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Undelete files with UFS Explorer
UFS Explorer supports file undelete in Windows FAT and NTFS file systems. Unlike other file systems, FAT and NTFS are designed to minimize disk operations on file deletion, thus system just sets special flags to deleted files and removes information from any indexes instead of actual file data removal. UFS Explorer can find such files fast and allows you to recover them. Deleted files recovery is different for FAT and NTFS. For FAT file systems UFS Explorer always shows deleted files and folders on their 'old places', but adds '[Deleted]' prefix to file name. For DOS file names, first file name symbol is lost and is replaced by 'x' symbol. For NTFS file systems UFS Explorer not shows deleted files by default, but you may optionally index all deleted files. When NTFS partition is opened, you may choose 'Data Recovery: prompt undelete' from partition context menu. Alternatively, choose 'Tools -> Find deleted files' from main menu (if no current partition selected, you will be prompted for partition choice). This operation may take a while. After operation is completed, all deleted files found will be placed into ' [Deleted files]' virtual folder within root folder (this folder will be opened automatically after search is completed). UFS Explorer will try to reconstruct directory structure for deleted files; files and folders that already lost parent folders will be placed under '[Parent directory missing]' virtual folder. In all these folders you may use 'Find' feature to find actual file or browse reconstructed directories. Note: directory structure reconstruction is based on current file system state: some directories might become renamed, replaced or deleted and overwritten with some data. This means files/directories in reconstructed directory tree may have invalid parent directories or miss them. Anyway, this not affect file recovery chances. For other file systems Deleted files on other supported file systems loose their allocation information after deletion, so simple undelete is impossible. Please read the article UNDELETE FROM LINUX, UNIX, BSD: WHY NOT on UFS Explorer web site for details. However data recovery with good enough recovery rate still possible with Advanced recovery. When simple undelete is not possible on FAT/NTFS? Sometimes fast simple undelete is not possible due to file system structures re-use or file system structures unlinking. In this case fast undelete scanner is unable to detect actual data structures of deleted files so wouldn't show these deleted files. Advanced recovery engine makes full partition scan and may detect such lost structures or find the files by their 'signatures' so may help to recover even such lost information. Requirements
See also: Advanced recovey, Data Access, Help topics. |