UFS Explorer Professional Recovery

Key features

Detailed product information

Who is UFS Explorer Professional Recovery intended for?

UFS Explorer Professional Recovery is designed for two primary audiences: professional data recovery technicians operating in recovery labs or service centers, and digital forensics investigators who need to access or recover data from encrypted, damaged or complex storage in a forensically sound and legally defensible manner. Both require precise control over the recovery process, comprehensive support for storage technologies and the ability to handle scenarios not covered by general-purpose tools.

At the same time, it is not the optimal choice for simple recovery tasks such as restoring deleted files from an external drive or recovering data from a basic NAS failure. Those scenarios are better suited to UFS Explorer Standard Recovery or UFS Explorer RAID Recovery. The Professional edition becomes most relevant when the case involves encrypted Linux volumes, VMware datastores, WD hardware-encrypted drives, forensic image acquisition in E01 format, SAN environments, non-standard sector drives or manual low-level analysis using parity calculation and reverse address translation.

Licensing model explained

UFS Explorer Professional Recovery is licensed under a perpetual model, meaning that the license doesn’t expire and the software can be used indefinitely. Each license includes a defined update period during which new versions are available at no additional cost. After this period ends, the software continues to function normally on the last version released within the period, while updates to newer versions require a paid renewal.

A single license covers all three supported operating systems – Windows, macOS and Linux. Unlike in the Classic family, where licenses are issued per operating system, this approach allows professionals working across multiple platforms to use the software without purchasing separate licenses.

License enforcement is based on Thales Sentinel, an industry-standard protection solution used in professional software environments. Depending on the license type, it may be implemented via a Sentinel HASP USB hardware dongle or a software-based key. This provides stronger license protection than in the Classic family and ensures that the license is bound to a validated system, preventing unrestricted copying or transfer outside of proper license management procedures.

What UFS Explorer Professional Recovery can handle: capability summary

UFS Explorer Professional Recovery is a self-contained toolkit. The following overview highlights the most prominent functions introduced in this edition, relevant when evaluating the product for specialized data recovery or digital investigation work:

• LUKS/LUKS2 – Linux full-disk encryption used on encrypted servers, workstations and NAS systems
• VeraCrypt and TrueCrypt – open-source full-disk and container encryption formats
• eCryptFS – file-level encryption used in Linux and NAS environments (Synology, QNAP, Asustor)
• WD hardware bridge chip encryption – JMS561 and other chips used in WD MyBook, MyCloud and MyPassport devices
• VMFS / VMFS6 – VMware ESX/ESXi datastore file systems; for direct access to virtual machines inside the datastore without first extracting virtual disk files
• F2FS – Flash-Friendly File System in modern Linux-based flash storage
• Microsoft Data Deduplication – Windows Server storage optimization technology for NTFS and ReFS volumes
• Apple Core Storage – Apple's legacy logical volume management technology used to create Fusion Drives and support the FileVault 2 encryption (distinct from APFS-based systems covered by the Classic family)
• Novell NWFS, NSS, NSS64 and legacy HPFS, HFS – for read access to older or legacy storage environments
• EnCase E01/Ex01 and AFF4 – forensic disk image formats with embedded hash verification, chain-of-custody metadata and integrity checking
• Non-standard sector sizes – SAS/SCSI drives using non-standard 520/524/528-byte sector formats commonly found in enterprise systems
• Hexadecimal editor – full editing capability with a data interpreter, parity calculator, XOR operations, reverse address translation
• On-demand/read-once imaging – data is written to a sparse image on first read, avoiding repeated access to degraded sectors
• Entropy map generation – produced alongside bad-sector maps during imaging
• MRT Data Explorer integration – load task files and defect maps, control MRT hardware imaging tools, including bitmap-based imaging of specific ranges and file selections
• Interactive HTML reports with file hash verification and integrity checking – suitable for documentation and verification of results in professional and forensic workflows
• Reverse RAID decomposition – breaks assembled arrays into individual components for inspection

UFS Explorer Professional Recovery vs UFS Explorer Technician

Within the Professional product family, UFS Explorer Professional Recovery and UFS Explorer Technician share the same core engine. However, the Technician edition extends it with capabilities aimed at hardware-intensive specialist scenarios: SCSI/ATA raw command interfaces, automated SAN plugin support (Dell EqualLogic, HPE MSA, HPE 3PAR, IBM DS3, NetApp E-series) for immediate access to virtual volumes, support for additional specialized file systems such as QZFS (QNAP QuTS hero), WAFL (NetApp ONTAP), AIX JFS1/JFS2 and VxFS, as well as QNAP Qtier automated tiering and secure data sanitization. It also uses a time-limited licensing model rather than a perpetual one, which contributes to its lower entry price.

For most professional data recovery workflows, including complex RAID cases, encrypted volumes, forensic imaging, deep hex analysis and a wide range of storage technologies, UFS Explorer Professional Recovery provides all the necessary tools. The Technician edition becomes indispensable specifically when automated SAN plugin access, low-level hardware control or support for additional specialized file systems is required.