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Why can't I run Recuva on a local external HDD during a Remote Session of Windows?


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Hello all,

I have encountered a unique problem. I backup all of my data/files on my personal PC to an external HDD on a daily basis. Well, recently, for some unknown reason, most of my backed-up files/data on this external HDD were deleted. As I'm sure most of you know, when it comes to an external HDD, there is no such thing as simply restoring any deleted files/data from your recycle bin. So I ran Recuva on my personal PC, which I must say is modern, powerful, and quite robust, yet at the same time I was working on my PC. I know this can cause problems due to overwriting, but since I am trying to recover from an external that I am no longer using, I figured it wouldn't hurt and as far as I know, it didn't. However, if it's still a bad idea to work on my PC while Recuva is trying to recover files from an external HDD that is not (and has not been) in use since the files/data mysteriously disappeared, please let me know.

So what's the problem? Well, Recuva always ends up freezing around 4% (without Deep Scan enabled). I cannot say for sure that this is directly related to me working on my PC at the same time because I'm really not working on my PC all that much. I lease a dedicated server that I connect to via Windows Remote Desktop Connection and that's where my attention is generally focused. Anyway, taking a break from my work to let Recuva run on my PC by itself (when I'm not even sure me using my PC at the same time is causing the problem) is not an option as my (now old) personal HDD just failed on me a couple of weeks ago and because of this I am way behind on my work. So I decided to purchase a secondary HDD to be added to the dedicated server I lease. I figured I'd create a second User account on my server (with Administrator rights, etc.) and this is just what I did.

My plan was to let Recuva run on the temporary/second user account while its session was disconnected and I could still be connected to my main Administrator account session and if Recuva would only allow me to do this, I'm 99.9% sure there would be no issues. For those of you who aren't familiar with Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard (the version I happen to be running on my server), it's nothing like the Home Editions of Windows which practically, well...suck. I'm not saying Windows Server is better than Linux (because in my humble opinion, it isn't), but that's a topic for a different day. But with Windows Server, you can have several Users all logged in and connected at once with no issues, or you can even disconnect a session and all of your programs will still function as normal while the session is disconnected just so long as you didn't actually logout of the session (or end it completely).

Okay, so let's get down to my root problem. I'm able to view my external HDD just fine within File Manager on my server, as well as two empty secondary drives (one is 1 TB, the other is 2 TB). I am running Recuva Pro, and I have never had any issues while running any Piriform products on any version of Windows Server, so that's definitely not the issue. Please have a look at the images below to see exactly what the issue is.

Below I am trying to select my external HDD as the source I need to recover my files/data from

Please notice that I am not allowed to click "OK"

Recuva_1.png

However, if I select my C, D, or F drives, I am able to click the "OK" button

Please remember drives C, D, and F are local (on my server) and Drive E is remote (from my personal PC)

Recuva_2.png

Lastly, I am also not able to create a VDI of my external

I am only able to create a VDI of the drives local to/on my server

Recuva_3.png

In conclusion, I am guessing Recuva is doing this for a reason, correct? I'm pretty sure it is, because that is the only logical explanation at this point. However, I thought I'd post regardless to see if anyone knows of a workaround...that is, if one happens to exist. If I'm lucky, what I'm trying to do is actually possible, I'm just going about it the wrong way, and that's another reason I decided to post here.

Thank you very much to all who have read through this very long post. If anyone is able to provide a solution, or even just some suggestions, I'm all ears and I would appreciate it more than you would ever know. Even if your solution/suggestion(s) involves a totally different way about doing this (sans the dedicated server or what have you), I want to hear it.

Thanks again!

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