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Data Recovery and Computer Forensic Software Self-booting CD featuring unique "Direct Drive Access" technologies that bypass the BIOS to communicate directly with the drive's hardware; Plus 5 recovery modules that have been refined over 10 years. Cycle-Clone / Reverse-Clone™: Extract raw data from mechanically failing drives to another like drive keeping them out of the clean-room (Used with File Recovery Tree™ Boot and Partition Repair™ and Media Editor™). Cycle-Image™: Image over a network. Creates an exact sector copy for back up protection (Used with File Recovery Tree™ Boot and Partition Repair™ and Media Editor™). File Recovery Tree™: Automatically rebuild the file system to recover files and folders to a reliable media. Boot Partition Repair™: Automatically rebuild the boot sectors and partition tables to recover files and folders to a reliable media. Media Editor™: Mount the file system: to rebuild it to recover files and folders to a reliable media; and/or to View Look for and Edit raw data without knowing Hex through custom-designed editing templates. Secure Wipe™: Bonus module! - for when you need to destroy data. Permanently delete data beyond the level the U.S. Department of Defense requirements.System Requirements:Windows 2003 XP NT 2000 ME 98 95 3.x DOS file systemsFormat: WIN 9598MENT2000XP Genre: UTILITIES UPC: 794038263000 Manufacturer No: 26300

User Reviews about Mediatools Professional

Media Tools Professional has long been considered by industry experts to be a valuable imaging solution for situations where drives are close to failure or already showing signs of mechanical failure. I purchased this product for my small computer repair business and have appreciated its reliable imaging capability on more than one occasion, but I do see room for improvement.

Competing solutions now exist (even free ones such as ddrescue) which can also successfully image a drive backwards, thus recovering data from mechanically failing drives using the same strategy as Media Tools Pro. But these alternatives now include additional extremely valuable advantages which almost make them a better choice in certain situations.

So, drawing from these improvements by competing products, here is what I think Media Tools Pro needs to consider including to remain a choice product for data recovery amongst professionals without a cleanroom at their disposal:

1) The option/ability to skip blocks of sectors automatically upon the encounter of a specific number of bad sectors, then return to these troubled regions for later imaging attempts. Often when imaging a drive, bad sectors are encountered in blocks rather than alone. These troubled regions of a drive can take a very long time to image, and thus it is good to have the option to skip these troubled regions and image the data which is good (or at least easier to acquire) than that which must be worked for over many hours, then return to these regions automatically later for more intensive imaging attempts AFTER the easier data has been safely copied. At least a couple other imaging products now offer this option, including the free ddrescue. While Media Tools Pro includes a so-called "skip mode", where it only attempts to read each sector a single time, it still sequentially traverses each and every sector in order and does not offer any option to jump ahead and return later.

2) The option to suppress the notification of a bad sector upon the first encounter of a bad sector on a drive. Currently a message appears the first time the program encounters a bad sector on a drive which pauses the imaging operation until user input is received, and there is no way to prevent this from happening.

3) Better control over drive operations and imaging techniques. Competing solutions provide spinup/spindown control for the drive, and Media Tools does not.

4) Better USB support. Currently Media Tools uses a Panasonic (I think it was) USB DOS driver to accomplish USB drive access, but it's hardly reliable. It would be much preferred if the devices were enumerated more reliably and USB/SATA support was somehow more certain.

There are plenty of other items for the wish list as well, but I think this sums up the major points. If Media Tools Professional could implement all of these updates, I think it would solidify its position as a choice imaging software for troubled drives amongst pros. -- Certainly useful, but could still be improved

I have been using this software since it came out. Know the original programmer personally. With 10 years of data recovery and computer forensic experience I can say this is the program to own. I actually did tech support for this program for several years. In one word... GREAT!! -- Best out there.