I need a free, good, file recovery program

**jerryctx** · August 31st, 2008, 12:33 AM

The file is not truly gone until it has been overwritten several times by other data. For top secret data the government does not consider it gone until the disk is sand blasted to remove the magnetic coating, then ground to dust.

Just in case someone didn't read all of your quotation by Neil J. Rubenking

**Broni** · August 31st, 2008, 12:37 AM

We all agree on this. It was all about little unfortunate language used in quoted article.

**jerryctx** · August 31st, 2008, 12:44 AM

Sorry, Broni. I omitted the last line while I checked the source of the quotation. You're too damn fast

**Broni** · August 31st, 2008, 12:51 AM

You're too damn fast

I work out:

LOOOOOOOOOOL

**SpywareDr** · August 31st, 2008, 07:01 AM

Here's another spycam shot:

**crunchie** · August 31st, 2008, 07:48 AM

So far (including PhotoRec), all .doc files recovered bar a couple of them, look like this;

Code:

&#208;&#207; &#224;&#161;&#177; &#225;                >   &#254;&#255;	                                     &#254;&#255;&#255;&#255;        1   &#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;R o o t   E n t r y                                                 &#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;    d&#207;Pœ&#234;&#244;&#207; �nDEST               &#193;  Q:&#190; `   €       M a g i c T a b                                                     &#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;                                    !   &#251;!        O l e P r e s 0 0 0                                                       &#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;                                                  S u m m a r y I n f o r m a t i o n                           (   &#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;                                        &#221;7      &#254;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#253;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#255;&#254;&#255;&#255;&#255;

Any idea what happened?

**SpywareDr** · August 31st, 2008, 08:20 AM

Part of a .doc file overwrote part of a music file?

Let's say you had a music file that completely filled a cluster and you deleted it. A .doc file was eventually saved over the deleted music file but, it only filled 1/2 of the cluster. The .doc file was then deleted too. Your file-retrieval program was able to retrieve everything in that cluster but, it contains a portion of two entirely different files.

?

**crunchie** · August 31st, 2008, 08:30 AM

The really strange thing is that the .doc files should not have been overwritten as they were the last things to go before the pc was donated to a friend.
It may go back to my earlier question on the difference between a deletion and a file transfer.

**SpywareDr** · August 31st, 2008, 10:14 AM

No no, what I meant was the .doc file wasn't large enough to fill the entire space previously occupied by the deleted music file. In other words, only part of the music file that used to be there was overwritten by the smaller .doc file.

Then, the .doc file was deleted too.

Your recover program simply scans the hard drive looking for the 'special character' that means 'this file has been deleted'. And when it finds one, such as the one for your .doc file, it reads-in whatever's in the entire cluster, (because the directory info, such as how large the .doc file was is no longer available). As it so happens, the cluster containing your .doc file also contained part of a music file.

(If your cluster size is 4,096 bytes and you save a file that contains 2,048 bytes, the other 2,048 bytes of space in that cluster is left as is. So, if this entire cluster used to contain part of some other (but now deleted) file, the last half of that cluster, the 2,048 bytes of the original deleted file is still there, untouched).

PS - A 'cluster' is also called an 'allocation unit', as seen in CHKDSK. On the XP/NTFS system I'm currently on, the cluster size is 4,096 bytes. One byte equals a single character. There are exactly 62 characters, i.e., bytes in this sentence.

**Broni** · August 31st, 2008, 01:31 PM

Off subject....
I can see, someone else, besides me, is using Mario Brothers FF theme...

**crunchie** · December 20th, 2008, 08:12 PM

Thought I would post that the bloke who broke in to my house is safely behind bars serving 3 years for....guess what

.
It was unrelated to my break-in, but his DNA matched the DNA left at my place, so he will be serving a little longer

.

**Broni** · December 20th, 2008, 10:41 PM

Nice, nice

**SpywareDr** · December 21st, 2008, 05:53 AM

I agree, that is good news.

But, what are the odds that three years in the slammer will solve the problem?

**crunchie** · December 22nd, 2008, 04:31 AM

Might just teach him how to avoid getting caught in the future.

**jenae** · December 22nd, 2008, 05:14 AM

Hi, Mandurah, does not God live there!! Who else could afford to, Crunchie I am surprised you do not have the staff dismissed for their negligence of the masters property, poor Americans could only dream of the luxury in which you must reside, how many houses are less then 3-4 storeys in this the millionaires paradise. And the canals must be hell getting that 40M cruiser out for sundays run up to Rotto. Sorry mate I just could not resist

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