of the main parts involved.

Definition: Data recovery is the salvaging of data originally stored on media such as magnetic disks and tapes and which has become corrupt or inaccessible.

The sidebar is pretty useful on the Data recovery article so do check it out, it has software, services and links to more information on industry standard sites like Wikipedia.

It also has related articles and related companies like OnTrack.

The article also covers some basic parts of forensics, like how when an item is deleted it’s not actually gone, just the marker in the file allocation table is removed.

Can erased data be recovered?

Yes, usually. When you delete a file the file is not actually deleted. It’s just the entry in the index pointing to the file’s actual location that is deleted. The file itself is left untouched but subsequent work you do on the PC could overwrite the location where the file was so it’s important to minimise any amateur attempts at data recovery.

This is something we’ve stressed many times at Darknet as any old $29.95 undelete tool can recover these files easily.

The important part of the article is the part about what mistakes you can make, this is crucial if you wish to save your data integrity in case of a failure.

I do find the design of the page a little plain (it looks like something designed in 1997) and the pink and light blue colour scheme jars my eyes a little.

The info is laid out clearly though and the site is easy to navigate, which is a good thing.

You can read more about Data Recovery at Wiki here.