Recall Partition Wizard, a partition management tool talked about on dotTech in the past? Well the developer of Partition Wizard – MT Solution (which, by the way, claims to be based in Canada but past-experience with them makes me suspect me they really are a Chinese company Update: My MT Solution contact assures me MT Solution “is registered, owned, and operating in Canada”) – has some other product offerings, one of them being a data/partition recovery tool MiniTool Power Data Recovery:

(It is interesting to note that while they are not the same, MiniTool Power Data Recovery’s interface has fundamental similarities to the interface of EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard. Compound this with the fact that Partition Wizard is pretty much based off of EASEUS Partition Master, one can assume MT Solution holds CHENGDU YIWO Tech Development Co. – the developer of EASEUS products – in high regard, to put it lightly. Do note, though, MT Solution products and EASEUS products are different enough to conclude that MT Solution does not resale EASEUS products – they are two totally different companies. That, and the fact that my contact in CHENGDU YIWO Tech Development Co. assures me they have no connection with MT Solution. Update: My MT Solution contact has also confirmed they have no connection to CHENGDU YIWO Tech Development Co.)

In the past MiniTool Power Data Recovery was an exclusively shareware product; if you wanted it past its trial period, you had to buy it. However, recently MT Solution updated MiniTool Power Data Recovery to v6.0 and has made MiniTool Power Data Recovery free for home. (Hmmm… EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free was released just a few months ago. Coincidence?) (Okay, okay enough on the MT Solution-EASEUS connection, or lack thereof.)

On paper MiniTool Power Data Recovery pretty much has all the features one would desire in a data/partition recovery tool: The ability to recover lost/deleted files and partitions (even after a format – it can find RAW files) from internal hard drives and external portable media (USB/flash drives, CD/DVD, etc.); the ability to search results; the ability to filter results; the ability to preview lost/deleted files; etc.

In terms in performance, MiniTool Power Data Recovery is not a bad tool, not a bad tool at all; however it isn’t necessarily exemplary either. Of course, I only gave it a quick overview as opposed to my usual detailed analysis, but I found “Undelete Recovery” to have very poor performance (found little-to-no files to recover). “Damaged Partition Recovery”, on the other hand, found quite a lot of files to recover (most of them were found in RAW format, thought, so they had no names to them) but even the performance from “Damage Partition Recovery” is nothing special – it is good, but nothing that other rival programs can’t do.

Furthermore:

• MiniTool Power Data Recovery does have bootable/recovery media, but it is not free – you need to purchase it.
• Every time you run MiniTool Power Data Recovery, you need to verify you are using it for home/non-commercial use only:

This gets very annoying since you have to do it every time you run the program. There should be a way to verify you are using for home/non-commercial use only once and never have to do it again.

• Every time you close MiniTool Power Data Recovery, you have prompted with a “Donate to us” message.

You can, of course, opt to not donate and just close the program but I find it annoying you are asked to donate every time you close the program. If you want donations, ask once, maybe twice, or maybe periodically – not every time!

• The following chart (created by MT Solution) compares the differences between all MiniTool Power Data Recovery editions:

In the end, I personally feel MiniTool Power Data Recovery doesn’t offer any “wow I need that program” features that would make you want to get it over other file/partition recovery tools. (The bootable/recovery CD/DVD would make it a desirable product, but the bootable/recovery media is not free for home use.) However, it is another tool you can use shall the need ever arise to have to recover deleted/lost files or partitions (and other tools don’t do the job for you). You may download MiniTool Power Data Recovery from the following links:

Version reviewed: v6.0

Supported OS: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Win7

Download size: 5.33 MB

License limitations: Free for home/non-commercial use only

MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free Edition home page [direct link download page]