Or Arq, Mac users never face the problem of data loss, because at any time one or another file can be restored. But there is another category of users who believe that OS X is much more reliable than Windows, and they are insured against unexpected data loss. So it basically is, but now the user himself is responsible for all deleted files, who could accidentally delete important information. And if such a case has come, the utility will be able to recover the deleted data.
In contact with
Start
At the first launch, you will be prompted to customize the program to suit your needs. Maximum data recovery results are guaranteed with all Disk Drill modules running until data loss occurs. More detailed work on their purpose and functioning can be found by tapping on the icons with a question mark.
And there will also be an offer to study the manual. The main problem is that the local guide is not translated into Russian at all, and when using the program, you may notice flaws in localization.
Interface
In recent versions, the interface has been greatly redesigned and is significantly different from what you can see in outdated reviews and videos. The design has become more minimalistic, and when you launch the application, your eyes no longer run all over the window in search of the right button, and there were quite a few of them.
Find and recover data on Mac OS X
Now everything is simple - select the system drive (external, USB flash drive, SD card, and so on) and press the search button, after which a long scan occurs (120 GB SSD on a MacBook 13 was scanned in 15 minutes).
Supports all not only up-to-date, but also outdated file systems. HFS / HFS +, FAT16 / FAT32, NTFS, EXT3, EXT4 and other formats are not scary for the program.
After finishing the scan, the utility will show all existing and reconstructed files. The recovered files will be presented not in the folders in which they were before deletion, but in categories depending on the file type: images, documents, videos, and so on.
But the whole situation is saved by the built-in search with a filter:
- keywords;
- data type;
- approximate size;
- the period in which the file was deleted.
Works with all popular data formats, from simple video files (AVI, M4V, MKV, MOV) or Final Cut Pro files to contact databases (ABCDDB), disc images (XML, DMG) and more.
We select the files you are interested in and save them to disk or mount them as a disk in the system. It's that simple! The scanning session will be saved and in the future the file search will be faster.
We gave an example of deep scanning, but this is far from the only mode of data retrieval:
- A quick scan is an ideal tool for identifying recently deleted data. Scanning takes 10-20 seconds.
- Deep Scan - allows you to search not only for individual partitions, but also scan the entire disk. The procedure is quite long and you can't get off with brewing tea. The method is used if a quick scan did not give any results.
- Universal partition search - allows you to find and recover a partition of a deleted disk.
- Finding a lost HFS partition.
To increase the efficiency of search and data recovery, it will not be superfluous to refer to the tabs " Types"And" List”In Disk Drill preferences.
In them, you can configure exclusions for search and display, so you can cut off the lion's share of unnecessary information.
Data protection
It's great when you can recover accidentally deleted data, but it's much better to take care of protecting your information in advance. Information will be guarded by two protection modes:
- Recovery Vault - thanks to this mode, all attributes of deleted data will be stored in a special section of Disk Drill. It is possible to restore any deleted file, provided that no system data is written in its place (it is advisable to restore it immediately after the loss of information). The uniqueness of the mode lies in the fact that it is not a file backup and disk space will not be mercilessly consumed. The function is relevant for MacBooks with a small amount of onboard memory.
- Warranty restoration - classic mode in which deleted files are backed up to a separate location. There are many attributes for more detailed customization (exclusion masks, minimum file size, storage time and space size). Ideal for those who have a large enough hard drive.
Versions and cost
There are several versions of Disk Drill available at different prices and with different functionality:
- Drill Disk Basic (free) - there is no way to recover files. The demo version of the product allows testing the functionality of the program in a limited amount.
- Disk Drill Pro ($ 89 / $ 44.5) - fully functional version of the program. It costs $ 89, but there is a 50% discount for residents of the post-Soviet space. Both amounts are sky-high, but when it comes to missing files (and some of them can be priceless), you can give it back without hesitation.
- Drill Disk Enterprise ($ 399) - corporate version for an unlimited number of users and computers. Ideal for startups and large campaigns.
- Disk Drill Media Recovery ($ 39.99) is a limited version available through the Mac App Store. Due to a strict Apple policy, the program cannot get full access to hard drive partitions and, as a result, the Recovery Vault system does not work. Files and folders are restored without problems.
conclusions
Disk Drill is one of the best data recovery utilities that can recover a huge amount of information and protect existing data from most emergency situations. The disadvantages include only the price, but this parameter is subjective. It all depends on how valuable the files are at stake.
P. S .: Disk Drill must be uninstalled directly from the program window ( Settings → General → Remove Disk Drill).
What if you accidentally deleted a file and there is no backup copy? What if the backup disk itself is damaged and is no longer recognized by the Mac? Maybe your card has stopped reading from a camera or a flash drive? There are many options. But in all these cases, Disk Drill will help you recover data.
What information Disk Drill can recover
It doesn't matter on which disk the files are missing. If you can physically connect it to your Mac, Disk Drill gets to work. Even if the computer cannot read it. The use cases are as follows:
- Files from your internal storage, external storage, USB stick or memory card are missing;
- A partition on an external disk has disappeared and is no longer mounted (often happens when the disk is not ejected correctly);
- Missing music in an MP3-player or e-book a la Kindle;
- The system stopped recognizing a memory card, flash drive or hard drive.
Disk Drill works with all popular file systems:
- HFS / HFS +
- FAT / FAT32 / exFAT
- EXT3 / EXT4
Deep Scan function works even with damaged or missing file system.
How to use Disk Drill
By default, Disk Drill scans your drive and displays any deleted information it finds. If the file has just been deleted, then the function will handle this. Fast scan (Quick Scan). If not, then it goes Detailed scan (Deep Scan).
Since deleted files lose all metadata, all found files will have incorrect (random) names, hierarchy and creation / modification date. To find the required file, you need to sort the information by type and size, and then use the quick view function to find the required file.
In order not to suffer like this, Disk Drill offers several interesting features. These are the ones I forgot to turn on beforehand, so don't repeat my mistake.
- Recovery Vault - keeps a copy of the metadata of all deleted files. In which case, when restoring, the names, dates of creation and their hierarchy will be saved. The function is generally unpretentious to resources. The metadata archive for 10,000 files is approximately 60 megabytes.
- Guaranteed Recovery - keeps invisible copies of all files that go to the trash. If you deleted something you need and then regretted it, Guaranteed Recovery will restore any file without any problems. In Disk Drill's settings, you can set how much space you don't mind for hidden copies of files from the recycle bin and how long you need to keep them.
Both of these features work even in the free version of Disk Drill. So, you can add an extra layer of protection to your files by simply installing the trial version. But you will have to pay for the recovery function itself.
The only thing to remember is that Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery only work with HFS & HFS + and FAT partitions. They cannot be enabled for other sections.
How to recover deleted files from a USB flash drive
To demonstrate how it works, I took and formatted my 64GB stick. It originally only featured the season of The Man in the High Castle. I don’t remember what was stored and deleted before that.
The quick scan of the disk took about 15 minutes. As a result, Disk Drill discovered:
- all 13 episodes of the series;
- 18 documents from the sketch editor;
- 208 music tracks in mp3;
- 232 photos;
- some videos in 3gp (I have no idea how they got there);
- several videos in mov format.
Even using such a proven and fairly reliable tool like Time Machine, you cannot be completely sure of the safety of the created backups. The external media, on which the data was backed up, can "fall down", access to the network storage may not be available ... alas, the list goes on for a long time. In such cases, specialized apps for recovering deleted data... It so happened that we practically did not talk about such programs, but today we would like to talk about the program Disk Drill Pro, which can not only restore what the user has already deleted, but also greatly facilitate such operations in the future.
Attention! The developers of the program have provided us with two licenses for this application, which we will give away between our readers.
The competition is over, thanks to all participants!
After the standard installation of the program, the user will be prompted to immediately activate the Recovery Vault system to protect the Mac's system drive, enable diagnostics of the state of hard drives based on S.M.A.R.T. and watch a demo tour of Disk Drill Pro's capabilities. All this can be used at any time later.
As you can see from the screenshot, Disk Drill Pro has Russian localization. Unfortunately, it is not entirely perfect: there are phrases in English (including a demo tour), and the translation itself often looks like the result of Google Translate.
You will then see a welcome window, which contains a bunch of links to Disk Drill Pro's two modes of operation (Protection and Recovery), as well as various references and other websites associated with the program. By the way, the Russian-language version of the application site has a much more competent translation than the application itself.
Finally, you will be taken to the main program window, which has an intuitive interface and a simple structure consisting of two tabs (according to the number of Disk Drill Pro operating modes).
DATA PROTECTION
This tab enables / disables the unique data protection algorithm Recovery Vault, as well as the guaranteed data recovery system. Recovery Vault can greatly facilitate the recovery of deleted data from a particular disk due to the fact that when enabled, the file system service records and attributes of deleted files are saved in a special program storage. When using the Guaranteed Recovery System, in addition to all the above actions, the program will make hidden copies of all deleted files and save them according to certain rules. For each disk, you can use either one or both technologies at once.
Note that it is not enough to turn on this or that system - it still needs to be properly configured. In the advanced properties of Recovery Vault, you can set additional protected folders, as well as exclusion masks, based on which files of certain types will not be considered during protection. When you turn off the system, you can also clear the storage of service records and file attributes here.
In the settings of the guaranteed recovery system, in addition to all of the above, the storage time for copies of deleted files (from 1 day to a year, or even without restrictions), as well as the conditions under which the database of protected files will be cleared, can be flexibly regulated. Here you can also set the minimum file size for guaranteed recovery (from 16 MB to 32 GB or, as an option, unlimited).
RECOVERY
Data recovery mode can be called the main operating mode, since it is with it that the user will have to deal most often. As the name implies, it is designed to recover deleted files from various media. Disk Drill Pro supports any disk that the user can connect and mount to the Mac OS X system (internal and external hard drives SATA / SSD / USB / FireWire / eSATA, hard drives of camcorders, iPod mini and iPod Classic, any type of flash drives and memory cards). File system support declared HFS / HFS +, FAT16 / FAT32, NTFS, EXT3, EXT4 and others, as well over 110 file formats (a complete list can be found on the developer's website).
There are at least three options for file recovery.
- Restoring protected files
The easiest way is to undo the deletion of files from the media that was previously protected with Recovery Vault.
- Fast scan
A quick scan to identify recently deleted files. Can only be applied to specific sections of the media. After the scan is complete, the user will be prompted to mark in the list of found files those that he wants to restore, specify the folder / media where the recovered files will be saved (it is strongly not recommended to save to the scanned partition), select the files to restore from the list and, in fact, start it himself recovery process. If you wish, you can save the recovery session in order to later be able to return to it and recover the files found during this session, and not start all over again, since the search results may be completely different.
- Deep scan
Deep scanning can affect not only individual sections, but the entire medium as a whole. The coarse scan process is long enough and is therefore generally only used if a quick scan does not produce the desired results.
After scanning is complete, the procedure for recovering files is the same as for a quick scan.
In addition to the three options for recovering files, the program has two more useful functions.
- Backup to DMG image
Create a backup copy of the selected disk or partition to a DMG archive and save the latter to the specified location.
- Search for sections
A function that allows you to find and recover a disk partition that was deleted accidentally (or intentionally).
The found partition can be scanned in the same way for the presence of deleted files on it (and the files themselves can be restored), or you can save it to a DMG image and then restore it using Disk Utilities.
As a pleasant and no less useful addition, we can note the ability to display the hard disk temperature indicator in the menu bar, which simultaneously serves as an application icon. Clicking on the icon will bring up a small context menu (when monitoring the temperature of several disks installed in a Mac, the corresponding number of icons will be displayed in the menu bar).
Disk Drill Pro's settings menu is very simple and contains 5 tabs with a minimum of settings located in them. Among the options, one can note the ability to select certain types of files that the application will search for during scanning, setting a master password that restricts unauthorized access to important program functions, working with S.M.A.R.T. disk parameters. In general, the user may not even look at this menu, since Disk Drill Pro works fine without additional settings.
As you know, it often happens that the value of information and data stored on various media is many times greater than the value of the media itself or even the entire computer as a whole. It is for these reasons that applications that allow you to recover lost data have a rather tangible cost. Disk Drill Pro is no exception in this regard. The purchase will cost the user 89$ , but it's nice that for users living in CIS countries 50% discount, as a result of which the final 44,5$ Doesn't seem like a lot of money, especially when restoring a data archive that you've been doing for several years is at stake. There is also a completely free version of Drill Disk Basic, which has the same functionality as the Pro version (including the Recovery Vault system), except that it turns off the ability to recover files. There is also a third edition of the program, called Disk Drill Media Recovery and is distributed only through the Mac App Store. Apple's stringent requirements for applications placed in the Mac App Store forced Disk Drill developers to abandon a number of fairly important functions and significantly reduce the cost of the application. The program began to cost "only" $ 29.99, but at the same time it lost the ability to work with hard drive partitions installed in the Mac and, accordingly, the Recovery Vault system.
Today we will focus on a powerful, popular and useful utility called Disk Drill.
This application, thanks to its modules, allows you to perform a variety of operations with the hard disk, monitor its status, recover lost data, including iOS devices, perform "smart" hard disk cleaning, search for duplicate files, create backups and even a recovery disk. But first things first.
Duplicate Finder - Find Duplicate Files
Disk Drill's Duplicate Finder will scan your disk for duplicates and free up extra space. It's also handy for your online storage like Dropbox and Google Drive. Network folders will also work.
How to use Duplicate Finder:
- Drag or add an area to find duplicates.
- Click Scan. Wait. See how much space you can recover.
- Select duplicates to remove, or use auto-selection. Click Remove. Done.
We have tested this tool and the results have been more than impressive. Judge for yourself:
The program found 3404 duplicate files with a total volume of more than 30Gb. Very good.
Create a bootable recovery disc
To increase your chances of recovery or in cases where the system partition is damaged, Disk Drill allows you to create a bootable recovery disc.
This tool requires a USB flash drive or any other recordable media of at least 2GB.
How to create a bootable recovery disc:
- Select disk - source of Recovery from those working on OS X 10.8.5+.
- Select the disk that will be bootable.
- Restart your Mac while holding down the Option key. Select "DiskDrill Boot" section for safe data recovery.
Creating a backup
Disks fail, this is inevitable. Disk Drill can be used to create a byte copy and recover data from it, not from a damaged disk.
How to make a DMG backup:
- Select a disk or partition for backup.
- Select the storage area for the backup. You may need a different hard drive for backup. Click Save.
- Wait for the backup to be created. Use Disk Drill's Attach Disk Image option to mount the disk image.
Disk cleanup
Disk Drill's Cleanup module helps you see where the free space on your hard drive has gone. By building a visual map of your files and folders, you can quickly delete unnecessary ones.
How to use Disk Cleanup:
- Select a disk to render. Click "Scan".
- Wait. See the built visual map. Select a specific folder by clicking on "Select".
- Select the required files and folders. Click Remove.
As you can see from the screenshot, the program allows you to determine the most "loaded" folders, opening which you can see which files with the largest size take up space.
Data recovery
And of course, the main purpose of the program is data recovery.
It is noteworthy that Disk Drill recovers data not only from local drives, but also from flash drives, external hard drives and even iOS devices connected to a computer.
To begin with, we formatted our working flash drive in FAT32, then copied several images onto it and deleted one of them.
After that, the process of searching for lost (deleted) data was launched.
The program not only found the deleted file, but also thousands of others that "lived" on this flash drive before formatting!
Data recovery from iOS devices
Disk Drill iOS Recovery is based on iOS backup using iTunes. Whatever is in the backup, everything can be restored: photo, video, audio, etc.
IPods with iOS 5 or higher are also supported.
Recovery starts by scanning the last backup of the device.
After scanning, the program will display all found files that can be easily restored by clicking on the corresponding button.
How much does it cost?
Disk Drill is available as a free version - Basic package. With it you can recover files, including protected ones, make a backup, view all recovery methods.
Those who are serious about the safety of their data and the health of their hard drives will be interested in Disk Drill Pro. The issue price is $ 89. This is the full version of the program, with all modules and the ability to install on 3 computers.
Our Verdict: Disk Drill definitely deserves the attention of all Mac and iOS users.
Download Disk Drill from the developer site
For those who are already familiar with the program, we would like to inform you that the developers have recently released a big update to Disk Drill 3.
What's new:
- The ability to recover data from iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
- Data recovery from Android devices (rooted or USB mass storage mode only)
- New free function to find duplicate files
- New free function to create a bootable USB drive
- ExFAT, EXT4 support
- Working with Mac OS 10.12 Sierra
- New interface
And finally, the most delicious :)
The developers have kindly provided 5 license keys for Disk Drill Pro!
Take it, test it and be sure to unsubscribe in the comments about how successfully you spent your time with the program!
Keys for Disk Drill Pro
629BF-BA7EE-485E3-D5451-20705
7FBBA-B4AFC-083DB-74AAA-31ED4
94A56-36A4D-7C1D6-0E660-5E10E
A53E2-2D161-4EB27-0C056-4E8A5
Disk Drill is a data recovery software for Windows and Mac OS X. Like any other rescuer, it works with a wide range of storage devices. You can recover files on removable media, sd cards of phones and tablets, HDD (SSD) disks.
Disk Drill Recovery Features
- Selective file recovery: in the preferences, you can tick the desired file extensions and formats. The categories of data to recover are Archives, Audio, Documents, Pictures, Video.
- The ability to pause scanning at any time: saving the session and continuing after closing and restarting the program
- Protection against accidental overwriting of deleted files: Any disk in Disk Drill can be write-protected by clicking the Protect button (Recovery Vault function)
- Creating a disk backup via the Extras menu.
- Deep Scan: This option increases the chances of recovering lost files (available only in Pro and Enterprise versions of Disk Drill).
- Convenient preview: the window with found files contains a search bar. You can also filter results by file type, size and modification date.
File types to find and recover
- photos, images in JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, PSD
- videos - AVI, MP4 and others
- music (AIF, MP3 and WAV audio)
- camera images - RAW, CR2, NEF and DNG
- word and Excel documents in DOCX, PPTX and XLSX format
The Pro version of Reanimator is capable of detecting traces and recovering up to 400 different file formats.
Where to download Disk Drill for trial
Disk Drill is available on the developer's official website. Depending on the OS installed, you can download the trial version of Disk Drill for Windows or Mac OS X by clicking the Free Download button.
The trial version of Disk Drill Pro is not available for download, but you can test the Free version, which is limited by a quota of 100 MB of recoverable data.
Differences between Disk Drill Free, Pro, and Enterprise
Standard Edition - Disk Drill Basic will recover up to 100 MB for free on Windows or Mac OS.
Disk Drill Pro can be installed for one user on 3 computers. Purchasing a license removes the restriction on the size of recoverable files. The pro version also offers the following features:
- Choice between Quick scan and Deep scan methods, affecting scan speed, search depth and recovery probability, respectively
- Reconstruction of deleted partitions to HDD
- Search and recover 200+ file formats by signatures
- Support for all well-known file systems: NTFS, FAT (32), EXT3-4, HFS, etc.
Disk Drill Enterprise is a corporate edition, you can install this edition on an unlimited number of PCs + technical support.
Disk Drill can be run portable, but this installation method is only available in Disk Drill for Mac OS X.
The cost of the program is from $ 89 - $ 399. Upgrades to Disk Drill, Education and Nonprofits are eligible for 20 to 50% discounts.
