A search with Recover My Files should not take any longer than 24 hours. The main reasons the search will be longer than this are:
- Your drive has bad sectors;
- The drive you are searching has a slow connection speed - e.g. USB1 is way to slow, you must use USB2;
- You are running either a "Complete File Search" or a "Complete Format Recover" and have selected more than 10 file types.
Things you can do to speed up the search....
If you are recovering files from a drive or format related errror,
First try the "Fast Format Recover", this search will ususally take less that 20 minutes to run an may get all your files back;
If you are running a
"Complete Format Recover".....
- If you know if the lost file system was FAT or NTFS, before you run the search click on the OPTIONS button and in the SEARCH TAB chage the "type of file system to search for" to either FAT or NTFS (dont change any of the other options.
- When running a "Complete Format Recover" search only for the default selected file types. Dont add more file types to the search. You dont need to, as at the end of the search Recover My Files will rebuild the whole file system and display all files in "Folder View" of the results screen.
In your specific case, yes, you can stop the search and save the files it has found so far. Before you stop it, note down the number that the search is up to. After you have saved the files found, click on the OPTIONS button and in the ADVANCED tab put a tick in the box for "prompt for start cluster". When you run the search again, you will get asked for the starting location. Enter the number here and search the remainder of the drive.
If you think all this sounds very confusing, you will be pleased to know that when we release Version 4 of the program within the next few months, the interface will have changed and the program will automatically configure for the most appropriate search.