"Raw" drive handler

[Super Fast]

I don't know if this problem has been addressed or not, but last time I used Recuva, maybe 1.36 or so, I noted that if a drive partition crashes & goes to "Raw" mode, Recuva is unable to find it, leading the user with no option to recover the files!

 

A drive can crash & revert to "RAW" mode in a number of ways.

A user can be copying/moving files from 1 drive to another, & the power goes out.

Or Windows crashes midway through the transfer (Antivirus can intercept a file using an NSIS script/false positive/block the file tranfer)

Or, the drive could "freeze" during transfer, requiring user to reboot the drive.

 

In any case, the user is presented with a drive that appears blank to Windows.

If they choose the default option to reformat the drive, their files may be gone forever. At least some of them, anyway.

 

I would really like the option to be able to recover from a drive that shows it is in "RAW" format, because most of the time, a drive really isn't in RAW format, it just had a problem that caused the partition/MFT to corrupt itself in such a way that it is no longer recognized as a normal NTFS partition.

 

I know this is possible, because I have used other data recovery utilities that have no problem whatsoever in identifying the "RAW" partition, recovering every file on it!

 

But I would much rather use Recuva than other utilities.

That has been virtually my only gripe with Recuva, is not supporting "RAW" mode recovery.

To be able to identify lost/corrupted partitions & restore.

 

While I am sure that it does work with certain cases of malfunctioning partitions, I would still love to be able to hook it up to a drive that has reverted to RAW mode (whether mine, or someone elses) & be able to see the contents of that drive & recover it.

 

I don't have any problems using Recuva once it sees a drive, but it seems it is impossible for Recuva to see a "RAW" mode drive. I am aware they have 1.40 version out now, but at the moment, I don't have a "RAW" mode drive to test it on.

 

I am sure, if you need to create one, you can use the above steps to recreate or crash a test drive & see what I mean.

 

Thank you for all your hard work, & if this has been fixed, I apologize. If not, I deeply would love to see this in a future release, as this has been bothering me for years!

[DennisD]

I believe it's something the devs may be working on, as that problem has surfaced a few times recently.