Feature Set:  

Quick Recovery for Windows (FAT & NTFS) allows you to select whether you want to scan your hard drive in Simple, Advanced or RAW mode—allowing you to better customize your scan to fit your needs. This is the only program that we looked at that offers this feature.

Although this software is missing some features, like the ability to recover deleted emails and data from CDs, DVDs and RAID disks, and although it can't recover data from Macintosh and Linux platforms, Quick Recovery does make these features available through additional products.

Ease of Use:  

We found Quick Recovery (FAT & NTFS) extremely easy to use. In the upper left hand corner of the program's screen, step-by-step instructions are displayed that will walk you through the entire data-recovery process.

We encountered no problems during the installation and setup of this product.

Recovery Effectiveness:  

There are three different scan modes available through Quick Recovery (FAT & NTFS), Quick, Advanced and RAW.

The fastest and easiest of these modes is the Quick scan, but this scan also has the most chance of skipping over files you may be looking for. The Advanced mode takes a little longer, but found everything that we tested it with. If you unable to find your files using these two modes, then the RAW mode may be able to find them by performing a complete and thorough search of your hard drive.

Search Capabilities:  

Although Quick Recovery (FAT & NTFS) doesn't offer a search engine where you can search for files by the name, extension or size, after each scan it displays files with their original names—making them very easy to recognize.

Help/Documentation:  

Stellar Information Systems Ltd. offers support for Quick Recovery in the form of an excellent, built-in help section, which offers a search engine and index that allow you to find topics by keyword. There is also live chat support available on the manufacturer's website.

With excellent help support and an easy to use design, Quick Recovery for Windows (FAT & NTFS) is not only a good data recovery product, but is especially well suited for those just starting out in the field of data recovery.