One day, your old Mac starts acting up and the files start to disappear from out of nowhere – a telling sign that your hard drive is starting to fail – and miserably, at that. In cases like this, there’s no recourse but to bite the bullet and buy a new Mac computer. However, what will happen to the files you’ve lost on the failing Mac? They’re lost.
At least, this is what we’ll say if this were the 90s.
Fortunately, there is a wide variety of data recovery options available, from different software to powerful hardware solutions. The most notable of the latter is Data Rescue One, which is essentially a self-contained hard drive recovery solution.
With that said, questions are raised: should you consider Data Rescue One if your hard drive is in trouble? Is it a safe option? Will it recover the files I’ve probably already lost?
Let’s take a look at how it fared in our tests and judge if it’s a divine solution to your lost data woes.
What exactly is it?
If you go to Prosoft Engineering’s website and took a long look at Data Rescue One, you’ll see that it’s a hard drive-like device, setting it apart from other data recovery methods. Some require you to install heavy-duty software, but not Data Rescue One: all of the recovery software, storage, and services are jammed inside a lightweight hard drive. This means you will have the functionality of a data recovery software without having to deal with tedious installations.
The device comes in several versions, which are:
- DR One 16 GB that can recover up to 12 GB worth of files. It is priced at $49.
- DR One 500 GB one which can recover up to 500 GB data. It costs $139.
- DR One 1 TB version, which can recover a terabyte of data. It will cost you $169.
- Lastly, there’s also one for professionals, which has an unlimited storage space. It’s mainly designed for help desk and tech support teams. It costs $409.
It can be connected through your computer via a USB 3.0 wire. The device requires you to have an OS X version of 10.7.5 or later. If you’re using either Mavericks, Yosemite or El Capitan, you’re in the clear.
Data Rescue One can recover any file, ranging from system files, pictures, videos, music, and documents. Though this device only requires a minimum level of tech know-how, you still could encounter trouble along the way, which is why the Prosoft provides tech support just in case.
Now that you have an idea of what the device is all about, let’s see how it works and what it’s capable of.
Using Data Rescue One
One of the best things about this is you don’t have to fully boot your Mac to run it: your computer can do so using the low-level setup code. The device has three partitions, namely Prepare Data Rescue, Data Rescue One, and Data Rescue Storage.
To use the device and start recovering your data, simply reboot your computer and hold down the Option key. After which, you will be presented with a number of drives to boot into – pick the Prepare Data Rescue partition. You Mac will then run a low-level setup code and you can then start retrieving lost data.
Your computer will restart and you will be led to a loading screen and after a certain amount of time, you will then be required to enter certain details including your name and the device’s serial number.
After you’ve entered the details, you will be led to a page wherein you can select several scanning options and choose where to store the recovered files.
Move forward with the scan by clicking on the Start button. The program will then scan all the files – after this, it will then start recovering the files on your hard drive. The duration of the whole process can take up to six to 10 hours, depending on the amount of files it is recovering. This is why you need to make sure that your computer is plugged to a charger during the whole process – you wouldn’t want your Mac to run out of battery while performing this.
Impressions and how it fared
Data Rescue One performed admirably in our tests despite it taking its sweet time to recover the files on our computer. This is mainly because of three reasons, which:
It didn’t have any major boo-boos
Another website reviewed the Data Rescue One, and it reported a bug: the program froze before completing the data recovery process. There were initial fears about it happening to our tests, but thankfully, nothing of the sort occurred: we ran the program, awoke the Macbook from sleep (the event that triggered the freeze) but voila, no freeze on our end!
You can trust it to run smoothly – run the program, perform the necessary tasks, and leave it as it is for a few hours while you go about your daily life without having to worry.
Apart from Data Recovery, it can do a bunch of other tasks
Data Rescue One is not exclusively a data recovery software: its partitions allow a host of other functions, giving you a number of options to do with your drive. Among these include Quick Scan, Deleted Files Scan, and the awesome warning feature which informs you if your hard drive is nearing its doom.
It managed to recover the files on our nearly broken drive
The computer we used was functional, but its hard drive was nearing its fate. Despite this, Data Rescue One labored and recovered files from it, including System Files and the multimedia.
The Verdict
Is Data Rescue One worth the price tag?
Despite it being rather pricey compared to its software-only counterparts, it is the most reliable data recovery software and hardware on the market. Considering that the app is placed on a separate hard drive, you’re sure to perform the rescue even if your computer is acting all wonky.
And hey, even if problems arise, you can easily contact tech support!
