Demo Software & Key

[mcrealty]

I am currently running the demo software to see if I will be able recover the photos and videos I am looking for.

I am an hour into it and mostly I have found photos from the new install of the operating system and allot the files that say 'Corrupt File Preview not available'. I understand that once the files are recovered and saved I will then be able to look at them to see if they are what I was looking for.

My main question is; once the demo software is finished (it looks as if it could take a couple of days) will I be able to input a product key and save the files or will I need to purchase the software and then run a search all over again?

[GDH]

It depends on how you lost your data as to what type of search you should run. However a search should not take more than 24 hours.

The files that take the longest to find are video and music files so this is probably what is slowing you down. If you give me some more details on how your data was lost I can tell you the best search.

The evaluation version is the full version. Once you purchae you do not have to download the program again - just enter your key into the program to activate the ability to save files.

[mcrealty]

Due to the idiots at HP they informed me I had not choice but to reformat my hard drive, this didn't work so they had me try and try again. So, I am not sure how many times the drive may have been reformatted or partially reformated at the recovery would never go past the 1% completion. Atleast until I (that's I) figured out it was a bad stick of memory not the hard drive at that point my personal stuff was gone.

Long and the short I believe I have asked the program to the most indepth search it can and as a the drive has been formatted and a new operating system put on I have choice to search the C: drive.

[GDH]

If you want to start a new search, in your situation you need to do the following:

1. Make sure you are using the latest version of Recover My Files. Click on the UPDATE button on the main program screen to check for updates, or go to www.recovermyfiles.com and download the latest.

2. Run the program and in the first wizard window select "Complete Format Recover". Click NEXT.

3. In the drive selection window, put a tick next to the drive letter - in your case it is your C: drive that has been formatted. Click NEXT.

4. In the file type selection window you will see that there are 5 or 6 file types that have been selected by default (these are .bmp, .doc, .xls, .pdf, .avi, .zip, .jpg). Just use this default selection and do not add any more file tpes to the search - you dont need to and it will just slow the search down. Start the search.

Recover My Files will search for the default selected files and display the results to you in "File View" of the results window. It finds these files by the header and footer, so they will not have the full name and they will be called "Recovered....."

RMF uses the files found in File View to identify the old file system, and then at the end of the search it will rebuild the old file system, including all files with full file and folder names and display it in Folder View of the results screen. It is impossible to tell how badly screwed around your old file system is - so you will just have to give it a try. Click on the files found in the results screen to preview the results.

You must save files to another drive. Dont move any data back to the drive until you are confident that you have recovered all possible data. Wirting data back to the dirve will overwrite and destroy deleted files.

If you do not get good results from the Format Recover option, then try the Complete File Search for specific file types.

I hope this helps.