I'm planning on getting in to ECU Tuning and I need suggestions for Hardware and Software. I've played around with Winols a little, I need to know what software is preferred and why as well as what hardware i'm going to need. also incase I happen to screw something up is there any recovery software or hardware that I should have on hand for those cases?

I have a 2005 BMW X3 2.0d that I want to tune first then if all goes well I would like to tune my 2009 BMW 330Xd...

Thanks!

My advice: Go to professionals.
If you just want to learn, then start with EDC15, go trough EDC16 and just after that try out the new EDC17 ecu`s

Just a thought but when I first started to learn tuning I bought a scrap car and used it as my guineau pig so to say that way if something goes wrong its just scrap anyway in saying that most things that go wrong can be sorted one way or another anyway .
I found tuning VAG 1.9 TDI a good learning curve for me software called VAGEDCSUite very easy to use and great results it's only compatible with Bosch EDC15 but that's where you ought to start anyway

Hope this helps cheers