Data Recovery for Photographers: DiskDrill, EaseUS, Stellar, Recoverit Compared

[@MatthewGore]

Luckily, this is the last video I'll be doing about random computer stuff, for now, and my next video will be a lens review! Hope that one or two of you find this useful, though.

[@AGoogleUser-e7v]

Wow a person with adhd like me would never have done what you did in this video lol you really done hard work here lol

[@MatthewGore]

@@AGoogleUser-e7v Yeah... a few of these software companies have reached out to me since making this video, requesting me to make paid tutorials or to make reviews of just their program, and I declined in each case, because.... Ugh. This one was a grind, with days of scanning, and then a week of going through the results. Once was enough for me.

[@Helly721]

Thanks a lot for your amazing video. I feel very lucky because I saw your video at the correct time when I was greatly in need of file recovery software. I tried Stellar free edition and it recovered my data but as the limitation was 1GB so, I upgraded to its paid and it recovered all my files.

[@DevinMazzara]

this video was awesome so thorough you killed it now we just need your favorite repair software

[@raviduprasanna6401]

really appreciate men♥ i know how challenging those software comparison. i do tried myself too it always keep top Easeus recovery but after i used my comparison wasn't accurate because i rated how many files recovered but there was a duplicate ones but i didn't attempt to try again i know how hard and time consuming it was

[@EduardoRodriguez-cc7ot]

Definitely this is like a web page where it is very clear and in an excellent way how each file recovery software works as well as how they behave in a real case, I subscribe and what a good video quality. just what I was looking for a share without any kind of sponsorship to avoid altered results

[@MatthewGore]

Thanks Eduardo, glad you found it useful!

[@JAKOB1977]

Great video, thx.. so many of these YT videos are otherwise tainted as its loaded with bias from the vendors themself. One thing I missed in the video, was the timeaspect... how long did the recovery take... you also jumped over what the deep scan in fact is and to what extent it slows it down, but most importantly the recovery time.. was not mentioned for either of these.. but sofar the best video I have seen.. thx.

[@sirmeowcelot]

Disk Drill is by far the best on this comparison but if your files are more sensitive than usual go for Data Rescue. Great video.

[@andrassabe]

this was a GREAT review!, helped me a lot to chose the one i need! THANK YOU!

[@JamesHeigh]

I am curious about which took the longest. I figured there would be a time spent breakdown but then there wasn’t. Also I really appreciate your time taken on this as I am looking to recover data in a semi-pro way and there are not simple videos like this breaking down the options.

[@MatthewGore]

Unfortunately, there were a couple of scans where I lost track of the time... sometimes I scanned overnight and the program didn't always keep track for me, etc, so I'm not sure of all the exact times. They were all pretty similar, in the end, except one that was a bit longer.

[@JamesHeigh]

@@MatthewGore Ah yes thanks for the reply that is helpful!!

[@MFaisal.92]

Very Informative video and @Matthew Gore working very hard in this video.

[@MeganQuist]

Very helpful! I have 11 hours to go on my scan fingers crossed ❤

[@MatthewGore]

Good luck!

[@JosephYeng]

What app have you used and what's the final result?

[@Buhassanali]

Thank you ! I hope you can help me. I have a disk that was formatted, I used lots of recovery software. It will recover the photos and videos with the exact name, size and folders, but unfortunately it will show it as corrupted file, I am sure I didn’t write anything on the disk after formatting, could you pleas assist me?

[@thinkingfortomorrow8754]

Excellent attempt to compare all four programs I mean recovery software. Thanks a lot.🙏

[@AEMBowers]

Wow. Thank you, Matthew Gore! That was a very well put together video. Thorough and thoughtful research and excellent presentation.

[@NoEgg4u]

@4:40 -- Disk Drill: I lost a partition. In your review, I did not see an option for choosing a drive that has no partition (presumably, you did not have a drive in that condition?). Will a drive, that has no partition, show up in the list of available drives to scan? If yes, will it fix the bad/lost partition, and moments later you have your files back? Is that risky, because it will perform a "write" operation on the source drive? So is it safer to copy all found files to a different drive? I want to use this software on my laptop. Naturally, I cannot plug in a 3.5" SATA drive. But I have SATA / USB adapters. Will Disk Drill work with such an adapter? Basically, I have a 3.5" SATA drive that lost its partition. I want to either recreate the partition, or be able to copy its files to a different drive, via my laptop and the SATA / USB adapters. The files I want to recover are all 461 GB. But they were written contiguously. Will files of that size be a problem? Excellent review, and very good analysis of results.

[@foodieryder]

Disk Drill Pro proved to be absolutely useless for me. I lost money in buying the pro version and not recovering any of the videos from the 256 SD card. They have a strict no-refunds policy. After Disk Drill Pro failed and I gave up hope I was brave enough to use ‘initialize’ on Mac and use Disk Utility’s “First Aid” option and entire card was recovered. In essence Disk Drill Pro failed miserably in comparison with Mac built-in software. I wish I used that before paying for Pro version and losing the $89.

[@MatthewGore]

Ah, I'm sorry to hear that... but I'm glad that you at least recovered your data. I haven't tried any of these on Mac, so I'm glad to hear the info.

[@karlasoto279]

Lazesoft Mac Recovery

[@lexly87]

When I uninstalled disk drill, it write protected my drive.

[@nopelandfill]

I think you can at least sell the license online for a cheaper price?

[@cleverfiles]

@@lexly87It is just impossible :)

[@LetUsSeeEurope]

Your video is really informative and helpful! However some of my recovered files cannot be viewed. Any solution to repair overwritten/unsupported/corrupted image files? Please help.

[@RoyalAshish3405]

Nice comparison 👍 Love from India ❤️

[@princebadsiwal7697]

Ease us is best as it also shows preview while u scanning so u knew which files is recoverable

[@superdavetn]

Very well done and well explained - Thank you!!

[@manuelfloridoclemente8965]

Hola buenas tardes tengo una memoria que use hace unos dias y tenia mucho s archivos de videos no guarde el contenido de la tarjeta y ayer la segui usando hoy cuando he querido guardar los archivo veoque la tarjeta tiene105 gb de uso que seria lo normal de todo lo que tengo grabado pero cuanme meto en la carpeta de videos solo hay 19 gb de uso que devo hacer para recuperar o ver donde se han metidos esos archivos que deverian de estar y no estan . ya me he metico en ver archivos ocultos y nada no estan

[@MatthewGore]

I'm not exactly sure what's going on in your case, but unless you formatted the card (and shoot with a Sony camera), your files are probably all still there. Most of the programs that I mention in this video have a free trial version that will allow you to scan the drive and see what's there, so you'll at least get a good idea of what you can find and recover. There's also a free option called "Recuva" that's worth a try.

[@uludelu]

Hello good video! Was wondering does any of those software when data were recovered they were back in they initial folders before being lost ? Or everything was mixed and you need to sort them all ?

[@assistant2theregionalmanager]

Disk Drill is the best software I've ever used! A Pro version is so worth it.

[@NoEgg4u]

I have a 3.5" SATA drive that lost its partition. Will Disk Drill see the drive, and let me scan it for files to recover? I am asking, because at the 4:40 time mark in this video, all drives had a letter. But my drive, without a partition, has no letter. Will such a drive show up in the list? Also, will Disk Drill work with SATA / USB adapters? I want to recover the data via my laptop. So I have to use one adapter for the source (bad) drive, and another adapter for the target drive. Will that work? Thank you.

[@billymarkwell1105]

what does a pro version cost, and how do I go about purchasing one?

[@indievisualz5890]

@@NoEgg4u I know this is old and you may have figured it out. Yes, Diskdrill should see a lost/unmounted partition. You should be able to preview files if they're salvageable. I may have fudged up my files, and after recovering with Stellar, my files are not opening at all and seemingly corrupted. Now, I'm trying to see if DiskDrill will help. Already sunk $100 down the drain!!

[@JAKOB1977]

@@NoEgg4u It likely will.. had some 3.5 mech, drives from my old Mac Pro1.1 that I hadn't used for ages.. many of the drives was a mismatch of win & osx partitions, as it was back when it was so easy to boot into what OS you wanted on these Mac Pro1.1 and finally got an Mac Mini M4 again. so wanted to check them.. most of them didn't show up on my laptops 2017 porsche books or the new Macmini m4 through native systemtools.. took a look at diskdrill.. and it did show it, and is valid for recovery 3TB drive, but its expensive, it was like 600DKK and 3500DKK payment options.. so looking for alternatives and get an idea of the market..

[@play_harder]

Extremely helpful thank you😊

[@ITsMe-hb5tb]

best video for choosing best software

[@AhmedSAMY-yv7nk]

Hi i have an issue If you please help me , i scanned the formatted hard disk and i found the lost data then i clicked on recover and selected the place to recover the data on it but the processing started with 0% only and not moving what eve the size of data what ever the place i select please help me

[@MatthewGore]

Sorry... that sounds like it might be a problem with the software. You didn't mention which of these programs you used, but I'd go ahead and contact tech support for that program. Good luck!

[@AhmedSAMY-yv7nk]

@@MatthewGore i used ease us recovery data

[@FurryCatShorts]

really great i appreciates your handwork

[@IngaMyers-f5p]

Do you have to revove the drive from the WD case for these software tools to work ?

[@MatthewGore]

Yes, I believe so. Basically, the scanning software needs to be on the computer where the drive is attached, and since these WD drives are actually NAS systems, they have a small computer built in where the drive is actually mounted and then shared with other computers on the network. But perhaps some software will work on Network drives, I'm just not aware of it.

[@marcosmos7478]

which one can i use for a samsung sd card?

[@nandi123]

It would be interesting to send the disk to some professional service to see if they recover more usable files. I have heard stories about bait and switch practices in these firms and they hold your disk hostage until you pay. So the fine print matters.

[@MatthewGore]

Agreed! I don't want to pay for it, though :-)

[@NightShooter87]

You don't need to pay for it. Pro tools FTK and Autopsy are use by professionals and are free. They not as easy to use as commercial products, but Autopsy for eg carves files, so they would get a ton more than anything on here. If files are over written, however, they are lost for good. No program in the World can get them back, maybe in the future, but not yet.

[@foodfornoobs308]

Hi Mr Gore, thanks for this instructive video. I am thinking of purchasing Diskdrill to recover Word documents and Excel spreadsheets (for my work) I had stored on a usb key. One of my major concerns is the safety of the aforementioned files. Do you know if Diskdrill is safe/does it make copies of your data? Or is the process all done locally? All the best.

[@MatthewGore]

DiskDrill doesn't make copies of your data as far as I know (in my case, it would have been a TON of data... it would have taken days to upload to the internet) and you can always work offline if you are worried that they're doing it on the sly. But they don't. Good luck!

[@ultravisitors]

How much time did easeus spent on "organising found files" stage, it's been quite some time, it's stuck at that stage for me.

[@MatthewGore]

I don't remember it taking very long at all... a few minutes at most. But there may be a difference in the size of the drives or number of files, etc.

[@ultravisitors]

@@MatthewGore yeah I had 9 million+ files, it took a looong time, thanks.

[@harshidavadher9881]

Which software give folderwise recovery file I think you forgot this topic in video

[@MatthewGore]

Unfortunately, none of them will recover file names or folder structure from a formatted drive.

[@harshidavadher9881]

@@MatthewGore thank you

[@Manoj-l1f1q]

Ease us will give folderwise recovery option

[@manojkvarma_films]

you helped alot of people mate thanks from india

[@MatthewGore]

My pleasure. Glad it was useful!

[@RichardSpeights]

Disk Drill. I thought all my images were gone forever. They saved the day; I got them all back - all of them.

[@barryfredrick2731]

Quick question Mathew. 🤔 As newer versions of phones and computers come out plus considering all the updates these devices do must we also continue to upgrade our recovery software❓

[@MatthewGore]

This software is basically bypassing the operating system in your computer to read the drive directly (since the operating system says that the files are not there), so the state of other software on your computer is not so important. However, I'd be very surprised if all of these software companies don't manage to improve their search results over the years, so there will always be some advantage to keeping up to date. For some of these, you can buy a lifetime license.

[@giacomobiassoni1276]

what about the damaged external drive? I mean, after I recover all the datas, I can't use it anymore, I suppose.

[@MatthewGore]

The Western Digital enclosure/NAS is still a security hazard, even with a clean hard drive. If you plug it in again, your data is probably going to get formatted again. If you're using a different system, you might be able to re-use the enclosure.

[@davidvictory9764]

Will any of them recover a data that was either deleted and or formated a long time ago, Like about a year

[@MatthewGore]

The amount of time doesn't matter... what matters is whether the same disk segment has been written over again. If you've continued to use the drive, then there's a good chance the same sectors have been written over... but you never know. Especially if the drive is not very full, there may be a chance that it's still there.

[@siobhanquinn4635]

What if you don’t need it for more than a day ? I don’t understand yearly or even monthly price? Why can’t I just recover my files and be done ?

[@MatthewGore]

Take it up with the software company, my friend. I don't know.

[@DjVojto]

just thinking about buying diskdrill because Somona corrupted all my 2 back up ext hdds in 2 days exactly when first was formated and wanted to copy from working one and in that time of coppying somona disconnected the working one with data and corrupted it so one was formatted and the second one was not acessable.... you can imagine the horror. 2 days 2 hdds out of order from connecting to new mac M2 with all raw family photos.

[@riyapant7595]

This video is really informative, as I was looking for a data recovery software on the web, luckily I saw your video, and this video helps me to take the decision of choosing the best data recovery software. I think Stellar will be my preferred choice amongst all.

[@dwh5512]

I've used Easeus in the past and it was very good but that was way back

[@denisdesmarais]

Excellent video!

[@Rusaero1981]

Can you tell us some words about DMDE? Does it deserve mentioning?

[@MatthewGore]

Unfortunately, I don't know much about it, though I like the fact that some of the features are available for free.

[@alexplav4740]

Thank you. Do they all corrupt the file names?

[@MatthewGore]

The drive I was recovering had been formatted, and part of being formatted is that the drive index and file names get destroyed, even though the files themselves may still exist. So, it's not the software that's corrupting the file names... it's just that the files names are gone to begin with, so they all give them a replacement.

[@RomalTaufiq]

After reading Reddit I heard disk drill is scam, and some files are corrupt, is this true?

[@MatthewGore]

With any file recovery software, some of the files are going to be corrupt. Disk Drill in particular is not a scam, no.

[@RomalTaufiq]

@@MatthewGore I got the free trial and it shows all my data but can’t recover if I buy the pro lifetime will the same file that it showed on free trial recover, also am I able to connect to 3 devices on disk drill pro

[@MatthewGore]

@@RomalTaufiq In my experience, any files found by the free trial will also be found by the pro version, yes. You might also want to try using something like PhotoRec... it's a free, open-source file recovery option. www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

[@CyberHak]

Great video. Most comprehensive, but would have been good to go through how to repair files after recovery. Go about a ten second mention.

[@MatthewGore]

Ahh. On that front, I didn't have much luck, which is why I didn't cover it in any depth. For the overwhelming majority of files recovered, they were not corrupt and just worked with no extra steps required. For the ones that were corrupt, I didn't find anything that reliably repaired photos. For videos, some of the video recovery tools would make small parts of the clips playable. I'm traveling in Japan right now, so I don't have my notes in front of me, but I think that what I found that worked most reliably was not from any of the data recovery programs. You might just have to Google it. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

[@movimox]

Your is stellar ! (sort of) Thank you !

[@MatthewGore]

Glad it was useful! Good luck 🙂

[@islahe5829]

Thank you so much!!!!!

[@PotterPossum1989]

Thank you for the informative video. I have a 512 GB SanDisk microSD card that I had inserted into a Bluetooth speaker for playback last Summer. I want to say that the card was possibly quite full, but I really only have 2 GB worth of audio that I need to recover. The card worked fine that summer, and I left it in the speaker to keep it out of the elements, however when I took it out a few months later it would no longer play in the speaker although the speaker works. Also, it was not at all recognized by my Chromebook SD card reader (I actually had to buy a third-party plug-in reader from Anker after an accident with the laptop which broke the drive with the card in it (the SD card adapter was actually pushed into the port), however the card played fine after that as I was using it outdoors after the fact. The microcard seems to be fine, however does not register in any device that I insert it into. I'm going to try cleaning the contacts and trying again, but would it even be worth my time to consider data recovery software at this point?

[@MatthewGore]

This actually sounds like a perfect use for recovery software. It sounds as though some of the indexing information for the data on your card is probably bad, but the data itself is probably just fine. If your computer recognizes it when it use a card reader (whether it can see that data or not), then it's a great idea to scan it. Most of these programs (and also GetDataBack by Runtime) offer a free mode that lets you scan your drive to see if there's recoverable data, but then you have to pay to unlock the software to actually recover anything. Sounds like that would be a good start, at the very least. Good luck!

[@sbrgh385]

Excellent vidéo

[@siobhanquinn4635]

Where are the prices ?

[@thewetpen]

In the summary: 17:45

[@peppersaltproductions888]

Thank You 🙂

[@joehernandez3492]

Can I recover files lost from pc reset?

[@joehernandez3492]

I had keep my files option on but I lost a lot of important files.

[@MatthewGore]

@@joehernandez3492 Possibly, yes. Generally, when you do a reset with Windows, it will do a "quick format" of your drive (I believe), so your data is not overwritten... it's basically just the index that is deleted for all of the files. However, when the new software is installed, it may overwrite the areas of the drive that have your old files... so you never know. It's worth a try. Most of these programs (and also GetDataBack ) have free trial options, so you should be able to scan your drive and see what is recovered, and if it finds what you're looking for, then you can purchase and recover the files.

[@joehernandez3492]

@@MatthewGore it happened 3 weeks ago so how do I recover it

[@joehernandez3492]

what software is best?

[@MatthewGore]

@@joehernandez3492 The only thing to do is to install a recovery program and scan the drive and see what you find. The video above details which ones worked best for me for the types of things I was trying to recover, but I'd probably go with Disk Drill or GetDataBack (not tested here). Ideally, you'd want to not make any further changes to the drive that you're going to scan... and it sounds like you're talking about scanning the drive that has your operating system on it. Ideally, you'd want to remove that drive and use a different computer to scan it (instead of installing more software onto it, which might over-write data that you want to recover)... but just do what you can. You will need another drive to copy recovered files onto... but that can be a USB drive or second hard drive, etc.

[@oleggritsev]

ACE lab best tool for photo recovery. It support recover even frahmented video and audio with aoto and manual mode. Also support new formats and ecover data by in body codec h264, h265 and others codec and container. Can restored non completed video and repair corruted. Possible with advanced version restore even non readable card!

[@diogoalmeidavisuals]

Recuva is a good free alternative available on Windows

[@Edbrad]

Holy shit it doesn’t preserve file names? I’m fucked

[@yohodesign]

I had a brand new CRUCIAL X9 Pro 4T SSD(used 400GB) keep losing data, end-up all my files gone (o files) + it wouldn't mount anymore. I tried #1: DiskDrill not able to saw SSD drive, it take forever to load disk...., #2 EaseUS recovered 85~90% of my files (Paid over $100 USD for 1 month).... #3 Stellar was able to see most of my files, only recovered 50~60% files, because a lots of recovered files are ZERO file size.(Paid another $100 USD for 1 year)............ in my case, EaseUS works better (Not 100%) + EaseUS has better Preview function before your recovering. ........... my computer is M1 MacBook Pro Max

[@wahidelm4033]

thx

[@Emilmarch]

This is a paid, biased advertisement, not a review or comparison at all. Even it was supposed to be a comparison, the worst comparison out there. Also in the comments section the advertiser couldn't help it and commented.

[@soaremicheledavid6020]

Disk Drill is the worst, when you want to recover files/other formats, we dont want to recover photos/videos, we need files from hdd that contain server files, than is useless.

[@Trulte60]

so what software will you use for that? 😮

[@driliagor]

EaseUS is a Chinese stolen Wondershare Recoverit. With worse customer support

[@MikeM-tl3ic]

I disliked you’re video LOL

[@karlasoto279]

No way. I have tried all. and they are all expensive. And sometimes you only need to recover one file you will only use it once a year. there is no point in paying for it. so i found Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery, it works perfect for me and ITS 100% REAL FREE, not Fake FREE like the others

[@jonathanmatthew5631]

anything for pc that you consider as 100% real free?

[@ricardoballantyne1057]

Hi good morning my name is ricardo i just came across your video i just want to thank u for sharing your thoughts for us out here...i have a Western Digital 3TB hard drive in a external case...i formatted it by mistake i had a lot of original music videos collections on that 3TB hard drive now i'm crying to get it back...out of d 12 programs i just sent u which one will be d best one for me to back my files (NOTE) i really don't know much about this kinds of things so please help me out...thank u stay safe & be safe out there 🙏🏼 Recovery programs 1. GetDataBack 2. Recuva 3. RecoverMyFiles 4. Recoverit 5. Tenorshare 4DDiG Data Recovery 6. Stellar Data Recovery 7. PC Inspector File Recovery 8. Disc Drill 9. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard 10. Photorec 11. TestDisk 12. Carbonite NOTE i tried wondershare recoverit 2022 & for some reason it is not working for me it is freezing up my computer & that is a new computer was just built for me because i'm doing editing & video mixing

[@geraldineokeke3422]

Same here dude but lucky me I got mine recovered by *LEACH_TECHZ* I suggest you send him a request if he can be of help

[@geraldineokeke3422]

He’s on lnstagram