Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery Reviews

Hi Big Johnson,

Thank you for your comment.

Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery did not sign the Apple Digitally Sign Code.

It seemed that Mac OS X El Capitan (10.11) and later require the Apple Digitally Sign Code to access the internal hard disk. I recommend you to contact us at support@macdatarecoveryfreeware.com to get an ISO file to build a Lazesoft boot disk to recover the data. The Lazesoft boot disk is also free for Mac users.

We will also add the about menu with application version information.

Since you're aware of that, why haven't you uploaded a working version here that IS signed? You haven't even posted a notice saying "this version is f'd up-don't use it."

I was dubious anyway since it hasn't been updated in over 2 years.
It's certainly not worth my time to piddle around with a special boot disk (is that still a thing?).

I have many boot partitions on many drives that I can use when needed. And one set has all my recovery and repair utilities on them. You're telling me I need to create a separate one just to run your app? Not gonna happen.

Why should users be expected to go through the hassle of requesting an ISO file and building a boot disk, instead of you simply signing the app? And they wouldn't even know they NEED to request the ISO file unless they've already found the app doesn't work and then contacted you for support.

While I appreciate your attempt at providing free software, it's futile if the software doesn't work. And you have apparently been aware of the bug for some time yet filed to quash it.

Thank you for your review. Which version is your Mac OS?
Please use the following command, “ls /dev”, through the terminal console. And then, take a screen shot photo and send the picture to us at support@macdatarecoveryfreeware.com

Thank you for your feedback. It seemed that some software locked your internal hard disk. So, Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery did not detect your internal hard disk. Could you try to disable the anti-virus or other software, then launch Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery again.

Could you try to run Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery through the terminal console?
The default installation path of Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery is:
/Applications/Lazesoft\ Mac\ Data\ Recovery.app/Contents/MacOS/Lazesoft\ Mac\ Data\ Recovery

If above steps do not work, please use the following command in a terminal console, "ls /dev"”.

And then, take a screen shot photo and send the picture to us.

Hi, I've got the same issue but I could't fix it even by using the terminal as suggested by the developer.. any ideas? I'm using Sierra...

Thank you for your question. Did you try to click ignore? After that, you can run Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery, then choose "Deep Scan" to check whether the disk was detected and displayed?
To get quick reply, you can also contact us at, support@lazesoft.com. Thank you.

I tried that and the 'ScanDisk Ultra 32 GB Micro SD Card' was not detected and displayed in the 'Deep Scan > Select a drive to recover:' as you can see in the support@lazesoft.com email attachment I just sent.

Hello John,
Thank you for your reply and picture.
Please try to select the item “3 Disk 30.61 MB USB 2.0 SD MMC Reader” in the Deep Scan page, and then click “continue” to do the search. We have also replied to your email.

WordWeaver, thank you very much for your testing, feedback and suggestions. Your suggestions are helpful to help us to improve the free program.

Lazesoft Data Recovery program recommends users to close other applications when running the program to recover the lost or deleted files, because other applications maybe overwrite the lost or delete files. So, the app's window opens fullscreen.

The common read speed of USB 2.0 is 30 MB/s. For a 1 TB external drive, to read all sectors for the drive, it needs almosts 9 hours. (1000 * 1000MB / 30(MB/s) / 60s /60m = 9 hours). Lazesoft program needs a few hours to scan the 1TB USB 2.0 hard disk normally. Data and file previewing is supported while the search is being conducted for Lazesoft program. If you find that the files you want to recover have been listed, you can click <Stop> button to stop the searching and save the searched files without waiting for more time.

Lazesoft program has a power data recovery engine. It combines the following phases for <Unformat> and <Deep Scan>:
Enumerating files in the normal partition
Searching for the lost partitions
Searching for the damaged partitions
Reconstructing the damaged partitions
Analyzing the file system record fragments
Every recovery phase has its own progress bar. In Lazesoft program version 1.0, the program only shows the sub phase progress bar. So, users found that the program showed 1% to 100%, then 1% to 100% with next phase. In the version 2.0, we combine the sub phase progress to the total phase progress. The program shows the total phase progress and the current sub phase name. From your comment, it seemed that, there is a bug in showing the total phase progress. If you would like to take a screenshot and send the screenshot picture to us, support@macdatarecoveryfreeware.com, for analyzing, that would be highly appreciated.

Adobe Photoshop .psd and .png files, .pdf files, .mkv, .avi, .mp4 are supported by the freeware. However, Adobe Photoshop .psd, .png files, .pdf files, .mkv, .mp4 files are not selected by default. You have to enable them in the file type selecting page after checking <Partition Recovery using the selected file types>. We will improve this by enabling more common file types by default. We will also add file type, .dmg, in next version.

Thank you WordWeaver’s suggestions again.

PS: The following file types are supported by the version 2.0.
"AVI Multimedia file(.avi)",
"EXE/DLL file(.exe .sys .dll)"
"JEPG Digital Camera file(.jpg .jpeg)"
"Microsoft Excel Worksheet(.xls .xla .xlt)",
"Microsoft Excel Worksheet - XLSX (.xlsx)",
"Microsoft Word Document(.doc .dot .asd)",
"Microsoft Word Document - DOCX(.docx)",
"Zip compression file(.zip .jar .afz)",
"Access Database(.mdb)",
"Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation(.ppt)",
"Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation - PPTX (.pptx)",
"Open Office Document(.odt)",
"Open Office Spreadsheet(.ods)",
"Outlook Email file(.pst .pab)",
"Canon Raw graphics file(.crw)",
"Olympus RAW file(.orf)",
"TIFF Graphics file(.tif .tiff .epx .nef .arw)",
"MP3 Music file(.mp3 .mp .mp1 .mp2)",
"WAVE Multimedia file(.wav)",
"ASF,WMA,WMV Multimedia file(.wmv .asf .wma .asx)",
"AVCHD Multimedia file(.mts .m2ts .hdtv)",
"AVI Multimedia file(.avi)",
"MOV Multimedia file(Quicktime)(.mov .mp4)",
"MPEG Multimedia file(.mpg .mpeg .m1v .vro)",
"Matroska Video file(.mkv)",
"3D Studio Max(.max)",
"Adobe Indesign file(.indd)",
"Adobe Photoshot(.psd)",
"AutoCAD Drawing file(.dwg)",
"Bitmap(.bmp)",
"COREL Draw file(.cdr)",
"Encapsulated Postscript file(.eps)",
"Enhanced Metafile(.emf)",
"Freehand 10(.fh10 .fh11)",
"Fufi Camera Raw(.raf)",
"GIF graphics file(.gif)",
"ICO File(.ico)",
"JPEG 2000(.jp2)",
"JPEG Digital Camera file(.jpg .jpeg)",
"Maya 3D file(.mb)",
"Microsoft Visio Drawing(.vsd .vss .vst)",
"PaintBrush file(.pcx .scr)",
"PaintShop Pro(.psp)",
"PNG Graphics file(.png)",
"Portable Graphics Map(.ppm .pgm .pbm)",
"QuarkXPress file(.qxp .qxd .qxb .qxl .qpt)",
"Sigma X3F Raw(.x3f)",
"Windows Metafile(.wmf)",
"Diablo2 Save(.d2s)",
"Lotus 123(.wk4 .wks)",
"Microsoft OneNote file(.one)",
"Microsoft publisher Document(.pub .puz)",
"MS Works 4 Document(.wps)",
"PDF Document(.pdf .ai)",
"Rich Text Document(.rtf)",
"XML Documents(.xml .xsl .svg .xms .nib .opf .ncx)",
"7ZIP(.7z .7zip)",
"Cabinet compression file(.cab)",
"GZIP compression file(.gz .gzip)",
"ISO 9660 - CD-ROM File System(.iso .iso9660)",
"MS Backup File(.bkf)",
"RAR compression file(.rar)",
"TAR archive file(.tar)",
"3GPP Multimedia file(Quicktime)(.3gp .3g2 .3gpp .3gp2 .mp4)",
"Adaptive MultiRate Audio(.amr)",
"Audio Interchage file format(.aif .aiff)",
"Digital Speech File(.dss)",
"Finale Music file(.mus .fan)",
"Flash(.fla)",
"Fruity Loops file(.flp)",
"Ogg Vorbis/Meida(.ogg .ogm .oga .ogv .ogx)",
"Reason(.rns)",
"RealAudio file(.ra .ram .rm)",
"Sibelius Music file(.sib .lib)",
"Exchange Server Database(.edb)",
"Lotus Notes(.nsf)",
"Outlook Address file(.wab)",
"Outlook Express Email file(.dbx)",
"Outlook MSG(.msg)",
"DBase-FoxPro Batabase file(.dbf .scx .dbc)",
"FileMaker(.fp7 .fp3 .fp5 .fp8 .fp9)",
"Microsoft Money(.mny)",
"MS Works 4 Database(.wdb)",
"MS-SQL Server Database(.mdf)",
"MS-SQL Server Log(.ldf)",
"Quickbooks Backup file(.qbb)",
"Quicken QDF file(.qdf)"
"SPSS(.sav)"
"SQLite - open source SQL database engine(.sqlite .db .db2 .db3)"
"TurboTax file(.tax)"
"EXE/DLL file(.exe .sys .dll)"
"TrueType Font file(.ttf)"
"Windows Link(.lnk)"

Developer, that is an impressive list of file extensions. However, I think that part of the problem is that while you are developing this program to be used under Mac OS X, you are still THINKING like a Windows user.

In other words, you need to THINK like a Macintosh user if you are going to develop an application for Macintosh users. You can't just make it run under Mac OS X. You ALSO need to make it LOOK and FEEL like a Macintosh application. You have failed in this area. You don't even follow Apple's standard GUI guidelines.

As I already mentioned, you also need to add more MACINTOSH-SPECIFIC file extensions to the "File Type" list. You don't even have ".app" on there, which is the extension for an Apple bundled application. All Mac OS X programs use this extension.

To reiterate, make it look like a Mac app, make it feel like a Mac app, follow Apple's GUI standards, add file extensions that are Mac-specific.

The truth is that we Macintosh users are put off by Windows developers who make a halfhearted effort to conform to Apple's programming standards, so please endeavor to make your app more Macintosh user friendly.

.I hope this helps.

Developer, FYI, if you read further down on this MacUpdate page, you will discover that I am not the first person to report the progress bar bug to you. A user by the name of "Dorkypants" reported this very same problem in his comments on January 28, 2013.

In short, this is NOT a new bug. It has existed in your app for at least a year and a half now. Why haven't you made any effort to fix it yet? Again, this fact builds little confidence in your programming abilities if you ignore serious bugs that are reported to you by users here.

WordWeaver, thank you for your comments. Feedbacks of users are always vital to us. The version 2.0 is trying to solve bugs reported by users, like Dorkypants. So, the version 2.0 combines the sub phase progress to the total phase progress for solving the looping progress problem. From your comment, there is still a bug in showing the total progress bar. We will keep on trying to solve the bug.

We will also add more MACINTOSH-SPECIFIC file extensions to the "File Type" list, such as .dmg, .app.

We will improve the GUI experience of this freeware and endeavor to make this app more Macintosh user friendly. We will try to let this freeware to help more Macintosh users to solve their data loss problem.

You are welcome. I hope that my pointers help you to improve your app so that it is more Macintosh user friendly.

Regarding the File Type list, you may also want to add ".sit" which is the file extension for Stuffit Deluxe compressed files.

While Apple has been pushing ZIP compression on its users for years now, the truth of the matter is that there are still many Macintosh users who prefer to use Stuffit Deluxe to compress their files. This is because the Stuffit Deluxe compression engine compresses files much more efficiently than the ZIP compression algorithm.

Apple seems to think that because it sells machines with such huge hard drives now, that it doesn't matter if hard drive space is lost using the less efficient ZIP compression engine. However, be that as it may, as I said, for many years now, Stuffit Deluxe has been the most widely used file compression program that is used by longtime Macintosh users who care about conserving hard drive space.

So again, please consider adding both ".sit" and ".sitx" to the File Type list, as well as ".dmg", ".app" and some of the more common video formats that are played on the Mac, such as ".mkv", ".avi", ".mp4" and ".flv".

Thank you.

Hi, thank you for your comment. Firefox 31 does not directly support downloading dmg files. You can also try to right click the <Download> button, and select the <Save link as> from the popup menu.

Foulger, just wait until the page is done loading -- it may actually take a few minutes being as it is actually loading all of the data for a .dmg file -- and select "Save Page As" under Firefox's "File" menu. In the name field while saving, call the file whatever you want, but just make sure that the extension remains .dmg. Save the file to your desktop -- or wherever you please -- and you are good to go. You will then be able to double-click it just like a regular DMG file.

Lazesoft developer, I don't know what you mean with your comment that Firefox 31 does not support downloading DMG files, but this is not true; at least not on the Macintosh version of Firefox. I have been using Firefox for years. I am currently using version 31, and it downloads DMG files just fine without a problem.

WordWeaver, thank you for your comments. I think Foulger’s problem was that when Foulger clicked the <Download> button on this page using Firefox, Firefox was previewing the dmg file contents with binary format instead of downloading the dmg file. On the previewing dmg file contents page, right clicking the page and selecting <Save Page As> will also bring a download dialog. However, users need to wait a few minutes to preview dmg file after click the <Download> button using FireFox. If a user right clicks the <Download> button, and select <Save link as> to download the dmg file, he/she does not need to wait for previewing the dmg file by FireFox. WordWeaver is right, on the save file dialog, <All files> should be selected for file type (not TEXT FILE), this action will keep the file extension as .dmg.

Developer, I fully understood what Foulger was stating, because I encountered the very same problem with the DMG file being displayed as binary code in Firefox's window. In my case, as I stated earlier, I simply waited for the page to finish loading, and then I chose "Save Page As" under Firefox's "File" menu.

However, I think you are still missing the key issue here. The point is, I am not convinced that the problem is with Firefox. I have downloaded many DMG files with Firefox, and they are NOT displayed as binary code first.

Being a webmaster myself, I suspect that the REAL problem may be with y our web server configuration. I suggest that you look at your extensions lookup table in your server software. You may have the .dmg extension set up wrong. Thus, instead of pushing the file to the user for download, it is displaying it as binary in Firefox's window instead. This should NOT be happening.

I hope this helps.

WordWeaver, thank you for your suggestion. We will check our web server configuration.

WordWeaver, we have modified the web server configuration and fixed this problem. Thank you for your help.

Developer, glad to have been of help to you, but I also hope you understand that if you don;t even know how to run your own web server and needed help from me in order to get the DMG download working properly, this does not give me much confidence in your abilities.

Consider the situation from my perspective as a Macintosh user. Your program has a serious bug. It doesn't look or feel like a Macintosh app. You don't even know how to set up your web server right so that DMG files will download properly. Instead, you try to shift the blame to Mozilla and Firefox.

Maybe you should just stick to writing Windows programs. :) :D

Davort, am going to write my own review of this app once I have completed my own test, but can you please be more specific with your above comment. Right-click where, and what is there to see? Thanks, my friend.