Losing and being unable to recover important files or folders is a computer user's worst nightmare, and while Windows offers ways to help protect you, those seeking further peace of mind should consider looking elsewhere. The System Restore utility and Recycle Bin certainly give a necessary level of protection but a dedicated application like Undelete 2009 has more to offer and could well make the difference at a critical moment.

When you start the installation utility for this tool you're given a choice of either installing the software to your machine or performing an instant recovery if you have already lost files you need to get back.

This latter is a helpful option to have, since any disk activity, including copying files and installing programs, could potentially render deleted files unrecoverable at a later time. This simple utility runs directly from the installation file or CD and allows you to search for specific files or filetypes in various locations on your hard drive or connected media, basically offering a 'lite' version of the more extensive tools available after full installation.

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When everything is up and running you'll find that Undelete 2009 replaces the conventional Windows Recycle Bin with its own dedicated tool, offering such advantages as allowing you to recover files deleted without using Windows' standard methods (for example the command prompt), as well as being able to recover files across a network. You'll also find you can set up multiple recycle bins for each partition, connected storage or network drive or use a single one to manage everything.

The Undelete recycle bin uses a conventional Windows Explorer layout to allow you to browse the various folders available on different drives for recoverable files. Alternatively you can run a search on either the contents of the bin or specific areas of your hard drive to help filter results and help you find specific files.

Once you've found something to recover you can restore it to a selected location or view the file directly from the bin. Specific files and filetypes can be excluded from recovery to save disk space, which can itself be configured to either adjust dynamically according to how much space you have left on a drive or set manually to a specific size. This is an important factor to consider, since once the recycle bin is full it will periodically overwrite contents on a first-in first-out basis.

One other particularly notable feature is the version protection on offer for Microsoft Office documents. This configurable component automatically saves new versions of files to allow you to recover contents that may have been overwritten by inadvertently saving over a previous file, and can be accessed from the context-sensitive right-click menu in explorer.

Aside from file recovery the software also allows you to both securely delete files using national security level protection and wipe free space to prevent entire partitions from being recovered. This is a new feature in the latest version, which now allows you to securely delete files automatically. You'll also find a new performance technology called InvisiTasking present, which is claimed to eliminate performance overheads involved in running and maintaining an undelete utility on your system.

It would have been nice to see a dedicated tool to help you scan drives for previously deleted files from the main suite, and there are some other rather minor issues with usability, but when you consider the 'Home' edition is available for around £15 and the 'Pro' edition with server support for about £30, there doesn't seem any reason not to effectively 'upgrade' Windows' own recycle bin with this straightforward yet powerful level of additional protection.

We were pleased by how effectively Undelete 2009 protects your data when up and running, and certainly didn't notice any impact on performance. It's easy to use and offers an excellent degree of customisation and security protection.