Active File Recovery: a Program to Recover Deleted Files

There are many users who think that once we have deleted a file it has been lost forever. But this is something that does not have to be this way. This is because when we delete a file, the space it occupies is freed, but it remains hidden until it is overwritten by another file in its place. For this reason, the shorter the time elapsed since it was deleted, the more feasible it will be to recover it.

Active File Recovery, revive any deleted file

Active File Recovery is a program developed by and to save and restore lost or accidentally deleted files . It is an efficient and easy-to-use recovery tool capable of efficiently recovering deleted files or corrupted or formatted volumes.

This software has a wide compatibility, not in vain it is capable of recovering lost data on hard drives, floppy disks and USB drives, offering support for the FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 file systems . Furthermore, this program is capable of recovering all kinds of files such as docs, images, photos, videos, audios, emails, ebooks, databases, etc.

In this way, we are facing a program capable of recovering almost any file in different circumstances. This software allows you to recover files once the recycle bin has been emptied, after disk formatting, files damaged by virus attacks, etc. It is also possible to restore data even when the damaged or formatted partition or volume has been deleted or when the disk has bad sectors.

What we find in this file retriever

Once we start the application we find its main menu with a fairly simple interface , although completely in English . At the top we find the classic toolbar with two scanning modes, a search mode, the recover mode and a last chance mode for the most complicated files to recover. In the central box and in the left column we see the different hard drives, partitions and external storage units that we have connected.

The program has two scanning modes: fast (“QuickScan”) and super scan (“SuperScan”). The first is responsible for performing a basic scan and is responsible for finding the files and folders that are in the selected storage unit. The second method performs a comprehensive scan operation taking care of searching for all possible deleted data. Of course, the duration of the scan will vary depending on whether we choose one method or another.

Once we have selected the scan mode, the program will look for deleted files and folders on that drive. At the end of the task, it shows us all the results obtained : name of the file or folder, its size, attributes, ID and the date it was created, modified and deleted.

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When we have located the file or folder that we want to recover, we must tell the program to restore them . For this we can point it out and click on the “Recover” button, either right-click and select “Recover” or by using the keyboard shortcut “Ctrl + R”. A new window will appear where we can give the file to be recovered a new name, as well as choose the address where we want it to be stored. Finally, we click on “Recover” again to recover the selected file or folder.

Download Active File Recovery

Active File Recovery is a commercially licensed file recovery program. Therefore, in order to use it permanently we must pay for its license. So that we can test it beforehand and see if it is useful to us, we can download a free trial version from its website. This trial version allows us to scan, but not recover files. This software is compatible with Windows operating system (10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, Server 2016, 2012, 2008, 2003 and WinPE). Its latest available version is 21.0.1 corresponding to October 30, 2020 , so it has good support from its developers.

Versions and prices

• Standard : this version allows us to recover deleted files and files from deleted or damaged partitions. Its price for the personal license is $ 29.95 and $ 39.95 for its corporate license.
• Professional : This package also includes the integrated Active Disk Editor program that supports damaged RAID recovery. It also includes custom signatures and a signature-detected file organizer. Its price is $ 44.95 for the personal license and $ 64.95 for the corporate license.
• Ultimate : This package also includes Active Boot Disk Lite. With it we can create a WinPE-based bootable ISO image that we can burn to a CD / DVD / Blu-ray or USB flash disk, using the supplied disc creator. Windows PE allows you to boot the PC and recover partitions, as well as to recover particular files and folders from the Windows recovery environment, which is essential for systems that cannot boot. It can boot UEFI x86 and x64 Secure Boot system. Its price is $ 69.95 for the personal license and $ 89.95 for the corporate license.

Alternatives to Active File Recovery

If we need a program to recover deleted files or folders, it is convenient to take into account this couple of alternatives to Active File Recovery:

RecoveryRobot

It is a program that allows us to recover lost or deleted data, offering compatibility with FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS files. The application is responsible for automatically finding the disk drives, recovering files, keeping their original creation time and date, being only compatible with MBR hard drives. We can download RecoveryRobot for free from the developer’s website .

Remo recover

We are facing a hard drive recovery software. With it, we can recover files or folders deleted from our disk. It supports the NTFS, NTFS5, FAT16, FAT32, and exFAT file systems. It also supports file systems supported by Mac volumes, including HFS, HFS +, and APFS. We can test it by downloading a trial version from its website.