PhotoRec vs Tenorshare 4DDiG Data Recovery

PhotoRec is a free file recovery program for retrieving lost videos, documents, archives, and pictures from storage media and disk images. It searches the underlying data instead of relying on the file system, which can help after file-system damage or reformatting. It recognizes more than 480 file extensions across about 300 file families, and listed file systems include FAT, NTFS, exFAT, ext2/ext3/ext4, and HFS+.

Supported sources include hard disks, CD-ROMs, memory cards, USB drives, raw disk images, and EnCase E01 images. PhotoRec runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, DOS, several BSD systems, Solaris, and other Unix systems. It accesses the recovery drive or card in read-only mode; recovered files should go to a different partition. The portable download runs after extracting its archive, without an installer. QPhotoRec provides a graphical interface, while PhotoRec can also run from scripts or batch files with command-line options. The maker says it usually cannot recover original filenames and does not work well with ReiserFS.

Tenorshare 4DDiG Data Recovery is a Windows and macOS tool for recovering files from memory cards. Tenorshare says it can recover data after deletion, formatting, corruption, crashes or virus attacks. Listed media include SD cards, CF cards, memory sticks and xD cards, and the SD recovery page states support for more than 2,000 file types. The workflow scans a selected card, previews found files and recovers them to a PC or external storage. Recovery options include quick and deep scans, raw file recovery and bootable recovery media; recovered data can also be saved to OneDrive or Google Drive with one click. The free version advertises recovery of up to 2GB on Windows, while its comparison section shows a Mac allowance of up to 500MB. Paid licenses are sold separately for Windows and Mac by month, year or lifetime. Windows and Mac license codes cannot be used across both platforms. Tenorshare says recovery does not overwrite data. Its support information lists free technical support, 24/7 customer service and a 30-day money-back guarantee.