We've all been there. You spent two hours working on a very important project and your computer crashes! A wave of nausea overcomes you when you realize that your files have been lost. In the past, you would have to take your computer to a professional. He would keep your computer for several days before rendering a verdict on whether he was able to recover even some of your lost files.

These days recovering files is a whole different story. Not only do you not have to give up your computer for several days, but you can recover the lost files yourself. There are many data recovery software programs on the market. Some are really good and very user-friendly while others are not. SoftwareInReview looked at several data recovery programs and rated them based on ease of use, effectiveness of recovering lost files, and availability of help/support. While the focus of our review was windows software, we did note that three of the programs rated in our top ten offered other platform options. R-Studio, Disk Doctors, and Quick
 Recovery offer data recovery software for MAC and Linux as well as Windows.

Our top three picks were Digital Rescue Premium, Advanced Disk Recovery, and Recover My Files. Each program received very high marks for ease of use. Recover My Files came in third because it is a little pricier than the others and its speed of recovering files is slower.

Our fourth pick, Data Recovery Wizard, gives users the opportunity to recover drive partitions. It lost points for not providing a contact number as part of its help/support. It is also slower and more expensive than our top two picks.

Our fifth and sixth picks, Total Recall and Handy Recovery, fell short in different areas. Total Recall ranked higher than Handy Recovery because it is more effective. However, both programs lost points for help/support.

Both Windows Data Recovery and R-Studio, our seventh and eighth picks, did not fare as well as other programs we reviewed in the area of user-friendliness. R-Studio's user interface can be a little difficult to navigate. Windows Data Recovery can also be confusing, but its biggest drawback is its price.

Quick Recovery and Data Recovery Pro, our ninth and tenth picks, both offer effective recovery tools, but not much else. If you are looking for extra features, these might not be the programs for you. Their relatively low price does make them worth looking at.

Almost every program we reviewed offers a free download so you can try out the software. You are allowed to recover a limited number of files (the amount depends of the program), before having to purchase the software. These ten data recovery programs are worth looking over.