Free file rescue utility

To recover files deleted on the hard drive, Pandora Recovery is a reliable option. Version 1.1.20 of this utility works well in tests and furthermore, it's free.

An optional step-by-step guide helps beginners get up to speed. The file browsing interface of the utility is suitable for experienced people, but for those who are familiar with Windows Explorer, it is easy to learn.

Selecting a partition in the file browser interface will list all the files and status of each file (existing, deleted or overwritten).

Right-clicking on the list of deleted files will bring up a menu that allows you to choose where to recover.

To restore a file, simply select it, right-click and select Recover from the pop-up menu. The utility will tell you how many times a deleted file has been overwritten, this is an important feature, before any program has ever obtained such overwritten data.

In the test version, there is a feature called 'surface scan' used to recover files from reformatted disks or damaged disks. However, this feature only works with digital image files, and it does not find any more recoverable files on the tested 250GB hard drive.

Pandora Recovery only works on NTFS partitions, you cannot use it on a FAT32 formatted drive (the manufacturer says it is under construction).

Unlike similar programs, Pandora Recovery does not prohibit you from recording saved files on the same disk that you restore (the program will warn you before doing this); but this is a bad idea because it can cause overwriting of the files you want to recover. Ignoring this minor drawback, Pandora Recover is a rescue program for NTFS partitions and it's free.

Details can be found here.