Life After a Virus Choosing File Recovery Software

If you’ve never experienced a computer crash or lost crucial files or emails, you’re lucky. Computer hard drives fail for all sorts of reasons, but when your system goes down or you lose files due to a virus, the situation is especially stressful. You always want to back up your important files, photos, emails and other information, but if your antivirus scanning software fails and your system crashes during a lapse in your backups, you’ll need to pursue file recovery.

Fortunately, there are about a dozen data-recovery software applications on the market as of June 2011 that work with Windows 7, Vista and XP. For a cost of approximately $40 to $130, you can purchase software that recovers individual files and folders that have been deleted from your hard drive along with anything you’ve lost from flash drives and memory cards. In any case, take a close look at how the software works to determine whether it can provide the file recovery you need after an infection.

The basic approach with file-recovery software is to locate, recover and restore files with thorough scanning. After you’ve discovered an infection and removed it with antivirus software, you can download a file-recovery application to begin the process of piecing your file folders back together. No matter which software you choose, all will provide a minimum level of assistance, including recovery of compressed and encrypted files. Some, but not all, will recover emails. For deep recovery needs, some software will restore files from unbootable hard drives.

It’s also important to know which types of drives are supported by recovery software. Some of the more expensive applications do not support all types of drives. All software options support Intelligent Drive Electronics (IDE) that help manage mass storage and link directly into a disk or CD-ROM drive. All file-recovery software also supports Small Computer Systems Interfaces (SCSI) that connect external drives, players and scanners to a computer.

Beyond these standards, some software will recover files from Serial Advanced Technology Attachments (SATA) that represent a new approach to integrating hard drives into computers. Some recovery applications will work with external hard drives. In short, you need to know which types of drives you need your recovery software to support, or you can choose an all-purpose application that covers most drives.

Remember to read reviews before purchasing file-recovery software. Reviews will tell you if an application's user interface is well designed, and they’ll let you know if some applications are slower than others are, for example, or if other products have operating glitches you might want to avoid.

Also, if you’re looking for free file recovery, there are some free downloads available online. Before going with a free option, look at the product's features and see if you’ll get the file-recovery help you need from a free application. Remember that while free sounds like a good deal, you don’t want to take any chances when it comes to recovering valuable files, photos and other data.

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