Ashampoo Undeleter works simply and it works well. It recovers recently deleted files as long as they haven't been overwritten. All you do is run the program, select a volume (e.g. C:), then click the Search button. Ashampoo Undeleter will list any files it finds, allowing you to select each or any of them for restoration. The problem is, this $15 undelete utility does nothing that free competitors don't.

Undeleter worked fine in my testing, but the claim on the website that it works with Windows encryption is a bit misleading. It found the encrypted files that were deleted, but would not restore them except as a bumch of gobbledegook. To be fair, I'm not aware of any program that will restore encrypted files.

If Recuva and a couple of other free undelete utilities didn't exist, I might recommend Ashampoo Undeleter. But why pay when something equally as effective is available for free? If you absolutely want to try it and only have a few files to recover, then the ten-day demo will serve you well as a one-off utility.

--Jon L. Jacobi