Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery 9.0
Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery can rescue lost audio, video and image files. The tool has a very straightforward interface, so much so, that it is hard to get lost. Luckily, it comes with detailed help as well.
When you start the program, you have three options: data recovery, resume recovery or create image. If you decide to search for a given file, you should first select a drive or disk. Fortunately, the tool supports various types of storage devices, including physical disks, logical partitions and removable devices. Before starting to scan, you can pick the type of media files you are trying to find, and it is even possible to choose specific file extensions. Since scanning a complete disk can take a long time, great news is that you can specify a given range of sectors. It is obvious, however, that this option is advisable for advanced users only.
Once the exploration is complete, you get the list of results, which can be filtered by file type and format. Moreover, they are displayed in a folder tree to facilitate searching. Likewise, you can access such file properties as name, format and size as well as preview their contents. Next, you may select the files you want to actually recover and proceed with this operation. However, you do not have to make a decision right away, as the tool lets you save the results for a more thorough analysis.
Fortunately, the program lets you work proactively by creating an image of the selected disk. Thus, you can have a backup of the contents without running the risk of their becoming irrecoverable.
Al in all, Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery is quite effective in retrieving accidentally erased media files. Its biggest limitation is that it does not support other file types, like documents and executables. The product is shareware and its trial version can be tested at no cost; however, it does not allow saving the rescued files.
Review summary
Pros
- Supports various types of storage devices
- Allows filtering results
- Previews the files found
- Lets you select a specific sector range
- Supports creating disk images and retrieving data from them
Cons
- Does not support file types other than image, audio and video
- The trial version cannot recover files
