Time it takes to comlete a recovery project

[Val Dan]

Hello ****,
We are a startup group developing PC's for use in extreme work environments. During the many tests & trials our products go through, we get quite a number of Disk Drive failures, some logical and some mechanical. We are using few softwares to do recovery,and here comes my question... that I wander if any of you would answer....

Why is it that when we attempt a recovery using any one of the softwares distributed on the internet (cost between 30.00 $ - 250.00$) it'll take close to 72-100 hrs to recover a 120Gb drive, while when we do it with a so called "professinal" - it'll take up to 12 hours? Is that an issue of the softwares? the hardware used? We have strong machines in our facilities, and I do mean strong -Quad processores, 4 Gb rams, large SATA drives, Raid formations, lots of cooling, etc.
Any ideas would be appreciated.
Val

[GDH]

There are three different types of ways to recover data with data recovery software:

1. Search for a missing Master File Table (MFT) - this search basically finds a missing partiton, are reads it.

It is a very fast search (i.e. usually less than 20 minutes).


2. Search for individual records within a missing MFT - If the entire MFT cannot be found and recovered, it is possible to search for individual records within the MFT to rebuild the old file and folder structure of the drive.

This search will take between 2-3 hours to complete.


3. A sequential search of the entire drive for indiviudal files - this search looks over the drive for individual file types recognized by their header, file structure, and footer.

This can be a long search. The time taken will depend on

• the size of the drive
• whether the search is done at a cluster or sector level
• how many different file types are selected to search for at a time (the more types, the slower it is)
• if there are any bad sectors on the drive (this will slow it down as extra time is needed to try and read bad sectors)

So it depends on how the data was lost, and running the rigth thype of search with Recover My Files.

Recover My Files v4, due out later in the year, will automate the process of selecting the right type of search, so it should make this process much faster and easier.

I hope this helps.

[Val Dan]

Hello Graham, Thank you for your reply!
With no regard to the software you are distributing, I stil do not understand why the gap in time & results.... Somtimes we get the files/partitions all scrambled and mixed, and sometimes even after 100 hours there still is no real result....
Anyway - thanks,
Val