Advanced recovery with UFS Explorer

To recover lost or deleted infromation from any supported file system you may use Advanced recovery tool.
'Advanced recovery' is the powerful tool, combining a set of data analysis algorithms. It may allow recovering the data even from unknown or damaged file systems. Now it supports following methods of data recovery:

• File system reconstruction for damaged file systems;
• Deleted files recovery from many file systems.
• Signature-based file detection. Allows finding files by their types, using specific knowledge about file formats, specific headers and so on. In many cases allows to restore file even in case any information about file allocation and size is lost.
• Fragments detection. In case file is too fragmented to detect it by signatures, UFS Explorer can find file system-specific tables, trees and other objects that could store data allocation information of lost objects. This recovery option not always may give entire file, but if combined with signature-based search, it may give entire, consistent fragments of large fragmented files.

Additionally, UFS Explorer supports two methods of scan: optimized (free space only) and non-optimized (entire partition). Optimized scan mode detects current, existing file allocations and scans 'free space' only (data area, not taken by any of existing files). It can significantly speed-up the scan, however it's not recommended to use this mode on damaged file systems because some 'existing' files might be not accessible normally.
UFS Explorer scans entire partition in non-optimized scan mode so all data will be analysed.

To activate this tool, right click disk partition and choose 'Data Recovery: advanced scan'. UFS Explorer will show scan configuration dialog.


Specify scan parameters as following:

• Start at (sector) - relative offset from partition start to beginning of scan region. Default is 0. You may set non-zero value to scan only fragment of the partition;
• Number of sectors - size of scan region in sectors. Default is partition size. You may set lower value to scan only fragment of the partition;
• Recovery pre-set - user-friendly selection of scan configuration flags; on change it replaces scan flags values with specific to scan method. Any flag changes suppress this selection.
• Scan free space only - paramter is active for any supported file system. If set, UFS Explorer will ignore disk space used by existing files. It's NOT recommended to set this flag for damaged/unreadable file systems;
• Use user-defined signatures - in case you defined own RAW recovery signatures set this flag in order to use them by scan engine;
• Use embedded recovery logics - enables UFS Explorer to use embedded RAW recovery signatures and internal files layout detection logics without file system metadata. This method should be turned on for 'undelete' scan and could be turned off for damaged file system reconstruction to reduce result set.
• File system-specific logics and reconstruction - enables UFS Explorer to take to account file system metadata. This tool is active for subset of supported file systems. If used for with damaged or formatted file system it gives chance to recover data with full directory tree and file names. On healthy file system along with 'Scan free space only' provides fast enough advanced 'undelete' method.
• Detect lost file allocation structures - enables UFS Explorer to seach for direct/indirect file data allocation tables to find consistent file segments (available for Ext2/3, UFS).

Set up the scan paramters and press 'OK'. UFS Explorer will start requested operations. Please note that 'Scan free space only' method on damaged file system might fail. In this case UFS Explorer will suggest full scan.

In case you are trying to 'unformat' or reconstruct damaged file system it's strongly recommended to use 'File system reconstruction' pre-set without flag modifications. In case it is inactive, this could mean there are no valid file system detected or method is not supported for file system type.



Scan result

After scan is completed, UFS Explorer shows scan result as virtual sub-partition for scanned partition.


Figure 2 shows this new virtual partition for scanned SGI XFS partition. You may now navigate this new virtual partition to see any recovered files.
Unlike original partition, the scan result partition will contain not only 'original' files but also will show set of special folders. Among special folders are:

• [Detected by type] - contains files, detected with signature-based search and embedded recovery logics;
• [Duplicates] - contains file objects that are duplicated. For Windows Vista NTFS it could contain file versions;
• [Files and Fragments] - contains specific objects detected by file system metadata (usually - correctly detected file fragments);
• [Parent unknown] - contains file system files that were not classified to parent folder;
• [Scanned fragments] - contains one or more disk fragment references that were scanned.

UFS Explorer supports usual data access for this virtual file system.


Scan customization

See RAW recovery settings for details.


Backup

It's strongly recommended to backup good scan result. This will protect scan information against data loss due to software/hardware failures and could save much time for another scan. To backup scan result - right-click the virtual partition and choose 'Data Recovery: Save advanced scan result'.
You may then restore scan result later: right click original partition, choose 'Data Recovery: Load advanced scan result'.

Please note: In case scan result contains references to file system files, the original file system must be detected on scanned partition before you load scan result.


Requirements

OS:	Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista
Client Software:	UFS Explorer Standard Recovery/Professional Recovery/Business Network
File system:	ANY
File system-sepcifics for:	FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5, XFS, Ext2/3, UFS, UFS2

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See also: RAW recovery settings, Data Access, Help topics.