Good Data Recovery Program??

**WildTech** · May 18th, 2005, 01:24 PM

HI Gang

I need a good data recover program that is capable of recovering pics, documents, email, etc. It needs to have the ability to recover data from a quick formatted disk. I have a program that works well for pics but I really need one that will recover documents and email folders. I would prefer free but would be willing to pay a reasonable amount for a program that works wel l and is easy to use.

Any suggestions??

Thanks

**geeksRus** · May 18th, 2005, 01:55 PM

many of us here use pc inspector ..works great.

**WildTech** · May 18th, 2005, 02:24 PM

thanks Geek!

I normally use that one too. I'm not having much luck with documents.

The guy formatted that drive and reinstalled windows xp before I got my hands on the machine. I suspect most of his documents were written over

Thanks for the quick reply

**WildTech** · May 18th, 2005, 02:40 PM

hmmmm, that's kinda weird!!

I'm running PC Inspector for the 2nd time and now its picking up files.

Never had that happen before?!?!

**Kodiak** · May 19th, 2005, 06:41 AM

I have had this happen before also with other recovery software although once a disk has been formated a a new system installed I have not had good luck recovering much at all other then a few unwanted files.

**AlienDyne** · May 19th, 2005, 07:17 AM

Originally Posted by Kodiak

I have had this happen before also with other recovery software although once a disk has been formated a a new system installed I have not had good luck recovering much at all other then a few unwanted files.

Same here.. I have tried some of the most popular utilities, including PC Inspector. I've left it examine and analyse the drives for hours and what I got back? Blank (black) photos, corrupted zip files which couldn't be fixed and things like that.
The conclusion, is to always backup because you simply can't be sure whether you get your files back if you accidentally delete them.

**slgrieb** · May 19th, 2005, 08:34 AM

Runtime Software's Get Data Back has worked very well for me. Price is reasonable, and of course you can try before you buy. OnTrack's recovery tools are decent, but pricey compared to Get Data Back.
http://www.runtime.org/

**3fingersalute** · May 19th, 2005, 09:02 AM

Agreed, I liked GetDataBack as well. It's not very expensive at all, and is a deent program considering what it costs. The best thing about it, is that the free download will show you what it can recover, it just won't actually recover it until you pruchase and register the program.

**geeksRus** · May 19th, 2005, 10:20 AM

well the original post didnt say that the drive had been formatted AND had a OS installed. why was that done if data needed to be recovered? first thing to do is stop after the format and do a recovery.

**Shard92** · May 19th, 2005, 12:13 PM

another vote for get data back. there are two version one for fat one for ntfs. we used it to recover from a corrupted go-back partition... worked quite well. And like was said above you can have it look to see what it can see before you buy the software.

**WildTech** · May 19th, 2005, 01:52 PM

Thanks guys

I'll try the GetDataBack program. I wasn't part of the picture until after the drive had been formatted and Windows XP reinstalled it, so I don't know why they did that. Unfortunately, I'm getting the same results you are reporting. Mostly junk files and incomplete or corrupted files and folders that are completely unusable.

I am recovering some photos using PCI Smart Recovery. Unfortunatley, thats all this program recovers is photos. Is it normal for recovered data to be so large?? Some of these photos are coming back at over 5mg!!!

Thanks for all the help and comments!

**AlienDyne** · May 20th, 2005, 02:35 AM

Originally Posted by WildTech

I am recovering some photos using PCI Smart Recovery. Unfortunatley, thats all this program recovers is photos. Is it normal for recovered data to be so large?? Some of these photos are coming back at over 5mg!!!

It depends from the size of the original photos you need to recover. Assuming that the size of was a lot smaller, these files are probably corrupted. Some times even when the size is the same, the files are just blank. When you open each photo the only thing you see is a black screen.

I could be wrong, but I have noticed that photos are recovering easier and with more success on FAT rathen than on NTFS. This is from my personal experience and has not been verified yet.

**confus-ed** · May 20th, 2005, 04:00 AM

Originally Posted by AlienDyne

..I could be wrong, but I have noticed that photos are recovering easier and with more success on FAT rathen than on NTFS. This is from my personal experience and has not been verified yet.

I'm not quite sure why this topic is still getting answers, but I'll comment on this bit anyways

You'll generally always find better results when 'undeleting' on a FAT based volume than an NTFS one due to the way NTFS uses metadata (data about data for the unitiated). If you delete something on a FAT volume, all that 'really happens' is that you delete some pointer in a stack that points to the next part of a file, if you delete something in NTFS you remove pointers just the same, but they mightn't be pointing at the next file but some metadata which has its own transaction trail right through all the various files NTFS uses to keep track of every transaction on the disk. An undelete operation for FAT is a matter of recreating one entry, for that to take place in NTFS might mean recreating not only the stack entries for file pointers, but perhaps 12 or 15 relating to metadata...

To undelete on a FAT based system is programatically much simpler than that with NTFS & thus has a better chance

**AlienDyne** · May 20th, 2005, 05:31 AM

Originally Posted by confus-ed

I'm not quite sure why this topic is still getting answers, but I'll comment on this bit anyways

You'll generally always find better results when 'undeleting' on a FAT based volume than an NTFS one due to the way NTFS uses metadata (data about data for the unitiated). If you delete something on a FAT volume, all that 'really happens' is that you delete some pointer in a stack that points to the next part of a file, if you delete something in NTFS you remove pointers just the same, but they mightn't be pointing at the next file but some metadata which has its own transaction trail right through all the various files NTFS uses to keep track of every transaction on the disk. An undelete operation for FAT is a matter of recreating one entry, for that to take place in NTFS might mean recreating not only the stack entries for file pointers, but perhaps 12 or 15 relating to metadata...

To undelete on a FAT based system is programatically much simpler than that with NTFS & thus has a better chance

Thanks for sharing this information!
I forgot to tell you that all this kind of undelete utilities, run much faster on an NTFS system, than a FAT one. But as you can see, the results are not the same.

**confus-ed** · May 20th, 2005, 05:47 AM

Originally Posted by AlienDyne

Thanks for sharing this information!
I forgot to tell you that all this kind of undelete utilities, run much faster on an NTFS system, than a FAT one..

How do Mr Alien Sir, how goes it in the land of previously addicted but now only occasional posters ? While you've been absent I've sharpened my 'tech waffle' skills much ! - sooo I know why that bit goes slower too ...

NTFS uses a transactional approach to changes, whereas FAT discards them. So with NTFS you know what you've deleted as there's a transaction held for that in one of the metadata files I was waffling about before, so you can go straight & read where it ought to be but if its FAT based you have to search all of the disk looking for things that might be file pointers.