SanDisk is an American manufacturer of flash memory products, including memory cards, readers, and USB flash drives. Founded in 1988 by Eli Harari, Sanjay Mehrotra, and Jack Yuan, SanDisk helped pioneer the transition from magnetic storage to flash memory storage devices like SSDs and flash drives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SanDisk). Today, SanDisk is a leading brand for flash memory storage, known for reliable, high-performance products. Their memory cards and USB drives are commonly used in consumer electronics like digital cameras, mobile phones, gaming devices, and computers.
Why Data Recovery is Needed
There are many reasons why data recovery may be necessary. Some common causes of data loss include:
- Accidental deletion – Files can be deleted unintentionally, without backup.
- Hard drive failure – Hard drives can experience mechanical or logical failures, corrupting data.
- OS crash – A system crash can cause data corruption or loss.
- Malware or virus infection – Malicious programs can encrypt or delete files.
- Natural disaster – Floods, fires or power surges can damage storage media.
- Device loss – Losing a phone, camera or laptop means losing the data.
According to rewind.com, data recovery is essential for mitigating data loss risks and maintaining business continuity when outages occur. Recovering from data loss allows operations to continue with minimal disruption.
What the Official SanDisk Recovery Software is
The official data recovery software from SanDisk is called SanDisk RescuePRO. RescuePRO is designed to recover lost or deleted photos, videos, documents and more from SanDisk drives as well as other brands.
RescuePRO has the ability to recover data from hard drives, USB drives, SD cards, CompactFlash cards, and other storage devices. It supports recovery from accidental formatting, corruption, deletion and other data loss scenarios. The software works with Windows and Mac computers.
Some key features and capabilities of RescuePRO include:
- Recovers photos, videos, music, documents, and more
- Supports SD, microSD, CF cards, USB drives, HDDs, and SSDs
- Recovers from accidental formatting, deletion, corruption, etc.
- Works with both Windows and Mac
- Easy-to-use interface for beginners
The main way to obtain the official SanDisk recovery software is to download a free trial or purchase a license key. There are a few options:
How to Obtain SanDisk Recovery Software
The official recovery software from SanDisk is called SanDisk RescuePRO and RescuePRO Deluxe. To try out the software, you can download a free trial from the SanDisk website here: SanDisk RescuePRO Deluxe Free Trial. The free trial is a full-featured version that will show all recoverable files.
If you need full data recovery capabilities, you can purchase a license key for RescuePRO Deluxe. Licenses are available for 1 year or 2 years. The 1 year license can be purchased on the SanDisk website or from various retailers. The 2 year license is only available directly from SanDisk at: RescuePRO Deluxe 2 Year License.
Once you purchase a license key, you can download the latest version of the software from: RescuePRO Deluxe Install. Be sure to download the version that matches your license key.
Types of Data the Software Can Recover
According to the RescuePRO Comparison document from LC Technology (www.lc-tech.com/documents/rescueprocomparison3.pdf), RescuePRO software can recover a wide variety of file types from digital media including:
- Photos – JPG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, RAW (CR2, NEF, ARW, SR2, etc.)
- Videos – MOV, AVI, MP4, MPEG, 3GP
- Documents – DOC/DOCX, XLS/XLSX, PPT/PPTX, PDF, TXT
- Audio – MP3, WAV, WMA
The software supports recovery of both image and video files from DSLR cameras, drones, action cams like GoPro devices, smartphones, Android tablets, and more. It can recover digital media files from memory cards, USB drives, SSDs, HDDs, and other storage devices.
In addition to photos, videos, docs, and audio, RescuePRO can recover CAD files, ISO disk images, ZIP archives, and hundreds of other file types – over 400 in total. The Premium and Deluxe software editions support an even broader range of file formats.
Devices Supported
The official SanDisk recovery software, called SanDisk RescuePRO and RescuePRO Deluxe, is designed to recover lost or deleted data from a wide range of SanDisk devices including:
- USB flash drives
- SD cards
- microSD cards
- CompactFlash cards
- Memory Stick cards
- SSD drives
Specifically, SanDisk RescuePRO supports file recovery from any SanDisk USB drive or memory card up to 2TB in capacity. Meanwhile, SanDisk RescuePRO Deluxe adds support for SanDisk SSD drives and has no file size or drive capacity limitations for recovery.
So in summary, the official software can recover lost data from the full range of SanDisk storage devices including portable USB drives, removable memory cards, and internal SSDs. Just be sure to choose the RescuePRO or RescuePRO Deluxe version suited to your specific SanDisk device.
Step-by-Step Usage Guide
Recovering lost data with SanDisk RescuePRO is a straightforward process. Here is a walkthrough of the recovery steps:
1. Download and install the SanDisk RescuePRO software from the official website (https://lc-tech.com/sandisk-rescuepro-and-rescuepro-deluxe/).
2. Launch the RescuePRO program and select the type of files you want to recover – photos, video/audio, or documents.
3. Connect the SanDisk device you want to recover data from to your computer.
4. RescuePRO will scan the device and display a list of recoverable files. You can preview files before recovery.
5. Select the files you want to recover and click “Recover” to save them to another drive on your computer.
6. Specify a location to save the recovered files. Make sure to save them to a different drive than the original.
7. Let the recovery process finish. Large recoveries may take some time.
8. Once complete, your lost files will be restored and accessible from the recovery location.
Following these steps will enable you to successfully recover lost photos, videos, music, documents, and other data using the official SanDisk RescuePRO data recovery software.
Recovery Capabilities and Limitations
According to https://lc-tech.com/sandisk-rescuepro-and-rescuepro-deluxe/, SanDisk RescuePRO and RescuePRO Deluxe have high success rates in recovering lost or deleted photos, videos, audio files, documents, and more from memory cards, flash drives, and external hard drives. The software supports over 600 camera models and dozens of file types.
However, the recovery capabilities depend on the condition of the device and whether new data has overwritten the deleted files. The sooner you run the recovery after deletion or loss, the higher the chance of recovering your files. Severely corrupted drives or devices may still result in unrecoverable files.
According to https://lc-tech.com/sandisk-rescuepro-deluxe-ssd/, RescuePRO Deluxe has enhanced capabilities for SSD and flash drive recovery, improving the chances of recovering files even after reformatting a drive.
The software is generally not capable of recovering data from physically damaged media or devices with failed electronic components. Certain RAID configurations may also be problematic. If the memory is still accessible, the software should recover a majority of lost or accidentally deleted data.
Alternatives to Official Software
While SanDisk RescuePRO and RescuePRO Deluxe are the official recovery software options from SanDisk, there are some other SanDisk recovery alternatives to consider:
SanDisk Ultra Backup – This free software from SanDisk provides backup capabilities but only basic recovery functions. It can retrieve deleted or lost files from SanDisk devices like USB drives and memory cards, but has limited capabilities compared to RescuePRO.
LC Tech RescuePRO – A lower cost alternative also compatible with SanDisk drives. It offers features like deep scanning and RAW recovery but has file format support limitations compared to SanDisk’s official software.
iBeesoft Data Recovery – A third party data recovery suite with deep scan modes, a user-friendly interface, and wide file format support. Works for SanDisk drives and cards but lacks official SanDisk integration or support.
Overall, while SanDisk RescuePRO Deluxe remains the most full-featured recovery software designed specifically for SanDisk devices, the alternatives provide lower cost options with varying feature sets for data recovery from SanDisk drives.[1] [2]
Conclusion
In summary, the official SanDisk recovery software available for download from the SanDisk website is RescuePRO. This program can recover lost or deleted photos, videos, documents and more from SanDisk USB flash drives, memory cards, solid state drives and other storage devices. The software has an intuitive interface and allows for easy scanning and recovery of files.
While RescuePRO works well for recovering data from SanDisk devices, there are limitations to what it can do, as with any data recovery software. For more complex data recovery cases involving corrupted drives or reformatted partitions, a professional data recovery service may be required. But for straightforward, accidental file deletion or drive formatting, RescuePRO provides an affordable DIY solution.
The final recommendation is to first try using RescuePRO for any lost SanDisk files, but be aware of its capabilities and limitations. And as always, prevention is the best cure – be sure to regularly backup your important data to avoid needing recovery software in the first place.