Attention! If files are recovered incorrectly or there are other problems make sure you are using the most recent software versions from a trusted source.
Attention! Do not write anything to the source disk/partition. Recover data to another disk only. It is highly recommended to recover data to another physical device. You may recover to another partition of the same device only if you are sure that the source and destination partitions don't overlap and the device has no physical problems. Do not load system or run software from the partition where lost data is located.
Before data recovery you should find and open volume. The recovery results depend on results of the volume search and which volume is opened.
To recover all found files (including lost and removed files and NTFS altstreams) you should open virtual directory [All Found + Reconstruction] in the File Panel. This is also required for auto unmarking items during group recovery.
Free Edition supports recovery of up to 4000 files from the current panel only.
Calculate the size of the data to recover. Global indicator of recovery process is working if the size is calculated. You should not calculate the size to avoid unnecessary device load on devices with bad sectors.
Save list of files selected for recovery to a file.
Recover files marked as "deleted" (see File Panel). If the option is not selected "deleted" files won't be recovered regardless the selection state.
Recover files marked as "found" (see File Panel). If the option is not checked "found" files won't be recovered regardless the selection state.
Recover NTFS alternate data streams (Alt. stream name and file name are separated by a colon, i.e. FileName:StreamName).
Save recovery report to a file. List files and directories, log file I/O errors, calculate checksums CRC32, MD5, SHA1.
Define name masks (semicolon separated) to recover matching files only. Wildcards "*" and "?" may be used. Exclusion masks may be also defined by prepending a backslash "\". Masks at the beginning have a priority. E.g. the name abc.tmp matches a*;\*.tmp and does not match \*.tmp;a*.
Filter files by size. Use 0 (zero) as a second value if you wish to set a lower limit only.
The option is set if there is Unicode support in OS, otherwise symbols outside the selected code page must be transliterated or substituted (see Locales). Unavailable in DOS.
FAT volumes do not support files greater than 4GB (or sometimes 2GB). Larger files may be split during recovery upon a request if OS properly reports (which is not always the case) or if the option Split large files is used (preferable). Later you may merge file parts on another disk by using the system utility copy /b part1 + part2 + part3 result, for example. Pure DOS supports only FAT volumes.
Without special drivers long files names are not supported under DOS. Option Substitute names allows name substitution during recovery. File LRENAME.BAT is being created in the destination folder for backward renaming. To restore original file names load OS Windows, go to the destination folder and execute the file LRENAME.BAT. An appropriate OEM code page must be selected when working in DOS in order to restore national symbols correctly. Unicode symbols outside the selected code page will be transliterated or substituted.
You may add the parameter substnamesutf8=1 or use the option utf-8 to create LRENAME.BAT in the utf-8 format fully supporting Unicode regardless the selected code page. Utf-8 format is supported in Windows 7 and higher.
In order to recover paths which are longer than 259 symbols you should manually prepend the destination directory name with a prefix \\?\, e.g.: \\?\D:\. Such long paths may be inaccessible using standard means such as Explorer ("My Computer").
During recovery there may be name duplicates if there different versions of the same file/directory are found, if the destination file system doesn't distinguish between some names whilst the source FS distinguishes, if there are already files on the destination path before recovery.
If the OS reports the file/directory exists already you are prompted to choose how to handle the duplicate. You may rename/skip the object manually or choose the "auto rename" or "skip all" options to automatically handle all subsequent objects too. It is also possible to merge directories with duplicated names.
Additionally you are asked for a threshold (maximum duplicates for the same name). When the threshold is exceeded you are asked again for a desired action. Parameters maxfilerenames= and maxdirrenames= are used as default threshold numbers.
The destination file system designates duplicates. Duplicates are not handled if name substitution is used under DOS.
Event Handler... preset recovery events handling (the coincidence of names, I/O errors, and others).