EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Review

EaseUS produces a strong lineup of data utilities that are both powerful enough to meet the needs of IT professionals and easy enough to use for everyone else. During this review, we’ll be examining its data recovery solution, Data Recovery Wizard.

Available for both Windows and Mac, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard will help you recover both accidentally deleted files and files erased by programs. It can also be used access non-mounting, raw or corrupted partitions. Advanced users will appreciate its ability to recover data from servers and RAID storage, as well.

Overall, the user experience stands as one of the best of any recovery utility we reviewed, ranking it near the top of our 2017 roundup for best data recovery software.

Unfortunately, the service lacks one major function, preventing it from beating Stellar or Prosoft Engineering (read our Prosoft Engineering Data Rescue review) as the best all-around recovery tool: it can’t scan your full hard drive, only partitions. We’ll look at the implications of this later on in this review.

We’ll also examine EaseUS’s otherwise strong feature set, interface, performance and support network.

Alternatives for EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

Pricing & Licensing

For average Windows consumers, the best EaseUS software is called Data Recovery Wizard Pro for Windows + WinPE. “WinPE” lets you recover data from computers that won’t start due to issues with their boot partitions. The Mac version is called Data Recovery Wizard Pro for Mac with Bootable Media.

Both Windows and Mac users can opt for a cheaper option that doesn’t include a recovery CD. EaseUS also provides recovery software for iPhones and Android devices. Besides regular consumer plans, there are pricier licenses aimed at IT professionals.

EaseUS provides trial versions of its software, which can be used to recover up to 2GB of data on PCs and Macs. A trial run will help you determine if your lost data can be recovered prior to purchasing the software. Because it offers a trial version, EaseUS’ 30-day refund policy doesn’t apply to non-technical circumstances, so be sure you know what you’re buying.

Features

The following table outlines the essential features you get with an EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro license.

While the feature list looks impressive, there are some noticeable things missing. Some of these are available through separate software packages available from EaseUS. These features include the ability to clone your hard drive and create a bootable disc or USB for when a computer won’t start at all.

Other features that aren’t offered at all by EaseUS include the ability to add new recoverable file types and the ability to recover data from optical storage (CDs, DVDs).

As far as supported file types, EaseUS covers all of the basics:

• Documents: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, PDF
• Images: JPEG, PNG, RAW, Photoshop, Illustrator
• Audio: MP3, WAV, AIFF, AAC, Ogg
• Videos: MPEG-4, QuickTime, AVI, WMV
• Archives: Zip, Gzip, RAR, Stuffit

Supported file systems include:

• Windows: FAT, NTFS
• Mac: HFS, HFS+
• Removable Storage: ExFat

Recovery Process

Next, we examine the general recovery process using Data Recovery Wizard Pro for Windows. The overall experience with the Mac version of the software is similar. Once the application opens, step one requires picking a scan location.

You can choose to scan your desktop, Windows libraries, a specific partition or an external drive. If you’re dealing with a non-mounting or deleted partition, Data Recovery Wizard will display those, too, by pulling information from the partition table. Unlike most data recovery tools, you don’t need to run a full hard drive scan first.

Beyond that, the choices are a bit more limited here than we’d like. With Stellar, for example, you can pick the type of file you want to scan for or indicate a specific folder (read our full Stellar Data Recovery review for more details). Doing so lets you limit how long the total scan takes to run.

There’s also no option with EaseUS to scan the entire hard drive. Pick the partition you want to work with and hit “scan.” Data Recovery Wizard will automatically execute a quick scan then launch a deep scan. While scanning, the program displays a progress bar at the top of the application, along with a countdown of how much time it remains before completion.

You can browse and preview files before the scan completes, as they’re recovered or wait until it’s over. The preview capability helps, since recovered files are given generic names, as with most data recovery tools for Windows. However, a file size cap of 100MB limits its usefulness.

Once the scan has completed, you can browse content by file tree, file category (graphics, audio, document, video, email, other) and search for files. Search is handy because you can search for a specific file type by searching for an extension (.txt, .jpg).

Content that you’ve personally deleted will be in the “recycle bin” folder. Content that deleted via other means, such as a program, can be found in a special folder marked, “more lost files (RAW).”

Recovering content is simple. Just click the checkbox beside the file name, hit the “recover” button and select a recovery location. That location must be a separate partition or drive, and you may choose an external drive.

Performance

To find how EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard stacked up against the competition, we executed some basic recovery tests during our review process. Basic deleted file recovery testing was run on a 518GB, NTFS-formatted partition with 379GB of used space. For this testing, three test files were created and deleted: a Word document, a .jpg file and an .mp4 video.

We also tested recovery of a 10GB test partition that we created, loaded with data and deleted.

Have a look at our results:

Data Recovery Wizard’s quick scan runs in just a few seconds. The results that came back were limited, though. The scan seems to only check to see if there’s any recently deleted content it can recover. Most quick scans build out entire directory structures of intact files, as well.

It’s okay that Data Recovery Wizard is different.

It just means EaseUS took a different approach in building its quick scan algorithm. The real test of how thorough a data recovery tool performs lies in its deep scan results. The deep scan completed in under two hours. That’s faster than average and still returned everything we were looking for.

Customer Support

EaseUS might be the best overall data recovery tool when it comes to support. The service offers a thorough knowledge base that includes a downloadable user manual, searchable support articles and video tutorials. The biggest plus, though, is the inclusion of live chat support.

That’s an advantage you won’t find with low-end data recovery services.

Live chat, available during business hours, will put you in almost immediate contact with a service representative. Outside of business hours, you can send EaseUS an email. The service promises to get back to you within two hours, and we found that promise held even on weekends.

Unfortunately, the telephone support channel is for pre-sales inquiries, not tech support. However, it’s often easier to communicate technical issues via text than talking, anyway. You can also send EaseUS technical support an email directly from the desktop tool by clicking the “more” icon in the overhead toolbar, then selecting, “contact technical support.”

Final Thoughts

While the experience isn’t perfect, we came away impressed after spending a little too much time playing with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. The deep scan performed wasn’t quite as thorough as some services judging by the total files found, but it returned all the files we were looking for.

The ability to recover data from HDDs, SSDs, RAID storage, servers and even optical drives makes it a flexible tool. Complimentary cloning software is also nice, even if it’s a separate application.

In fact, the solution is so comprehensive, if you’re an IT professional, there’s little question in our minds that the EaseUS data recovery lineup will make it an invaluable addition to your toolkit.

Have you use EaseUS? WHat did you think? Let us know in the comments below and thank you for reading.