Now, to the right-hand side, you will see the Stellar branding and next to it, you will see a symbol that resembles a set of squares. Clicking this button will allow you to compare the different versions of the Stellar Photo Recovery software in case you want to upgrade to a higher version that offers more features.
All in all, the installation, first boot and the user interface of the Stellar Photo Recovery application, are very simple, straightforward and very clean. We absolutely loved how most of the work happens within the software and the window is not oversized, keeping things clean and well centered on your desktop.
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Using the Stellar Photo Recovery Software
The Stellar Photo Recovery software works in three simple steps. Let’s take a look at them in a little more depth.
Step 1. Scan the Drive
On the home screen of the Stellar Photo Recovery application, select the drive you want to recover your data from, and then click on the ‘Scan’ button. This will start scanning the drive for deleted files that you can restore. Now, this step might take some time to accomplish, but as we mentioned earlier, the software itself is very minimal so you can continue working on other things or even browse the internet while the software does its job in the background.
Now, if you are concerned about the PC slowing down during the scan, you can click on the three-button icon on the top left-hand side of the tool and create an image of the drive. This will create a virtual duplicate of the selected drive and scan that instead of the physical medium, thus giving you the performance you need for carrying out your tasks in the meantime.
Depending on the size of the drive, the scanning process will take a few seconds to a few long minutes. Stay patient and enjoy a cup of coffee if you are in the mood.
A quick word of advice – If you find that the scan has entered phase 2, it would be advisable to ensure that the process is not aborted as it has now entered the important part of the scan and must be left to it.
Step 2. Choose the Files you want to Recover
Once the scan is complete, you will see a success message and once that is put out of the way, you will be greeted with a list of all the files that can be recovered. The list may look complicated at first, but you can simply click on the ‘File type’ option and you will see folders titled based on the types of files available. For example, if you have images, videos, and documents, you will find folders titled correspondingly.
You can now double click on the folder and navigate through the subfolders and spot any of the files that you may want to recover. In our case, we wanted to see if we could recover images that we had deleted many months ago, and to our pleasant surprise, we found them all on the list.
Take your time with this process and go through the list carefully and select the files that you want to recover. Sometimes, if the file is not too damaged, you will even get a preview of the file you are trying to recover. However, if the file is a little too damaged, you will see an error message wherein it will tell you that the file it recoverable but cannot be previewed. In the standard edition of this software, you can recover files. However, if you take up the higher tiers, you will be able to repair broken files as well.
What we absolutely loved about this scan result is that it lets you browse it just like a regular file manager. There is no new UI to master or complicated menus to venture into. We believe that the easier a software is to use, the better it is for the next time. The Stellar Photo Recovery Software is something we plan to use extensively, thanks to genuine results and the sheer easy-to-use UI.
