Earlier this year I’ve shared with you 10 free data recovery software that you can use to recover accidentally deleted files from your computer. All of 10 free data recovery software can only recover data on local computer. Today I discovered a very cool network data recovery software called Smart Data Recovery Enterprise where you can remotely scan, search and recover deleted files on a remote computer.
Network data recovery is handy when it comes to big offices, large corporations or even at home networks. The demand is there, causing outrageous prices for remote data recovery solutions. Don’t be fooled by the word “enterprise” in the software title where it usually means expensive shareware. Surprisingly this tool is absolutely free and there are no terms saying that this can only be used at home!
Smart Data Recovery Enterprise offers system administrators a free and reliable way to secure corporate networks against data loss that occurs when the users accidentally delete files. The remote recovery allows network administrators to locate and recover deleted files remotely over the network without leaving your chair.
Smart Data Recovery Enterprise is easy for you and for your users. The powerful technologies used to locate and recover the deleted documents are coupled with a convenient and easy user interface that requires absolutely no prior experience with disks, partitions or file systems.
Smart Data Recovery Enterprise is divided into two parts: the Administrator and the Agent. The Administrator controls the process of scanning, previewing, and restoring of deleted files on remote computers, while the Agent performs the actual job of scanning, previewing, and restoring of deleted files. You should run agentsetup.exe on the computer where you want to scan for deleted files and adminsetup.exe on the computer where you’ll be running the scanning from. At the agent, you’ll need to configure the administrator’s hostname or IP address to connect to. The default port being used is 999 and can be changed. Make sure that Automatically connect to admin is checked.
As for the admin, all you need to do is to click the “Activate” button to start accepting connection from agent. If you’ve set the IP address correctly at the agent and port 999 is not blocked by firewall, you should see an agent appearing on the left hand sidebar. Simply click on the computer, select the drive that you want to scan and click the Find button. Within a few seconds, Smart Data Recovery will show you the files that can be recovered.
Everything is great about Smart Data Recovery Enterprise except that the agent has to be running in order for the admin to connect to the computer to remotely search for deleted files. There’s no password protect feature or an option to stealth the agent program. The user can just close the program and the admin won’t be able to connect to the remote computer. To solve this problem, you can use third party software such as OuttaSight and HyperHide to stealh or hide the agent program from appearing at system tray area. Smart Data Recovery Enterprise supports Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.