Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery 3.0

Photo answers review

Photo answers rating

Available as a download only, (www.photo-recovery-software.com), Phoenix Photo Recovery weighs in at only 6MB, so with a modern broadband connection, getting hold of it is a breeze, taking well under a minute on our test machine. Installation is a similarly simple affair, with a familiar sequence of windows prompting the user to make choices about desktop icons and the installation directory - nothing too heavy going here. The actual installation is over before you can say, “Oops, I accidentally pressed delete!” and the programme starts in a flash.

When running, Phoenix Photo Recovery looks straightforward enough. Helpful rollover tool tips and a series of large, glossy-looking icons (Recover, Stop, Help etc) sit above a basic explorer window, which shows the currently connected storage drives.

Annoyingly, any drives connected while the software is running require a press of the ‘Refresh’ button before they appear in the list. Drives eventually show up either as Physical Disks, Logical Drives or Removable Media, meaning you can scan a smaller space and waste less time trying to find your files - a very welcome feature.
During tests, Phoenix Photo Recovery managed to find a selection of image files in various formats, despite our best efforts to remove them. Even after formatting and deleting, using both on-camera and PC operating system commands, they were still visible after a brief scan by the software, and were available to restore. Remember, this isn’t restricted to image file formats - you can restore most other files formats too.

Photo answers Verdict

Costing only €31, (around £25 at the current exchange rate), Phoenix Photo Recovery isn’t going to break the bank, and it’s certainly a small price to pay to retrieve lost files. It’ll probably only happen once, but accidentally erasing those perfect frames can be a real heart-breaker, and although this programme perhaps isn’t the most polished and fully-featured on the market, its low price and simple download availability certainly make it a viable option.