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What's the next step here?


jacknimble

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So I ran the program, searching for photos. Got lots of results. Sadly, most of them it says have been overwritten. But, a lot of them it says "no overwritten clusters detected". But I still can't recover an image from these files! What's the deal? Over 700 "recovered" files and I can only see about 15 images. Why does it call them recovered then? And if they aren't overwritten, surely they must be recoverable?

 

Is there another process I need to do or should I consider sending the drive in for professional recovery? I'm a photographer, and these images are worth money to me.

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It would help if you told us what the storage device was, and what the file system is.

 

Recuva will 'recover' whatever is in the clusters allocated to the file (recovery is simply a copy of a set of clusters to another device). If these clusters are currently overwritten by another file than that's what will be recovered - the other file. If no clusters have been overwritten then the cluster contents will be copied, irrespective of whether they are a valid file or not. The clusters may have been overwritten previously, or the cluster address may be incorrect.

 

Recuva has no way to tell whether what it is copying is a valid file or not. It recovers, and it's up to the user to verify the results.

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Have you run a deep scan? You might recover more files, but if they're fragmented Recuva will only be able to find the first extent. I would expect a data recovery firm to recover as much as is possible, but nobody can recover overwritten data.

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unfortunately this is because recuva doesnt quite cut it. I have been using the program for quite a while and am dissapointed when i can see the files but cannot open them. its faster than most recovery programs, but if you arent able to use the info you recover it falls short. I realised it was a problem with recuva rather tha the cards by using another package which recovered the same files but i was able to open them all. shame the other package isnt as easy to use.

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Cards? So the HDD is the drive you recovered to, or what? Then sending that to a data recovery firm would not be a good idea.

 

If the original data was on a flash card then it is possibly FAT32? If so then FAT amends the cluster addresses on file deletion, making recovery far more difficult. Is this the setup?

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I wasnt the OP, have just experienced the same problem on numerous occasions. OP is using a HDD, i experience the same problem with SD, Micro SD, Mini etc etc its simply recuva doesnt recover the files well enough in this instance.

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Whilst you can, of course, use any application you wish, discussing products directly in competition with Piriform's products is not allowed on the forum.

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What's the specific issue? That Recuva can't recover all your deleted files? No software can guarantee to recover all deleted files, or even a single particular file. File systems are not designed to help users to recover deleted files. Of course I don't know how Recuva or any other recovery software actually works, but I would guess that they use pretty similar techniques to locate and retrieve data, they have to, there's no magic tricks.

 

I'm sure Piriform are improving all of their products over time.

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