Most files recovered cannot be read.

[jakhall]

Hi there, after running a full recovery scan using RMF, most of the files recovered are either blank (excel, powerpoint) or in an uncoded language that I cannot get to read like plain english.
The only files that seem to still be intact are some microsoft word and powerpoint templates (resumes and marketing plans etc)

Does it mean my files cannot be returned to their 'usable' state or am I missing some part of the 'recovery process' ?

[GDH]

How were these files lost? Were they deleted or was it a drive problem? Eactly what type of search did you run?

[jakhall]

Hi and thanks for the prompt reply. I have a hard drive that was formatted (wiped out) by a collegue of mine.
It is a 12g seagate hdd.
I put it through a 'Complete Format Recover' which took nearly 2 hours.

At the end of the process, after saving the recovered files, I had 2 folders. 'Lost Files' and 'Recovered FAT Partition 1'
In the 'lost files' folder, there was an assortment of ms word, ms powerpoint, and ms excel files. The word files for instance were named as 'recovered word 1' through to 'recovered word 32' but there was one that was named 'recovered word 231' ( a big gap in numbers from 32 to 231!) and that number 231 was the only one of my word files that came through the process ok. The only other files to come through ok were the 'templates' that are associated with microsoft (resume templates, powerpoint templates etc)

In the other folder 'Recovered FAT Partition 1' there are hundreds of folders named '[DIR00483918]' (all different numbers of course) and inside them there are some unwanted files and some wanted files, but once again, any of the wanted files which are word docs appear as uncoded computer language (see attached image) and also most of the jpeg images cannot be viewed.

Hope this makes more sense to you than me!
thanks for any assistance.

[GDH]

It is an interesting result and hard to diagnose precisely.

Can you please run a new search. This time run a "Complete File Search". Search the physical drive (you will be able to tell which one it is by the drive size) and search only for the required file types, Word, JPEG etc.

As it is a small drive this search should not take to long. This search will find files based on their file structure, i.e. header & footer. The files will start with the name "Recovered...". Click on the files in the results screen to preview their content (you can even do this whilst the search is in progress).

As it is a small drive, is there any chance that it originally used compression or any sort of drive managment tool (like dobulespace - for the old timers who remember such tools!).