CONS

• Lists as recoverable too many files that are not.
• No automatic display of deleted files list.
• Poor multi-monitor support.

Testing Setup

I have two hard drives in my desktop system: an SSD and a spinning-platter disk. This setup is a common configuration for business machines, where the fast-performing SSD is used for the operating system and apps, and the slower spinning-platter disk is used for storing documents. Keep in mind that data-recovery software can’t work reliably with SSDs, because the SSD Trim feature built into all modern systems clears out all deleted files—unlike spinning-platter disks, which preserve deleted files until new files eventually overwrite them.

I first tested Stellar Toolkit for Data Recovery Crack by deleting some PNG files from my spinning-platter disk, emptying the Recycle Bin, and asking the app to recover the files. It quickly scanned the disk, found the deleted PNG files, and displayed accurate thumbnail previews of most of them.

In general, if you can see the preview image, you can be confident that the paid version of the app can recover the file. However, if you don’t see a preview image of the files you want or if the preview isn’t exactly what you expect, be very cautious, because it’s unlikely that the app can recover anything it can’t preview. Unfortunately, neither Stellar nor EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro can preview ZIP archives by listing the files contained in them, so you’ll have to tell the app to try to recover those files before you can know whether recovery is possible.

When I tested Stellar Data Recovery on an SSD, it performed a deep scan that took nearly an hour, and reported that 17.3 GB of data was recoverable. I have strong doubts about that number because the app couldn’t even display preview images of most of the files that I checked, meaning that recovery was likely impossible as well. The program also sometimes displayed previews that obviously didn’t match the filenames. For example, almost every HTML file that Stellar claimed to find was actually a fragment of some other file that wasn’t in HTML format at all. Fortunately, the app’s preview pane made it obvious that the files weren’t the HTML files that Stellar claimed they were.

Features and Drawbacks

Unlike the EaseUS app, Stellar Toolkit for Data Recovery Crack doesn’t automatically display separate lists of deleted file and other files. If you want to see only the deleted files that Stellar found on your disk, you’ll have to click on a “Deleted” tab—and then wait for the app to sort the file list. This process can take a surprisingly long time—more than an hour when I tested the app with an SSD, and that was after it took even longer to scan the drive in the first place.

This separate sorting step for deleted files seems like a puzzling design choice, when you probably chose the app for the sole purpose of finding deleted files. What made this even more frustrating in my tests was that the progress bar showed that the deleted-file sorting was half complete before reverting to the starting position, so I never could be sure of how much of the job was done.

Another frustration in Stellar’s app involves its option to save recovery data for use after you restart the app. Whenever I tried to use the saved recovery data, Stellar continued scanning the drive I was working with, taking as long as two hours to complete the scan.

In contrast, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard loaded the saved data and immediately let me get back to work recovering data. Stellar also showed intermittent problems when I tried to stop a scan before it was finished. Most of the time, I could stop the scan easily, but on two tries, the app refused to stop the scan and I had to shut it down from the Windows Task Manager. EaseUS never showed any similar problem.

Stellar includes a disk monitoring and cloning menu, something that EaseUS doesn’t, which displays the SMART status and other details about your current disk. This interface also includes a disk-scanning feature, though you probably shouldn’t use it with an SSD, since it may inflict needless wear-and-tear. The same menu lets you clone a disk to another drive, which is useful for when you want to get a copy of a failing drive before it deteriorates further. EaseUS offers a separate EaseUS Todo Backup app that includes cloning and multiple alternative backup features.

Less Than Stellar

Stellar Toolkit for Data Recovery Crack was frustrating to work with even when it successfully restored lost files, but I wouldn’t count this product out for good. An earlier version I tested a few years ago seemed much more reliable, so maybe Stellar will improve performance and reliability in future versions. All data recovery apps are imperfect, but EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard seems much less imperfect, and it’s the data recovery app that we recommend.