Glary Free File Recovery Giveaway (2023 Update)

[nestork]

Glarysoft is giving away a program called "Amazing Dr. Recovery 3.1" on their web site at: 'Giveaway - Glarysoft'

The download is a .ZIP file of about 4.5 Megabytes. You unzip it to create a folder that contains a Glarysoft installation program and a ReadMe file. The Glarysoft installation program connects to the internet and installs the file recovery program on your computer. The ReadMe file will have the activation key. To activate the program, CTRL-C copy the activation code and click on the "Activate" link in the opened file recovery program. The program will ask for the activation key. CTRL-V paste the activation code in. The program will respond to tell you if the activation was successful.

I used this Amazing Dr. Recovery 3.1 on my USB drive with the corrupted FAT table, and it successfully found and recovered all of the files on that USB drive.

[The Daring Dufas]

I get all sorts of software from the Glarysoft giveaway site and I also get software from Giveaway Of The Day. I've never gotten a virus or any malware from those sites. Glarysoft also produces Glary Utilities in a free version and a paid version. There are all sorts of free software sites on The Web but these two sites are the ones I use to get commercial software that one would normally have to pay for. All sorts of software is available from them at no cost for a 24 hour period. If you miss getting some software that you would really like to have, keep an eye on the sites making sure you check them every day. ^_^

TDD

[nestork]

Thanks, I have both of those web pages bookmarked.

[nestork]

The Give Away of the Day website:

'Giveaway of the Day - free licensed software daily. Today: Aidfile Data Recovery 3.6.5.8 - Aidfile recovery software is an easy-to-use and powerful hard disk data recovery tool specialized in recovering files from corrupted partition ...'

is giving away Aid File Data Recovery 3.6.5.8 today.

You have to both download the installation program and install it.

There are two things I don't like here:

1. About the web site: This site has all kinds of other downloads offered, so you have to be careful on which link you click on to get the giveaway. Otherwise you get some freeware that wants to dump a bunch of garbage on your computer, like changing your default search engine and putting needless toolbars on your web browser. As long as you're careful on what you click on, it's OK.

1. About the AID File Data Recovery program: I don't like the fact that it doesn't give you a registration key. Once you unzip the downloaded file, there's a file with a key icon that you click on to activate the full blown version of the software. That program simply tells you that the activation was successful, but it doesn't give you an alphanumeric code that you can use in future to activate the full blown version repeatedly. So, if you ever have to format your hard drive for some reason, then the next time you install this program, you're back to the trial version, not the full blown version.

I tried using this program with a USB memory drive that I know has a corrupted file allocation table, and it found all of the files I had stored on that drive.

[nestork]

I've become disillusioned with this Glary - Giveaway site.

The problem is this: The site does not give away the installation program itself. You click on an installation icon that shows up in the downloaded files, and that installation icon downloads the program from Glary's web site onto your computer. So, if in future you have to reformat your computer's hard disk and reload your software, you've lost the programs downloaded onto your computer from the Glary site. That's because if you try to use that installation program again, it tells you that the time to install the program has expired and to return to the Glary site for new programs. And, you can't simply copy the folder the files were downloaded and paste them into your computer's C:\Program Files folder because Windows requires the program be installed properly, not just copied into the Program Files folder. If you do that, you get a message saying the program "didn't initialize properly", which basically means it needs to be reinstalled...using the installation program you don't have available to you anymore.

For someone like me, who reformats their surfing computer hard drive at least once per year, these free program giveaways are just a tease. They let you use the program long enough to evaluate it, but they don't give you the capability of re-installing it, or installing it to another computer if you have more than one. It's that inability to re-install the program if you have to reformat your hard drive that I'm most upset with.

[Mayayana]

| I've become disillusioned with this Glary - Giveaway site. | | The problem is this: | The site does not give away the installation program itself.

That's become a common problem with a lot of software. In this case, though, there may be a workaround. If you look at the source code you'll see near the top there's a link to the actual file:

I found it because the ID of the download button is "download" and there was a function "#download". There's also an autodownload function with the same link. The download is a ZIP with an installer of about

4 MB inside. (At least I assume it's the installer. I didn't run it.) You then have to go register today, though, so it's not clear whether you'll be able to save your activation code and installer for future use.

I'd also recommend IrfanView, though. It's very good and it's compact. If you can deal with the disorganized menu you can almost use it as a fullscale image editor.

Image editing is a difficult issue, I think. There are lots of options and they span a large range of functionality and sophistication. If you really want to do image editing then IrfanView is limited, but mostly just because it just doesn't have a convenient interface, like you'd get with Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. On the other hand, if all you want is batch resizing, without and sharpen, brighten, crop, etc then there are probably lots of free tools to do that.

[gfretwell]

Larry Ellison summed it up best. If you are not paying for a product, you ARE the product.

I agree this is a good way to get people to try a product but it is not really a license to own the product.

If you really like this free stuff, image your drive and you can always get it back by reloading that image if you lose a drive.

[nestork]

I haven't tried it because I don't know how to try it.

But, he11, in the final analysis I'd ideally like to have access to the installation program itself so I have the flexibility to use it when I want, to load it on different computers and to reload it when and where I want.

I'm thinking that if I image my hard drive, then I'll lose all that software if something expensive goes wrong with my computer so that I end up having to buy a new computer. I'm presuming the image of the hard disk on one computer can't be pasted onto a different hard drive in a different computer, can it?

[nestork]

I have the installation program for ImgBurn 2.5.8.0 on a USB drive.

This web page says that ImgBurn will both Create and Restore: 'Comparison of disc image software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia'

Can I use this ImgBurn program to create an image of my hard disk so that if and when I need to clobber a virus by reformatting my hard drive and reloading XP, IE6 and my bookmarks, I can just write the image file over my existing hard drive contents? Will the imaging program do that or do I have to do that myself somehow?

Can I use CD's or does it have to be an "optical" disk? (I understand "optical" disk means a DVD disk.) Can I use a USB drive?

Does it make sense to store the image of my hard drive when it's as clean as a whistle ON THAT SAME HARD DRIVE, or in a completely separate location, such as a CD or USB drive?

What I'm thinking is that if I create image disks of my business computer and my surfing computer, as long as I keep them separate and only use them in their corresponding computer, there still won't be any way from a virus to get from one computer to the other.

[Mayayana]

| I'm thinking that if I image my hard drive, then I'll lose all that | software if something expensive goes wrong with my computer so that I | end up having to buy a new computer. I'm presuming the image of the | hard disk on one computer can't be pasted onto a different hard drive in | a different computer, can it? | It can, with some caveats:

• The new computer components need to have drivers for the OS. If you buy a new computer today, the motherboard, graphics, etc would need to have drivers available for your OS. That's usually easier to do if you build yourself. A Dell XYZ will probably only have drivers available for whatever OS they put on their XYZ model, and their motherboard may be custom. On the other hand, if you build yourself you get thr drivers from the maker and they usually support everything they can.

• The motherboard drivers need to be uninstalled before imaging if you might be re-installing to a different board. Otherwise there's a good chance it won't boot. When you uininstall the drivers Windows will put in generic drivers, which will enable you to boot so that you can install the new drivers.

• If your copy of Windows is OEM licensed then it's not licensed to go on a second machine. You may not be able to activate it.

A disk image is still a good idea, though. I always create images for all machines I use, after all the software is installed. It's insurance against a failed hard disk, and if something like malware destroys the install it just takes a few minutes to re-install a fresh copy.

[gfretwell]

I have carried a drive over to another machine and I agree drivers are the main trick

Name brand manufacturers (IBM/Lenovo, Dell, HP/Compaq etc) are pretty good about having the drivers for older OS's on their web site. A new machine will ship with W/7 or 8 but I bet they will still have XP drivers. I did a lot of this when I was taking machines back to W/98 or even DOS. With drivers, you sometimes have to find another system with that chip set and get the drivers from them when you are building from recycled parts.. If you load the drivers it needs it will run. Cleaning up the unused drivers may be an issue but generally if the hardware is not there, they will not load.

Running a registry cleaner is probably not a bad idea tho.

The other issue is the hardware hash but it seems M$ is getting a little better sense of humor about XP these days. Usually if you give them a valid key, it will go through. I have been mixing and matching keys and hardware for a year or so without having to call Redmond and telling them a story. I have at least 2 running on the same key as we speak. That would not have worked in years past.

[Mayayana]

You really should read up on this. I never knew that ImgBurn could make disk images. I use it for writing CDs/DVDs. Maybe it will work, but normally you'd use something you can boot from a CD that would have more options. I use BootIt. There's also Macrium and PartImage, if you don't want to pay, and a lot of people use Acronis. (Personally, I don't think disk imaging is something to cut corners on. If your backup is not worth spending a few dollars then you probably don't need backup.)

It's also a good idea to partition: C drive doesn't need to be the whole disk, and your data doesn't need to be on C drive. It's easy to keep XP, with all software, between 1 and 3 GB. My XP images all fit onto a CD. If you just have C drive, with lots of photos, etc, and it's a total size of, say, 80 GB used, then a disk image wil probably still be 40-60 GB. You're not going to get that copied to a DVD. :) It's far better to put data on other partitions and then back that up to disks separately. I generally write a disk image to a data partition and then also copy it to CD or DVD.

But, again, this is really something you should learn about a bit before doing it. There's no sense making disk images if you're not prepared when you need them.

| I have the installation program for ImgBurn 2.5.8.0 on a USB drive. | | This web page says that ImgBurn will both Create and Restore: | 'Comparison of disc image software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia' |

|

| Can I use this ImgBurn program to create an image of my hard disk so | that if and when I need to clobber a virus by reformatting my hard drive | and reloading XP, IE6 and my bookmarks, I can just write the image file | over my existing hard drive contents? Will the imaging program do that | or do I have to do that myself somehow? | | Can I use CD's or does it have to be an "optical" disk? (I understand | "optical" disk means a DVD disk.) Can I use a USB drive? | | Does it make sense to store the image of my hard drive when it's as | clean as a whistle ON THAT SAME HARD DRIVE, or in a completely separate | location, such as a CD or USB drive? | | What I'm thinking is that if I create image disks of my business | computer and my surfing computer, as long as I keep them separate and | only use them in their corresponding computer, there still won't be any | way from a virus to get from one computer to the other. | | | | | -- | nestork

[Mayayana]

| You build an ISO image that has never been installed. Using the | original authentic install disk, Service packs, etc., include current | drivers, used software, and any possible thing you can think of. | | This is called "slipstreaming", essentially a custom ISO image file. | Burned to disk / DVD and / or bootable.. Install the OS, execute the | files in order of necessity, add programs that you own, use, etc. | Basically you are building an image of "everything you need" for a new | and clean install. | Creating a custom install disk is very different from disk imaging, and it's doubtful he could set up his software that way. With a disk image you have a copy of a partition that can be written to disk: You copy C drive to a compressed file and it can be written back -- as C drive and not just as data. It's fairly easy with the right software and it allows one to save an exact copy of the drive with everything installed and configured just as one likes.

What you're talking about is usually done as a way to add drivers and updates to an install disk. Windows then still needs to be installed and configured and set up, and all the software would still need to be installed.

[Aung pyae]

I need activation code