That is, until you reach the point of selecting a file and clicking Recover, at which point you're forced to register with an activation key. Despite supposedly being a key feature of the Pro version, it appears to work in WiseCleaner Wise Data Recovery Free. The Deep Scan option takes around 10 minutes. As such, it was tricky to determine until recovery was complete that the recovered device was the correct one and not, for example, a missing recovery partition deleted in a Windows or Dell update. Instead, it applies the title 'Lost Volume.' While this might seem like an app, there is no indication in the device dropdown menu of the unmountable device's details – not even reference to the size of the volume. Unusually – when compared with other disk recovery tools - WiseCleaner Wise Data Recovery doesn't detect the unmountable disk by name. You'll need to manually check the files you want to recover from your drives (Image credit: WiseCleaner) Recovery performance To test this free data recovery tool, we used it on an unmountable 16GB SanDisk Cruzer Blade USB thumb drive connected to a Dell 5505 running Windows 10. Finding files with Wise Data Recovery Free While there is a Mac version of Wise Data Recovery, the Windows version works on any iteration since Windows XP all the way through Windows 10. Wise Data Recovery Pro (opens in new tab) ($59.95/£49.05 for one month, $89.95/£73.58 for the year), extends the search and restore feature to include RAW files and scans far deeper for lost data. The advanced features are more suited to specific recovery scenarios, such as full disk recovery, or situations requiring premium tech support.

The software also provides a live tool for booting a PC from a USB device and recovering data from the failed hard disk drive. Meanwhile, WiseCleaner Wise Data Recovery apps can find lost data on internal SSD and HDD devices, not to mention floppy disks, memory cards, USB drives, and file systems such as FAT, NTFS, HFS+, Ext2, and Ext3. Over 1000 file types can be recovered from typical document and graphic formats to videos, audio files, email client mailboxes, ZIP and other archives, executables (EXE), HTML files, even text files and video game save data.

Wise data recovery software