Unfortunately I shelled out the $79 for File Salvage, having read some positive reviews elsewhere. I wasted 3 days trying to get it to 'salvage' 180gb of data from a hard drive which would not mount. Mostly video files, of the type it says it will retrieve for you. The software crashed so many times, hanging part way through it's 'magic'!$%#@! Thus, 3 days later, and I had several partial retrieves of up to about 70 gb of data, mostly unreadable, unrecognisable, and having lost any names or folders that rendered it largely useless. Only around 20gb of the data retrieved would even open in any format. Most fo the drive contents were a mystery to me still.

Then I was recommended Data Rescue, and downloaded a demo, which took all of 5 minutes to show me every single file on the drive, with correct names and folder structure! Sadly the money does not stretch far enough to spend another $100, but I so wish I had purchased Data Rescue instead of this tragedy. At least now I know what I gave lost.

I implore you: check out your other options. I am a Mac User of 20 years, and have no connection with either software I have mentioned.

(yes, i know I should have backed up the drive, but I do non-profit video production for non-profit organisation, so the budget isn't there for that many hard drives to back up video projects being worked on. I use tape backups)