Copyright: Copyright ©   Monday, November 08, 1999 00:18:15Rognerud Research, Inc
Citation: Copyright (c) Rognerud Research, Inc


Introduction

When you delete a file from the hard disk, which is not saved in the Recycle Bin, it's not actually erased from your hard drive.  Rather, it sits on your disk, relatively intact, until the disk-section it occupies is overwritten by another file.  File Recover simply identifies files that are still intact on the hard drive, and gives you the option of recovering them - or what is left of them.

File Recover is a utility program for Windows 95/98 that will allow you to scan your disk drives - at a very low level - for any deleted files.  File Recover will help you in recovery of these deleted files, that are not protected by the standard Windows Recycle Bin, or by third-party protection bins.  If a file is recoverable but is partially overwritten, File Recover will help you recover parts of the deleted file.

File Recover scans you  hard drive within 10-60 seconds and displays files by name, location, date etc.  You can also choose to ignore temp files.  After the scan, you can choose to sort the list by date, file name, file size, or folder.  Each file is labeled in "excellent", "good" or "poor" condition, depending on the likelihood that the entire document is still intact.

To recover a file, you simply select it from the list and click the  Recover button.  You can save the newly restored file wherever you want, although it's recommended that you save it to a separate partition or floppy if you're trying to undelete several files--otherwise the newly restored file could overwrite a file you still want to undelete.

The File Recover supports batch undeleting.  You can also search for a deleted file by its full filename and by words that you think the file name may contain.  This is especially useful if you dont’t remember the whole filename.

File Recover does not recover deleted files floppies or from network devices; the program works only on any FAT16 or FAT32 hard disk formats -such as used by Windows 95/98.

Copyright © 1999 Rognerud Research, Inc..


Full Scan

The Full Scan menu-item searches for all deleted files and directories, on the selected drive.

This scan will skip files in the Recycle Bin.  Files in the Recycle Bin can be restored without running File Recover.


Selected Scan

Selected Scan searches for all deleted files with a specific text string in the file name.   Wild-cards (* etc) are not permitted.

This search also allows you to select a check-box and skip all files names with the word "tmp."


Undelete

Use this command after scanning your drive and selecting one or more files to undelete. Selecting this item will undelete those files and save to a directory anywhere on your local or network hard-disk.


Technical

Windows 95/98 uses a File Allocation Table (FAT) type file system.  This same system has been used since the early versions of DOS.  You sometimes see the Windows 95 FAT referred to as VFAT (virtual FAT) since it has the ability to store long file names.  The FAT is a lookup table that has an entry for each cluster on the disk.  Each entry points to the next cluster in the chain for the file using it.  Special cluster numbers indicate if a cluster is unused, is the last cluster in the chain, or contains bad sectors.

Until recently, all FATs used 12-bit or 16-bit cluster tables.  Drives with few clusters (mostly floppy disks) use the 12-bit FAT.  Larger drives use 16-bit FATs.  The 32-bit FAT (FAT32) drives recently introduced by the OSR2 version of Windows 95 now allow drives to have more than 65535 clusters.

With the release of Windows 95, Microsoft wanted to implement support for long file names but still remain compatible with 16-bit software.  The scheme it came out with was called VFAT for virtual FAT.  The FAT itself was not changed but the directory entries were.  Long file names are stored in 16-bit Unicode format instead of the usual 8-bit ASCII format.  When a file is erased (as opposed to being moved to the recycle bin), the operating system simply frees up the clusters in the FAT.  No data is actually erased.

Eventually, the directory entries and data clusters will get overwritten as new files are created.  To permanently erase a file so that it cannot be "unerased" by a program such as File Recover, you need to use a wiping program.


How do I undelete a file?

Step 1:  Select the drive (in the tool-bar that) you want to scan for deleted files.

Step 2:  Select the menu-item named "Full Scan", or press the icon, to the right.  File Recover will then proceed to scan the drive for all the deleted  files.  You may abort the scan by hitting any key on the keyabrd.  Any found deleted files will then be listed in the main window.

Step 3:  Click on the file(s) you wish to undelete.  You may sort the list by name, condition, file-path, date-time or file size.  You may also use cntrl-click or shift-click to select more than one file.

Step 4:  After you have selected the files you want to undelete, click on the Rescue icon to the left, or double click on the file in the list view.

Step 5:  You will be prompted to save the files in a directory location. It is strongly advised to save recovered files to another partition, floppy or network drive.

If you proceed to restore files onto the same drive as you are undeleting from, you may run the risk of unknowingly overwriting files that you are undeleting, or overwriting other deleted files that you later wish to recover.


Can File Rescue recover files that were deleted from the DOS Window?
Can File Recover undelete files that were deleted from the DOS Window??

Files deleted from the DOS window are deleted in the same manner as if deleted from the recycle bin or explorer.  File Recover will find and undelete these files.


How do I know if my file is corrupted?

After scanning the drive for deleted files, File Recover will make an estimate of the quality of the file i.e. if the file is in Excellent, Possible or Poor condition.

You may proceed to undelete a file in any condition.  However, your recovered file may contain both corrupted and uncorrupted information if parts of the original file-space has been recycled and used by hard sik file system.

With File Recover you may still be able to recover large portions of the data formerly contained in deleted files.  If in doubt about the integrity of any undeleted file, run the file against the original user-application to see if any errors are produced.

When a recovered file size is smaller than the original file, it means that part of the original file could not be recovered, and that one or more file-sections were ignored.

Note: A file size of zero means that none of the original file-content could be recovered.


Why are my files corrupted?

When you delete a file, the hard-disk file system tags the file as free space to be reused and overwritten again. Your deleted files will be partially or completely overwritten over time.

Use File Recover within a day or two after deleting a file.  There is a much less risk of total loss to use File Recover as soon as you have deleted a file.


Will File Recover undelete files from a shared drive?

If you purchase the Windows NT version of File Recover and run this on your server, you will be able to undelete files on the NT based shared drive.  (Update: at this time there is no NT version available.)

Note:  File Recover can not undelete files over a network or from a local floppy.


Technical Support

You can get technical support from:

Rognerud Research, Inc.

PO Box 26552

San Francisco

CA 94126

Email:	support@rognerud.com

Web:	http://store.yahoo.com/rognerud


FAT
file allocation table (FAT): A table that contains the status of various segments of disk space used for file storage.  Also, the file system that maintains the table.


FAT16
A disk structure and allocation system with hard drive partition sizes less than 2-GB.  DOS, Windows 3.x and earlier version of Windows 95 use the FAT16 (File Allocation Table) file system.


FAT32 Detail
FAT32

Windows 95/98 provides an updated version of the File Allocation Table file system, called FAT32. This updated file system allows for a default cluster size as small as 4K, as well as support for hard disk sizes in excess of 2 GB.

Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2 was the first operating system capable of accessing FAT32 volumes. MS-DOS and the original version of Windows 95 do not recognize FAT32 partitions, and are unable to boot from a FAT32 volume.

FAT32 provides the following enhancements over previous implementations of the FAT file system:

•	Supports drives up to 2 terabytes in size.

•	Uses space more efficiently.

FAT32 uses smaller clusters (that is, 4K clusters for drives up to 8 GB in size), resulting in 10 to 15 percent more efficient use of disk space relative to large  drives.

•	More robust.

FAT32 has the ability to relocate the root directory and use the backup copy of the FAT instead of the default copy. In addition, the boot record on FAT32 drives has been expanded to include a backup of critical data structures. This means that FAT32 drives are less susceptible to a single point of failure than existing  volumes.

•	More flexible.

The root directory on a FAT32 drive is now an ordinary cluster chain, so it can be located anywhere on the drive. For this reason, the previous limitations on the number of root directory entries no longer exist. In addition, FAT mirroring can be disabled, allowing a copy of the FAT other than the first one to be active. These features allow for dynamic resizing of FAT32 partitions. Note, however, that while the FAT32 design allows for this capability, it will not be implemented by Microsoft in the initial release.


FAT32
FAT32 is a derivative of the File Allocation Table (FAT) file system that supports drives with over 2GB of storage.  Because FAT32 drives can contain more than 65,526 clusters, smaller clusters are used than on large  drives.  This method results in more efficient space allocation on the FAT32 drive


Service Release 2
Service Release 2:  Windows 95 OEM is version 950b of Windows 95. (Windows 95 version 4.00.950B)   An OEM Service Release is an updated version of a product for PC manufacturers (OEMs) to preinstall on new PCs.  From MS Article ID: Q155003  September 22, 1997


FAT16 versus FAT32

DOS, Windows 3.x and earlier version of Windows 95 use the FAT16 (File Allocation Table) file system.  Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98 can use Microsoft's new FAT32 file system.

FAT32 allows hard drive partition sizes greater than 2-GB.  It also makes more efficient use of hard drive space than does FAT16 on partitions larger than 512-MB.

Where hard drive partition sizes range from 512-MB to 4095-MB the FAT32 system can provide a 21% to 46% reduction in estimated space waste.  FAT file system comparisons are not applicable for partition sizes less than 512-MB because smaller partitions cannot be formatted to the FAT32 system.

Windows 98 includes a utility to convert FAT16 partitions to FAT32 partitions. However, the Windows 98 utility is a one-way process.  You will not be able to convert the FAT32 partitions back to FAT16 partitions.  However, Partition Magic version 3.x can convert FAT32 to FAT16 and FAT16 to FAT32 partitions.

Once you convert your partition to FAT32, the only operating systems that will be able to read and to write to your FAT32 partitions are Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98.