- 2023
Overall Product Rating: 5.3
A program with a good basic wizard interface, good localization, average demo restriction, average file previewer, excellent recovery features, and good recovery performance.
Its strong points are: A good localization (18 interface languages), good file search and mark capabilities, disk imaging, and S.M.A.R.T monitoring. Overall, Disk Drill shows good recovery performance for emptied Bin and after disk reformat.
Its weak points are: No support for ReFS (a new Windows file system), and a relatively poor performance for data recovery from damaged NTFS partitions.
Interface and Features
File recovery parameters: 4.5Compare
Recovers filenames and the folder structure. It’s possible to open the folder with recovered files upon completion of the recovery process.
S.M.A.R.T.: 6.0Compare
Disk health status is shown using initial S.M.A.R.T. disk health monitoring. Settings of S.M.A.R.T. attribute display can be changed, disk temperature can be shown, and there’s the Show status in system tray option.
Deep analysis of disks (disk scan): 5.0Compare
Scan types can be selected: Quick Scan, Deep Scan, Search for lost partitions, Allocate existing data, Undelete protected data, and All recovery methods. While scanning, the program starts showing the number and types for found files in the Pictures, Video, Audio, Documents, and Archives folders. Scan can be stopped and then resumed. Scan results can be connected as a disk (the Show scan results in Explorer command). Bad sectors are shown in the program log. Scan results are automatically saved and may be loaded automatically. Already found files can be recovered even before scan completion
Disk imaging and copying: 5.0Compare
A drive backup can be created as a dmg file. The dmg file format is native to Mac computers and cannot be connected to Windows systems without third-party software. The program can also create byte-to-byte images. Images can be opened in the program to recover files from such images. Bad sectors are shown in the program log. An image can be created for a disk region
File search, mark for recovery, sorting: 5.5Compare
Files can be shown as All files, Deleted or Lost, Existing, Reconstructed Manual marking for recovery, sorting by clicking column names and Ascending / Descending. Search parameters: individual file search, file mask search, size search. Files can be filtered by their size and new parameters can be applied: Larger than, Less than, Interval, by Date Modified: Today, Yesterday, This week, This month, This year, and Advanced, or within the last: Exactly, Before, After, Interval (days, weeks, months, years), by file types: All files, Pictures, Video, etc. The Recover All button marks all files. Also files can be sorted by Files, Files and icons, Folders, Folders and icons. A Recovery chances filter can be applied: High, Average, Low, Unknown.
Logging: 5.0Compare
The log is automatically saved to the dd.log file. It can be viewed through the Disk Drill for Windows logs command.
File recovery using file signatures (raw file recovery): 4.5Compare
Supports raw file recovery with a pre-defined file signature set. File types to search for cannot be selected. Found files appear in the Found files and Reconstructed / Reconstructed labeled sections. Some new file types have been added
: 5.8Compare
Languages supported: 18 languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Malay, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese (Portuguese/Brazilian), Japanese, traditional and simplified Chinese, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Korean, Arabian, Turkish.
Language management: The program needs to restart to change the interface language.
Recognized all tested localized characters in file and folder names.
: 4.5Compare
File preview. Unrestricted file recovery for files up to 0.5 GB total in the free version. No time limit for the demo mode.
: 5.5Compare
Files can be previewed in the right pane or in a separate window. The built-in previewer can show Microsoft Office (txt, odx, odt, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx) documents, graphic and video files. The program has a hexadecimal viewer.
File recovery performance
Files Deleted without Recycle Bin (NTFS file system): 6.0Compare
After Quick Scan All files and the entire original folder structure were found in their original places and successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were successfully recovered.
Files Deleted without Recycle Bin (exFAT file system): 4.5Compare
After Quick Scan Only files from the root folder were found in their original place and successfully recovered. Two jpg files had the _ character at the beginning of their names.
After All Recovery Methods: All files and folders were found in their original places, except files from the root folder. Their names were correct except that some files had the _ character at the beginning of their names. Those files could not be recovered.
The Found files section contained files from the root folder. They were successfully recovered.
Raw files were found in the Reconstructed and Reconstructed Labeled sections. All of them were successfully recovered.
Overall, most files were recovered as raw files, that is, without their names. The original folder structure was not recovered at all.
Files that could not be recovered: 3 mts, 12 mp3, 2 xls files. (17 files)
Files Deleted without Recycle Bin (FAT32 file system): 4.5Compare
After Quick Scan Only files from the root folder were found in their original place and successfully recovered. Two jpg files had the _ character at the beginning of their names.
After All Recovery Methods: All files and folders were found in their original places, except files from the root folder. Their names were correct except that some files had the _ character at the beginning of their names. Those files could not be recovered.
The Found files section contained files from the root folder. They were successfully recovered.
Raw files were found in the Reconstructed and Reconstructed Labeled sections. All of them were successfully recovered.
Overall, most files were recovered as raw files, that is, without their names. The original folder structure was not recovered at all.
Files that could not be recovered: 3 mts, 12 mp3, 2 xls files. (17 files)
Emptied Recycle Bin (NTFS file system): 5.0Compare
After Quick Scan One subfolder with its content was found in its original place, all with correct names. All files were successfully recovered. The rest of the original folders and files from the root folder were found in the Trash folder. The topmost files and folders had incorrect names. Folders and files within the topmost folders had correct names. 1 avi file from the root folder wasn’t found. All found files were successfully recovered.
After All Recovery Method Nothing new was found.
Overall, all but one file was successfully recovered. The original folder structure was only partially recovered.
Files that were not recovered: 1 avi file.
Emptied Recycle Bin (exFAT file system): 6.0Compare
After Quick Scan All files and the entire original folder structure were found in their original places and successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were successfully recovered.
Reformatted disk (NTFS to NTFS): 4.5Compare
After Quick Scan Nothing was found.
After All Recovery Methods Some remnants of the original folder structure were found in the Lost/Lost38_1 section. Their files and folders were successfully recovered. The rest of the files were found in the Reconstructed and Reconstructed labeled section as raw files. Some of them were successfully recovered.
Overall, almost all files were recovered, some as raw files; only small parts of the previous folder structure were recovered.
Files that could not be recovered: 12 mp3, 2 xls files. (14 files)
Reformatted disk (NTFS to exFAT): 6.0Compare
After Quick Scan: Nothing was found
After All Recovery Methods An NTFS partition was found. It contained all files and folders with correct names. All of them were successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were recovered.
Reformatted disk (exFAT to exFAT): 5.5Compare
After Quick Scan: Nothing was found.
After All Recovery Methods: An EXFAT partition was found. All folders from the root folder were found in the Orphans sections, but with incorrect names. Those folders contained their respective subfolders and files with correct names. All those files and subfolders were successfully recovered. 2 jpg and 1 pdf files from the root folder were found in the Reconstructed labeled sections as raw files. They were successfully recovered.
Overall, all but one file and almost all of original folder structure were successfully recovered.
Files that could not be recovered: 1 avi file.
Reformatted disk (exFAT to NTFS): 5.0Compare
After Quick Scan: Nothing was found
After All Recovery Methods 4 folders of the Lost10841 were found in the Orphans section. They corresponded to the folders from the root folder. They were successfully recovered. 2 jpg and 1 pdf files from the root folder were found among raw files with incorrect names. They were successfully recovered. 1 avi file from the root folder was not found.
Overall, all but one file was recovered, but the original folder structure was recovered only partially.
Files that could not be recovered: 1 avi file.
Reformatted disk (FAT32 to FAT32): 5.5Compare
After Quick Scan Nothing was found.
After All Recovery Methods All files and folders with correct names were found in the Orphan/Lost6 section, except the root folder. All found folders and files were successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were recovered.
Damaged partition (NTFS): 4.5Compare
After All recovery methods Only some raw files were found in the Reconstructed and Reconstructed labeled sections. They were successfully recovered.
Overall, all found files were recovered as raw files; the previous folder structure was not recovered at all.
Files that could not be recovered: 2 mts, 12 mp3, 2 xls files (16 files)
Damaged partition (exFAT): 5.5Compare
Upon program startup, the EXFAT partition was immediately found.
After Quick Scan Nothing was found.
After All Recovery Methods All files and folders were found with correct names on the EXFAT partition and successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were recovered.
Damaged partition (FAT32): 5.5Compare
Immediately found an FAT32 partition.
After Quick Scan Nothing was found.
After All Recovery Methods All files and folders were found with correct names and successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were recovered.
Damaged partition (exFAT – memory card): 5.5Compare
An ExFAT partition of the correct size was immediately found.
After Quick Scan Nothing was found.
After All recovery methods All files and folders with correct names were found in their original place and successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were recovered.
Deleted partition (NTFS): 5.5Compare
**After All Recovery Methods ** All files and folders were found in the Lost partition 0 with correct names. They were successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were recovered after short scan.
Deleted partition (exFAT): 5.5Compare
After All Recovery Methods An EXFAT partition was found with all folders and files with correct names. All of them were successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were recovered.
Deleted partition (FAT32): 5.5Compare
After All Recovery Methods: A FAT32 partition was found with all folders and files with correct names. All of them were successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were recovered.
Deleted partition (exFAT – memory card): 5.5Compare
After Search for Lost Partitions Nothing was found.
After All Recovery Methods An EXFAT partition was found with all folders and files with correct names. All of them were successfully recovered.
Overall, all files and the original folder structure were recovered.
