[GDH]

Hi Mike,

"Error reading sector : <number>" is a good indication that the drive has unreadable storage sectors and has serious physical problems. The drive is on the way out, and you should get everything you can off it as soon as possible.

Yes, you can stop the "Complete Format Recover" before the drive search is finished.

In the progress window, the entry for "OS Items Found = XX" indicates a file that has been found with its full file and folder structure. Recover My Files is using a table at the start of the disk called the Master File Table to find the Operating System records (OS Items) which point to the location of each file on the disk. As soon as the OS Items number reaches a decent size number, stop the search and see what you can get back.

Because an OS item is found, it does not necessarily mean that you will sucessfully recover the file. The OS item could point to a location on the disk which has bad sectors, so the file in that location may not be able to be read.

I suggest that when you try and save files, you save only a small number of files at a time (use the SHIFT or CTRL key to select groups of files and press the SPACE BAR to turn the selection ticks on and off). If you are trying to save a file from a bad sector, the save process will slow down and you should see it reported in the event log.

After you have done the above, the other thing that you can try is to sequentially search segments of the disk. To do this, click on the OPTIONS buttons on the main program screen and in the "Advanced Tab" put a tick in the box for "Allow searching of physical drives". Now run a "Complete File Search" of the "physical drive" for specific file types. You should get prompted for the starting cluster number. You can use this to test different parts of the disk - RMF will sequentially scan from the starting location looking for the specific file types by their unique header and footer. This search will not recover the original file names (as these are stored only in the Master File Table) but you will be able to preview the files found in the search results window.

Good luck.