LARGE disc recovery after format

[JWSmith90291]

We accidentally quick-formatted a large LaCie drive (500 GB), and have been relatively successful in using RMF to identify that our files appear to still be intact. We read the instructions and decided to wait for a Full Disk Recovery to run, and discovered that our files appeared to be intact during the run (we could view JPEGs, PDFs etc., BUT after the scan finished (38 hours!) the program started displaying a single OK Only dialog box ("Out of Memory"). and continuously displayed it hundreds of times whenever we cleared the dialog. During this time RMF displayed a message similar to "rebuilding virtual partition."

We were unable to get RMF to complete the process. This is frustrating because it takes so long, only for it to fail at the end. HELP!!

Jay

[GDH]

Hi

What is the version number of Recover My Files that you are using?

Do you know if this is an NTFS drive?

[GDH]

In the progress bar, how many "files found" and how many "OS Items found".

Thanks

[JWSmith90291]

Graham,

There are two partititions on the drive, one FAT (small) and one NTFS (large).

The search found around 380 files, and 6135 OS items.

Hope this helps.

Also, the machine is a Dell Precisions Workstation 670, 1.5GB memory, Dual 2.8Ghz Xeon processors. Two 150GB fixed disk drives.

-Jay

[JWSmith90291]

Sorry, it's RMF v3.76
-Jay

[GDH]

Jay,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Please try this:

1. Start Recover My Files v3.76, close down the wizard screen, and then click on the OPTIONS button in the main program screen;
2. Under the SEARCH tab, change "type of filesystem to search for" to NTFS. Also limit the maximum number of partition to 1. Click OK to save these settings.
3. Click the START SEARCH button and select COMPLETE FORMAT RECOVER;
4. If you have a new drive letter then search this, otherwise search the "physical drive";
5. In the file type selection list, select only 1 file type. This needs to be a file type that you know was on the drive. Make this .bmp or .wav if you can.
6. Run this search. Again you will be able to preview files whilst the search is in progress, but this will require extra PC resources so in your case it is best to avoid it.

Please let me know the results.

[JWSmith90291]

Graham

I've started the run at 10:17am this morning using the settings that you specified. I'll let you know in about 38 hours how it goes.

As an aside, yesterday we tried running a complete format recovery, but stopped the search at about 25% progressbar once many of the files we hoped to recover had been listed. RMF then identified the FAT partition, and went through the "creating Virtual Partition 1" routine as before, but still failed with an "Out of Memory" error.

-Jay

[JWSmith90291]

Graham

The run finished successfully, after only about 9 hours!

BUT, the run seems to only have located the file type that I selected (JPEG, there are only JPG, MOV, PDF and some text files on the drive.) We know from previous run(s) that the app locates other file types if they are selected in the search options.

The run finished, and reported finding only 25 files (all of the JPEG) and a partition. My take from the help and FAQs I've read is that the app uses the search file to locate OS partition information, and then should report all files it locates on the drive, not just the types that you tell it to search for. Is that right?

In our prior searches, I selected JPEG (JFIF and EXIF), MOV, PDF, and MPG types. These all showed in the up in the recovered files list, and contributed to the 300 odd total that I reported earlier.

This run completed, but never reported finding any of these other file types.

Now I'm really confused.

-Jay

[Mr.Plus]

Hi there,





I saved data directly to dvd without making ISO file. Now, when I try to open the file or image from DVD it complains saying "The type can not be defined" or just viewing square sign in Microsoft word. The sizes of the files are the same as original.



Is there any way I can recover my data from DVDs?



Any help will be highly appreciated!


With regards


Mr.Plus

[JWSmith90291]

Reading MFT on drive G:
Starting search of Lost Files on drive G:\
Completed search of drive G:
There were 29 NTFS file system entries found.
Found a total of 29 MFT entries.
Total Counts = 100
Average Counts = 100
Sigma = 0
Found partition at 0
Number of found partitions: 1
Partition 1 starts at 0
Found 4 directory entries in partition 1
All searches completed.
A total of 46 file(s) were located.
Time Elapsed: 703.456766666667 (mins)
Search aborted.