PROS: Quick and easy installation.
CONS: You must register this product to use it. Otherwise, you just get a demo screen.
OVERVIEW: Perfect Data Solutions PST Repair is easy to use and install. It is geared towards novice users, and is quite a bit cheaper than some of the other PST repairs out there.
Perfect Data Solutions PST Repair Review
Company: http://www.pstfilerecoverytool.com
Supported OS: Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, 7
Price: $49 (personal license), $89 (enterprise license), $169 (business license)
Overall Rating: 6 out of 10
What It Does:
PDS PST Repair is designed to scan, recover, and restore corrupted and damaged outlook files and objects from Microsoft Outlook 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2007 quickly, safely, and accurately.
Installation:
PDS PST Repair took approximately 30 seconds to automatically install.
Details:
After starting PDS PST Repair, the user is presented with the main screen. From here, the user should hit the “Browse…” button, which will automatically take them to the default directory where Microsoft Outlook PST files are typically stored. The help button at the top allows the user to read the help content, view information about PDS PST Repair, and buy a license key from Perfect Data Solutions via their website.
Here is a screenshot of the dialog box in question. From here, the user is then able to select the default Microsoft Outlook PST file or browse their hard drive if it stored elsewhere, or even if the corrupted PST file is located elsewhere.
After the PST file is selected, the user is taken back to the main screen and given the option to scan the corrupt or damaged PST file for any recoverable data. The scan button is now available at the bottom, which will allow the user to perform this task.
After the user hits the scan button, the entire process of scanning the PST file for any data that can be recovered takes about the same time as it did with Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair. After the scan is completed, the user is presented with the message box saying that the analysis has been completed.
The same amount of data, emails, contacts and general information was recovered using PDS PST Repair. Much like Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair, PDS PST Repair also prompted the user to register in order to recover and/or convert any data they needed by informing them that they are running a demo version of PDS PST Repair.
Below is a screenshot of what the user should expect when they hit the “Convert” button in an unregistered version. I also chose to select the calendar section, since it does not contain any personally identifiable data, but still shows what categories (and subsequent data) the user should expect to find.
Ease Of Use:
PDS PST Repair was an extremely easy program to use, and the interface was a lot less complex than Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair.
Summary:
The installation took almost no time at all, and the interface was a lot simpler than Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair. The interface is definitely geared towards novice users. Although both products recovered the same amount of data, their pricing schemes were much different. For those users that have trouble getting Scanpst.exe to work, I would probably recommend purchasing PDS PST Repair as a cheaper alternative to Stellar Phoenix Outlook PST Repair.
For more information on what a PST file is and some great tips on how to work with them Click Here