DocMechanic

DocMechanic is a program specialized in recovering corrupt DOC files that were created with Microsoft Word.

Although it rarely happens, there are numerous ways in which these files can “break”. One way it could happen is if your computer suddenly restarts or loses power while your file is being saved on the hard disk.

This is a simple tool with a minimal interface. It doesn’t even have a settings dialog. Only the essentials are included and using the program is very straightforward: you open your file, it recovers what it can and it allows you to save the content.

After some testing, I found the following to be true: heavily and moderately damaged files cannot be recovered at all with this software and documents that are slightly “defective” are recoverable but some garbage text is also extracted (see screenshot). Also, I found that images are rarely recovered. The only situations where this application works flawlessly is when the contents of the DOC files are almost intact.

Overall, this is a recovery program of average quality. It definitely could and should be better.