FinalData Plus - How to Stop "Death by Delete Key"

One of the shortest amounts of time is the ohnosecond. This is the amount of time between when you delete a file and realize you did not mean to.

The good news is that there are utilities available to recover lost data. One of those utilities is FinalData. The product comes in numerous variants: Standard, Plus, Premium, Enterprise Network, and Professional. This review looks at version 2.0 of FinalData Plus. (You can also see my review of FinalData Standard at http://www.brighthub.com/review/AOS-Technologies-America/Ben-Rothke/article/415.html.)

If you value your data, it is only a matter of time until you will need a product such as FinalData Plus. With hard drive storage getting larger than ever within a much smaller physical space, even a tiny hardware error can eliminate gigabytes of data in a second.

What’s hot

• The difference between FinalData Standard and the Plus version is that the Plus version has the ability to create a disk image backup and a disk viewer.
• There is a $20 difference for this. Most users will simply

  want the recovery capability, which suffices for most uses. For those that need to create a disk image backup, the $20 increase is well worth it.

What’s not

• This added personal data protection is theoretical, as I was unable to get any of the Plus functionality to work.
• Product features detailed in the manual were removed from the shipping version.

• Standard Windows installation, which was easy and straightforward. [See Image 1]
• Because many people will use FinalData in a crisis to restore data, the installation routine gives a warning that if FinalData is to be installed on a drive where you want to recover data, the data may be permanently written over if the program by chance uses that area of the disk. [See Image 2]
• The program also has a File Delete Manager that automatically backs up deleted files. But there is the possibility that the File Delete Manager can use significant resources. A warning message gives you the option to bypass that.
• The last step in the installation and configuration is where you can set the maximum file size for the File Delete Manager to maintain. [See Image 4]

What's not

• Not all of the advertised functionality was available.

• Interface is intuitive.
• Use of shortcut buttons is helpful.
• Navigation bar was clean and easy to follow. [See Image 5]

What’s hot

• The File Delete Manager ensures that you are able to recover the entire file in a single mouse click.
• FinalData can recover files even if the drive has been formatted. While the directory structure is lost, the files are still recoverable.
• FinalData has a Find command that can search on the original file name or date (file creation, modification, or access).
• The file recovery tool has a handy option to preview a file being recovered. You can see the content of it, be it a document or a web- or email-based file.

What's not

• One huge negative is that the version I had did not support disk image backup, disk viewer, or terminate, even though these are advertised as being included features.
• FinalData Standard isn't compatible with Windows Vista, but the company is planning on releasing a Vista version later in 2008.

What’s hot

• The ability to shorten scanning time.

• The ability to select a sector range rather than the entire drive.

What’s hot

• Pressing F1 in FinalData Plus brings up the help screen, which has most of the information you need to use the program. [See Image 6]
• The FinalData support website has a good FAQ available. [See Image 7]
• You can also submit tech support tickets via the Web. [See image 8]

What's not

• I submitted two tech support tickets, via the Web and via email. I only received a reply four days later for one of the two issues.
• There was no auto-reply that my tech support request was received.

I was quite turned off by the fact that most of the added functionality that the Plus version was supposed to offer was not there. The fact that the documentation would list a feature that was removed from the product shows an inconsistency in product development and support.

Given how critical this product is to a user who has lost data, it is unacceptable to wait four days for a reply to a tech support issue.

In this space, I was much more impressed with Ontrack Data Recovery (www.ontrackdatarecovery.com), both as a company, and for their product offerings.