GetDataBack Pro is a data recovery program for Windows from Runtime Software. It rebuilds files and folders on drives that have been formatted, repartitioned, hit by a virus, power failure or software crash, or that Windows no longer recognizes. It also finds deleted files. It reads Windows, Linux and Apple file systems: NTFS, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, EXT, HFS+ and APFS. GetDataBack is commercial software. Its trial scans and displays files before the user has to buy a license key.
The program only reads from the source drive and never tries to repair it in place; it copies recovered files elsewhere. The user normally attaches the affected disk as a second drive to a working Windows computer. An internal SATA connection is ideal, since scanning over USB can be very time consuming.
Choosing what to recover from
The first screen of GetDataBack Pro shows each possible source as a colored tile. Red tiles are physical drives such as hard disks, SSDs, USB sticks and SD cards. Yellow tiles are image files: sector-by-sector images from GetDataBack or other Runtime tools, Linux DD images, and virtual images that RAID Reconstructor produces when it reassembles a broken RAID array. The user can add logical volumes with drive letters as blue tiles.
Logical volumes are the route for BitLocker. The user unlocks the drive in Windows with its password or recovery key, then scans the unlocked volume under its drive letter. NAS devices cannot be scanned over the network, and optical discs are not supported.
File system scan and sophistication levels
Clicking a tile starts a search for traces of file systems at one of four sophistication levels. With Smart Scan on, GetDataBack Pro starts low and moves up automatically until it finds a usable result. Low levels finish in seconds or minutes, while a level-4 scan of a large drive can take hours. A level indicator lets the user raise the level manually, which repeats the scan more thoroughly.
Results appear as tiles, one per possible partition, with the most accurate candidate first. Each shows the file system type, size, share of the drive and starting position. This helps identify the right entry when a disk held several partitions. The program recovers each partition separately. For APFS, the program can include older file system states, exposing files deleted since an earlier checkpoint.
Browsing the recovery tree
Selecting an entry makes GetDataBack Pro collect its files into the recovery tree, an Explorer-style view with folders on the left and contents on the right. GetDataBack Pro restores original names and folder structure where the file system data allows. Folders whose names were lost appear as numbers, usually with their contents intact.
Deleted files on NTFS and FAT volumes appear in their original folders with crossed-out names. The program gathers files from an emptied Recycle Bin under a RECYCLE folder with their extensions but not their names. Checkboxes add deleted entries and show same-name duplicates instead of only the most recent file. Deleted-file recovery does not apply to EXT and HFS+, and the program cannot restore overwritten files. Search accepts wildcards such as *.jpg, and F2 renames nameless folders or duplicates.
Viewing files before copying
Built-in viewers display types such as JPG, BMP, PDF, DOC and ZIP, and other files open in a hex viewer. The user can also open a file in its associated application from a temporary copy. Both work in the trial, so the user can judge recovery quality before buying.
Copying the results
Copying requires a license key. The user can enter it on the recovery tree screen without repeating the scan. The whole tree or selected files and folders go to another local or network drive, and the program asks whether to overwrite, skip or rename duplicates.
Disk imaging for failing drives
For drives with bad sectors, GetDataBack Pro can copy any source into a single image file and recover from that copy instead of the failing hardware. The program can split images into 650 MB segments or compress them, though compression is unsuitable when bad sectors are the reason for imaging. The program fills unreadable sectors with zeros and reports read errors and the percentage of data read. A bad-sector setting chooses between retrying a failed block sector by sector and skipping it, which stresses a damaged drive less.
Saving sessions and tuning the scan
The user can save a recovery session and reload it later. The file holds the state and structure of the recovery tree, not the recovered files. The user therefore need not repeat a long scan.
The GetDataBack Pro settings refine what a scan returns:
- The user can exclude file system types known not to be on the drive. Patterns such as *.tmp filter the tree.
- NTFS recovery can keep only entries referenced by a valid MFT, reducing invalid files.
- FAT recovery can ignore a damaged allocation table to find more files.
- A 4 KB sector mode handles large drives removed from USB enclosures that used 4K sectors.
The program can also run from a WinPE boot medium or inside a Windows virtual machine.
