Disk Drill Media Recovery for PC and Mac

Software Reviews and Criticism

• By WendieWard2

  Best recovery app of all the (many) recovery apps I’ve tried

  After a mishap with a drive used for both backup and a large media library (note to self: in Carbon Copy Cloner, ALWAYS make sure that “Protect Root-Level Items” is turned ON), I tried several different recovery apps to try to bring back some of the 3TB of data I accidentally deleted. Disk Drill was one of the only ones that would even launch (apparently the other apps didn’t like one of my external drives). The interface is great—clean and professional. Over the three days required to scan such a large drive, Disk Drill found a massive list of files (hard to say if it’s really all of them, but it’s gotta be close). Luckily, unlike some other recovery apps, you can pause, save, and resume your scanning progress at any time, so my laptop didn’t have to stay in one place for three days straight. Once the scan is over, recovering the files is easy—just select the ones you want and click the “Recover” button. My one major gripe is that, for some reason, it changes .MKV video files to “.webm” files. As far as I can tell, the only way to fix this is to use one of the many third-party MKV utilities to restore the proper container. Though I’m happy to have those files back at all, the conversion process can be time consuming, and I hope they’ll fix this issue in a future update. Bottom line: until human error and equipment malfunction are a thing of the past, Disk Drill is a must have.

  
  
• By EddieWouldStillGo

  Saved Me!

  I was shooting some 4K footage for a documentary and 384 gigs of footage disappeared when one of my hard drives took a dive. Worse yet, the footage was of the main subject of the documentary who was only available for one morning for a sit-down interview. A reshoot was out of the question. I had a few days before I had to deliver the footage and I’m sweating bullets. Then I remembered that Disk Drill had gotten me out of a similar jam a few years ago. I fired up the app and let it scan the dead drive. It took about an hour, but then it showed me a directory of all the missing files. (A nice feature is the ability to save a scan session if you’re not recovering all your files at once.) You can preview files before recovering them if you’re unsure of what you’re looking for, which is pretty handy if you’re searching through a gazillion image files with unhelpful file names. You can also tell Disk Drill to search for only certain types of files to save time. I found the folders for the missing footage and then started the recovery process. Disk Drill recovered every single frame! I went from total despair to elation, breathed a sigh of relief, and thanked all the higher powers that Disk Drill exists. Thank you, everyone at CleverFiles!

  
  
• By SimplyxTwisted

  A life saver...

  For the second time…I did the unthinkable. With numerous external storage devices connected, I mixed them up and formatted the wrong one. No big deal, only my full music library, picture library, and tons of other data…ouch. The first time, I used different tool. While it did a decent job at recovery, the data was an absolute mess when it came back. I spent hours upon hours sorting, organizing, and trashing the gigs of data it returned. Disk Drill is a different beast entirely. It not only found data the other tool didn’t, but it brought it back much cleaner, far more organized and much more intact from its original form. Highly impressed, definitely recommended. If you’re running an APFS filesystem, this is one of the only tools you can rely on to do the job. Thankfully it does it incredibly well. Data recovery is not a fast process, and it does take some time. Be patient and trust Disk Drill to get the job done. Hopefully this will be the last time I ever need this tool, I’ve definitely learned my lesson and am backing things up better going forward. But…if I do need it again, I will know exactly what to do.

  
  
• By Thype1er

  Professional Photographer Made A Huge Mistake

  I am indeed a professional photographer, and have used many file recovery programs in the past that did not work (with exception of PhotoRec/TestDisk)...... My specific scenario is I mysteriously lost half of a wedding (the Nikon files disappeared, whereas the Sony files remained), and Lightroom didn't even have a record of them even though I sent Nikon file previews to my client earlier in the month. Also, crazily enough CrashPlan did not have a record of them either. For reference, I did not format the drive, and the drive continues to be in good working order..... Anyway, the point is I recovered the files, and while they don't contain the original file name(s), the RAW files and corresponding MPO files were recovered. Straight up life saver, and for all of those people that are worried... this is one of the few legit recovery programs I've used. Impressed. How it would do iin a scenario where an SD card was formatted (PhotoRec works in this case confirmed), or a broken/corrupt drive/card I do not know, but for this specific scenario it was a flawless process.

  
  
• By Nina on a mac

  Great!

  I had a USB with photos and videos of my son from when he was a baby. (He is 8 now.) While it was plugged into my laptop, I somehow bumped the USB, and it gave me an error warning saying I didn't eject properly. when I tried to go back into the drive, it didn't have any photos or videos left! My heart sank and I felt so sick, as this was the only thumb drive I have of photos of him at that age. I really don't know much about computers and if there were any other way of finding those photos and videos…But I found this DiskDrill and figured it was my only hope. Thank God, because it pulled all my videos and pictures!!!! I spent hours trying to Google how to recover photos and trying to do it myself… just save yourself your day , and get this DiskDrill. It really didn't even take that long. And it is easy to use and understand! And yes, I have learned my lesson. From now on I will backup my photos/videos and also put them onto CD's. I won't be making that mistake ever again.

  
  

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