Product Review
Reviewer: Karl Hefty
Product: Data Rescue 3
Company: ProSoft Engineering, Inc.
Web: http://www.prosoftengineering.com
Contact: 877-477-6763
Price: $99 (Professional use license $249; upgrade $65)
Pros: Attractive and easy to use User Interface. Reasonably fast scan times.
Cons: None
Product Rating: 4.5/5 Impressive
by Karl Hefty, Alaskan Apple Users Group Member
Conflict of interest disclosure: PROSOFT ENGINEERING, INC. provided a free copy of DATA RESCUE 3 – MAC to me for the purposes of the review.
Data Rescue 3 is designed to recover files from hard drives that don’t mount, only partially operate, have corrupted operating systems preventing you to access desired files and also recovers deleted, lost or damaged files from hard drives, USB memory sticks, and camera memory cards even after erasure or reformatting.
I am an owner and user of the previous version, Data Rescue 2 so I have had some familiarity with this product from before. First, I can say “It works.” I was happy with DR-2 but I like the improvements made to DR-3 (bug fixes, more file types that can be handled, reduced memory usage, etc.) especially the User Interface redesign which I think is nicer looking, easier to use, more informative and more interesting to look at.
My main purpose for this software was to recover lost photos from one of my cameras memory cards. I followed the on-screen instructions and in about 20 mins. I had retrieved 1.9 Mb of data, (515 photos) from a job I worked on 2 years ago that had been deleted on the memory card and could not be retrieved in the camera or from my computer. I like Data Rescue 3 for its file recovery ability and because its even easier to use than version 2.
A side note about the company’s customer service – When I first started with Data Rescue 2 two years ago I telephoned Prosoft with some questions beyond the FAQs.
Their representative was extremely knowledgeable and understandable. He was also patient and courteous and his manner and help made this one of those rare customer service experiences that you remember. The call was not free but the help was. I also learned that if your data loss is extremely valuable to you and you can’t get it back yourself at home, you may, if you’re willing to pay for the service and risk shipping and “other eyes” on your personal info, send your device to the Prosoft experts and have them give it the “treatment” (my words) to recover whatever may be recovered that is beyond our skill level. May never need, but nice to know there might be a last chance for success in extreme cases.
