Which version did you use (or recommend) - the vanilla or deluxe?

Thanks.

The Wizard Version has always recovered my files with no problem. I get a corrupted card every now and then and this version as well as the previous Wizard version has recovered about a thousand images all told. It is 29 bucks well spent. I have not needed more. You just click a button, it finds your reader and gets everything back including anything that has been formatted but not written over.

It's curious that the website doesn't anywhere tell you what the differences are between the Wizard and Expert versions, each of which cost $29. There are a couple of links, including in the manual, that are supposed to show you the differences, but the links go to a technical FAQ page that doesn't say anything about the issue.

I have downloaded the demos of both versions to play around with. Now all I need is a couple of corrupted CF cards to play with.

The question really is: Does the "Expert" version give you any real advantage over the "Wizard" one?

The Wizard will handle most problems, but if you have a really difficult card the Pro version may be what's needed.

Michael

Eric, the way I found out was to have a card corrupt on me. It was a potentially important photo set. I was out in slight cold and found I had two low batteries for my 20D. I went ahead and shot about 150 images and both cards were corrupted when I tried to download them. I then went to the Photorescue site and tried out the demo. If it works for your problem, and it did for mine, all you have to do is buy a license key and you have all of your images back as well as a fully functioning recovery tool that does not expire. They even gave me a free upgrade from V2 to V3 many months or perhaps more than a year later, just emailed me the info.

So just demo when you encounter your problem. I figured that even if I did encounter a problem which required the Pro version later on, it just isn't that much money, however every single corrupted card since has be fully recovered with the Wizard version and I have never had need to look further. 29 bucks is nothing when this happens. I had several hundred images that needed to be recovered from session on the opposite side of the continent. That Photorescue Wizard collected every single one of them and put them in a folder for me while I did a few chores. I want to say that this has happened to me about half a dozen times but now I do not sweat it, just get the Wizard on the job.

I have both versions but have yet to find a case where the "expert" was really needed.

I had some of the faulty batch of Lexar cards that came out a couple of years ago. I'm sure I tried PhotoRescue [it was definitely something Michael recommended] amongst other things and no joy so dead card went back to Lexar. Had one of the replacemnent Lexars die on me and even Lexar struggled and failed to get all the data off. I buy Sandisk now. An 8G Sandsisk accidentally went through the washing machine a couple of weeks ago and still works fine!