Just had the perfect *sob* chance to test this out.
On a Sata drive where windows disk cleanup decided to delete all files it could find no overwrites and recovery within minutes this program picked up about 50MB of 97GB.

Not too successful.

I'm currently running Undelete plus http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=1063
and so far (at 16% complete) it has recovered 23GB

I'm going to stick with that every time

Programs like this
recuva
undeleteplus
all say they recover jpg pictures
but they are not viewable
Can' t open or header error pops up
Does anyone know what to do about it

Looks like download the zip file from special location on website, not the normal install file. Also, the program has setting "save to ini" that is what portable people probably want to use. It's not set by default. have to check the box.

Well these programs are great for deleted files, but for serious disk crashes/corruption, they just don't cut it. I recently had a drive disaster during a hard disk upgrade, and the file and directory structure if the old HD got corrupted beyond repair, used EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro, it recovered almost all the crucial files, most 300MB or more in size. Its shareware though and I'm afraid I used a pirated version but it was an emergency, anyways, my point is that these undelete software are really just casual file undeleters, not data recovery solutions.

After reading on another site that this prog has problems securely deleting files on Vista, I tried it. Yep. Sure enough, it recovered lots of deleted files, but the secure delete function of it leaves a LOT to be desired.

Nice and improved version
Finally it is able to resurrect pictures with
header information intact
Great indeed

Nice interface and the developers seem to be actively developing the tool. I have been unable to see a difference in quality of restoration versus other tools. However, I use the also-portable "Restoration" program in tandem for data recovery.

If you follow the correct download links you can get a zipped version of Recuva that hasn´t got to be installed. Worked fine for me on files with letters ´ÄÖÜäöü´ where undelete plus didn´t even find anything. A more comfortable user Interface would be appreciated

Keep up the good work

Can this app find deleted files based on header information or just the file extension?

ie. I have a flash card that contains JPG photos that has been damaged, if I tell Recuva to find all JPG files, can it detect the JPG header from the binary data or does it just recover based on filenames?

@Nick : I think both - I would't proof it. ;)

BTW: Recuva is a really, really smart App - I can't find any with similair file recognition.

Recuva is good for newly deleted files and if you cleared your flash memory from a flash drive or digital camera, but for more serious problems I have found two programs to do really well:

FinalData
R-Studio

This f*ng programm sends everytime I start it, some information to the internet, regardless I turn the option "check for updates" or not!
Don't you Recuva, if you want to be your privacy respected.

How can I recover my files on the secure USB flash drives, is there any quick solution in this case?

This program has saved my butt twice now. The first time was a massive cut and paste operation from a camera flash drive to a hard disk The cut worked, the paste failed and all the .jpg files looked to have been deleted. Recuva saved the day! It got 'em all back. Today a woman pulled the flash card out of the camera hot and whatever happened, it then looked like it wasn't formatted. Neither the computer nor Recuva could find anything. So, we did a quick format and then ran Recuva - viola! All the .jpgs on that flash card (two hours worth of work) were ALL recovered! Talk about a butt-save operation!! Awsome!

Be careful, Recuva can view all deleted and un deleted images even ones on a pass word protected USB drive. So if you think your sensitive images are safe with a pass word just run recuva and you will be able to view all your pass word protected images without using your pass word.