Storage media is more reliable than it’s ever been. But while drive failures are fewer and further between, technology improvements do nothing to protect you from the No. 1 cause of data loss: human error. It’s devastating to lose the only copy you have of any file — that important document or irreplaceable photo — all because you mistakenly formatted the wrong drive or hit Delete too quickly. It’s even more infuriating when you have only yourself to blame.

The single biggest limitation of Recuva is that file signatures appear to be hard-wired into the program. If you want to look for a custom format or another file not in Recuva’s list, you’ll need to use PhotoRec or an application that allows custom file signatures. What’s more, it was difficult to figure out exactly which file types are supported by the application in the first place. Piriform’s website doesn’t seem to list which files Recuva recognizes, although I found a note in the product forum that provided a way to discover supported file types in advanced mode.

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