Recover MBT .. and understanding filter commands

[dragonfly]

I had a corrupted hard drive in my laptop after running Checkdsk.

Boot message was .. "Operating Systems not found" ... and OS failed to boot up

I have now successfully used RecoverMyFiles in Fast Format Recover mode to see most of my files in the hard drive removed from the laptop.

Some folders have red crosses .. folder names lost.

But I've managed to save into another disk the bulk of my files.

Now the $64,000 question is can I recover the MBT file / partition .. while retaining file names and paths .. to allow the old crashed disk to be rebooted under original Windows XP to allow me to access program files and the Environment Variables?

As I understand if I use Complete Format Recover I will lose the names and paths of files and Win XP OS will not work.

I might try a free utility TestDisk to recover MBT.


Some observations in using RecoverMyFiles

Search Window

After I completed a full file search the search window remains open.

Files found 446416
Time elapsed 11.01.58

I then started saving files into another disk .. successfully .. thanks for that.

However if I press Stop in search window window it will not close .. I am leaving it open while I complete the file recovery but I would like to know what I must do to close this next time I shut down and do another search.

I have not shut down my laptop for a few days now while the recovery is going on.


Understanding Filter Rules

After file recovery there are many files I do not want to save to another disk ..

It would be useful to "exclude" certain file types at search time .. for example *.tmp

How do I selectively select files NOT to recover?

I can't see that under Options.


If I expand "more" under filter window there are string matching commands .. how do I use these to exclude *.tmp ?

Are there any examples of use of these filter commands?

[GDH]

Hi,

Recover My Files is not designed to repair the disk. It is a data recovery program, which as you have done, allows you to search and locate files and save them to another drive.

When you are trying to recover deleted files, this is the safest way to proceed, as if you initially try and write data to the drive and 'fix' it, you run a big risk of making things worse and making data recovery more difficult.

The best search in your situation is to run a Complete Format Recover on the physical drive searching only for the default file types. There is more information about this search in the first post of this forum - how to recover a formatted drive.

The format recover options in Recover My Files find missing files by locating the Master File Table, rebuilding it (or what is left of it) and displaying the recovered list in the search results screen. When the Master File Table if found, all files in this table are found and displayed (each file on a pc has a record in the MFT). So it is not possible to exclude a specific file type from being found.

It is only possible to exclude a particular file type from being displayed, which is what the filter button does. In the bottom left hand corner of the results screen you will see whether the filter button is on or off, and how many files are currently being displayed.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what is happening with the stop button. It may help me to understand if you send a screen shot to support@getdata.com.