Active@ File Recovery vs TestDisk
Active@ File Recovery
lsoft.net
TestDisk
cgsecurity.orgSide by side
| Figure | Active@ File Recovery | TestDisk |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 7 | 1 |
| Spec score · RAID Data Recovery Software | 8.4 (#4) | 7.8 (#12) |
| Founded | 1999 | 1998 |
| Purpose | Recovers deleted or lost files and data from damaged, formatted, or deleted partitions and volumes. | TestDisk helps recover lost partitions and make non-booting disks bootable again when the cause is faulty software or human error. |
| Support | LSoft offers a Customer Communication Center, a knowledge base and ticket system, email support, and phone support. | Users can request support through the forum by posting a problem description, the testdisk.log file, and information about previous partitions. |
Plans
Active@ File Recovery
- DemoFree
- Standard Personal$29.95, paid once
- Standard Corporate$39.95, paid once
- Professional Personal$44.95, paid once
- Professional Corporate$64.95, paid once
- Ultimate Personal$69.95, paid once
- Ultimate Corporate$89.95, paid once
In their own words
Active@ File Recovery
Active@ File Recovery recovers deleted or lost files and data from damaged, formatted, or deleted partitions and volumes on Windows. It supports file systems including NTFS, ReFS, FAT, exFAT, HFS+, APFS, XFS, JFS, UFS, BtrFS, and Ext2/3/4. The software can scan for files by signature, including user-defined signatures, and works with listed storage such as HDDs, SSDs, USB drives, NVMe devices, flash drives, and memory cards.
For damaged arrays, it can virtually rebuild RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and Span. It can create and open raw or raw-compressed disk images and work with VMware and VirtualPC HDD images. The Ultimate package adds a WinPE boot disk and Linux-based LiveCD for recovery when a computer will not boot. The downloadable demo allows free recovery only for files up to 64 KB. Paid licenses are one-time purchases: personal licenses are for non-commercial use, while corporate licenses cover business, academic, or government use. LSoft Technologies has operated since 1999 and is based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
TestDisk
TestDisk is free, open-source software for recovering lost partitions and helping disks boot again when faulty software or human error causes the problem. It can repair partition tables, recover deleted partitions, rebuild or restore FAT and NTFS boot sectors, fix FAT tables, and repair an MFT using its mirror. For file recovery, it can undelete files from FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2, or copy files from deleted FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions. Listed partition-recovery formats also include APFS, HFS+, XFS and ZFS. It works with hard drives, USB drives, memory cards, disk images, DAS, SAN and Linux RAID devices. The portable application is used by extracting its files; no installer is required. Listed operating systems include Windows, macOS, Linux, DOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and SunOS. TestDisk is licensed under GNU GPL v2 or later. The maker says it does not connect to the internet or send information about the user, computer or data. The download page lists version 7.2 dated February 22, 2024, and 7.3-WIP as beta.