DataMiner is a portable software program for the Windows operating system that can be used to recover data from optical media such as CD or DVD. The program will analyse the data on the disc using heuristic detection algorithms. The analysis of the data on the disc is highly influenced by the type of disc, the data and the type of error that is encountered when trying to access the data.

Dataminer will analyze the whole disc, a process that can be terminated at any point. The files that have been found up to this point are then displayed in the interface. The display is basic as it will only list the file name (if it was discovered), the size, type and offset of the file on the disc.

It is possible to extract selected files or files of a certain file extension to a local storage device. Other options include a basic search to find a specific file name and saving project related information to continue working on the project at a later time. the CD and DVD data recovery software can also create and load images of physical discs which is obviously the safer way to go as it is then possible to analyze the disc image instead of the disc itself which will reduce the chance to further damage the disc.

The data recovery software is available at the Greenfish website. It is compatible with most versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system including Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

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Well, there is actually another option that is provided by the Lazarus Form Data Recovery extension for the Firefox web browser. Lazarus saves form data as soon as it is entered by the user in its SQLite database (lazarus.sqlite in the profile folder). This makes it possible to recover the form data when vising the page the form was on again.

There are obviously some privacy concerns which are handled excellently by the software program. It is for one possible to set a period (minute, hour, day, week) in which the form data is stored. Once the time is up the form data gets erased. Another security measure is that it is possible to create a password that has to be supplied once per browsing session before form data can be restored. The form data in the database is encrypted to prevent that users with local computer access can reveal the form information there directly.

The form data recovery add-on works by right-clicking the form on the Internet website. The user can then select the Recover Text or Recover Form entry to restore the text in that form.

Lazarus works nicely in the background and can be a real life safer for users who regularly post lots of text.

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The best practice in the beginning is therefor to clean the disk properly. One could start with a quick dusting using cloth that has been ideally designed for that purpose. This wont remove fingerprints and other dirt though. To tackle those you use liquids to clean the CD. This can again be done with specialized expensive solutions or some warm water and mild soap.

Sometimes the best CD cleaning efforts do not have the desired effect. If data on the CD is unreadable so called CD data recovery tools come to use which try to recover the data from the CD.

CD Recovery Toolbox

The data recovery tool has been specifically designed for CD, DVD and HD-DVD and Blu-Ray disks. The application has been streamlined for ease of use as the recovery process can be initiated with just a few clicks. It will display the contents of the selected media giving the user the option to select specific files – or all – for recovery.

developer link

Iso Puzzle

Iso Puzzle creates an ISO image of a selected CD or DVD flagging good and bad sectors at the end of the process to give the user an overview of the situation. It will also create a file on the local disk detailing the bad sectors that could not be read. The unique solution by this software program is to utilize different CD or DVD drives to read those bad sectors as error correction differs widely among drives.

CD Check

CD Check can recover unreadable files from disks. What makes it unique is the ability to create hashes of those files at the first startup. Those hashes can be used to compare the states back then with the current state of the disk. It does come with the means to recovery unreadable files from those disks.

developer link

Copy Cat and Unstoppable Copier

Those two tools are copy software programs that try to copy files from a selected location to another one. They have been designed to use various reading techniques to copy files even from scratched or partially readable media.

developer link 1 link 2

Do you know of additional free tools to recover CDs or DVDs? Let us know in the comments.

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The data recovery software is completely portable and will display all hard drives and removable drives that are connected to the computer system after startup. The next page provides a checklist of various file types that can be recovered by DiskDigger. It is divided into the three categories photos and images, documents and Audio & Video. All files are selected by default but it is possible to uncheck file types so that the program is only scanning the hard drive for those file types.

Several popular file formats are missing in the list. The documents category for instance contains only Microsoft Office documents and the pdf format. That’s a limiting factor as it is not possible to add file types to the list.

DiskDigger will display three tabs after that selection that contain the various file formats that have been found on the selected hard drive separated into their three categories. Previews are available for some file types, mainly those located in the image category. What sets DiskDigger apart from other tools that can recover deleted files is that it acts independently of the file system. It should theoretically work with damaged partitions. Other file recovery tools might fail because of that.

Here is a list of alternative programs that can be used to recover deleted files: (all link to Ghacks)

Forensic Data Recovery Software
Smart Data Recovery Enterprise
File Recovery Undelete My Files
Data Recovery Tools Encopy
DVD Data Recovery Software
Recover Deleted Files

Got any software to recover deleted files to add? Let us know in the comments.

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Drive Look is a free forensic disk investigation tool from the developers of Drive Image XML. The forensic data recovery software is free to use and runs on many Microsoft operating systems like Windows 2000 or Windows XP but not Windows Vista. Registration data has been posted on the download page that needs to be entered into the software.

The forensic software will scan a selected hard drive, partition, logical drives, network drives or images and index all words that meet specific criteria. The user can select the minimum and maximum word length and chars during setup. There is also the possibility to specify words that should be included in the scan.

Drive Look will list all words that it has found during scan in a searchable interface in the end. It is possible to scroll through the words on the left side or enter a search term to find out if a word or phrase has been discovered in the specified location. The forensic data software will display the locations on the storage device in either Ascii or Hex mode and list the sector and offset information of each hit. It is possible to read the text that is surrounding the discovered phrase to get a better understanding.

An alternative to Drive Look is The hard drive data retrieval tool Disk Investigator which makes use of a realtime search.

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The user can perform a sector to sector analysis of the hard drive, display the raw file contents or perform a search on the selected hard drive or partition.

The default view can be switched between disk and directories view. While the disk view is displaying the hard drive data sectors the directories view is providing access to the file structure. A click on a file will open a raw file data viewer in a separate browser

So what will you find when your run a search or analyze the data on the hard drive? You will be able to discover opened urls, passwords, email contents, document contents and more. The easiest way to discover the data is by performing a search for it. You might be surprised at the wealth of information that can be discovered when running Disk Investigator.

Another possible use for this software is to make sure that a disk wipe was successful. The software program works with most versions of the Windows operating system including Windows XP but with the exception of Windows Vista.

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Why could this be important? The Windows Registry contains important information about configured devices, users, software programs, network configurations or services and drivers and it might be faster and easier to copy those settings to the new installation instead of configuring the system manually.

The data recovery program can read all Registry hives. The hives can be found in the Windows\System32\config directory and can only be loaded if they are not in use. This is usually the case if you are accessing a crashed installation from a new system,

Data can be exported into Regedit4 format which makes it easy to import it to a different system. It is also possible to save the data as CSV files to analyze them in other applications.

Windows Registry Recovery provides access to the following information:

• File Information – In this explorer you can see basic file properties and checksums.
• Security Record Explorer – Displays all security records used in registry. Usage counter, owner SID, group SID, list of affected keys and list of SACL and DACL is displayed for every record with flags and permissions enumerated. This explorer is available only for NT based system registry hives.
• SAM – Displays Machine SID and part of SYSKEY. Enumerates local user and group accounts and some of their properties. This explorer is available only for NT based system registry SAM hive.
• Windows Installation – Displays Windows name, ID and key, install date and user registration info. Enumerates installed software with descriptions and install date and list of installed hotfixes wih description. This explorer is available only SOFTWARE registry hive (Product ID and key are extracted in SYSTEM hive too).
• Control Set – Displays all configured devices that worked on host machine. They are displayed in “like Device Manager” tree with some properties. This explorer is available for SYSTEM registry hive.
• User Data – Displays user and machine name and tree based Start menu for selected USER hive. This explorer is available for USER registry hive.
• Startup Applications – Enumerates applications that are registered to be run after startup. This explorer is available for SOFTWARE registry hive.
• Services and Drivers – Enumerates all installed services and drivers with properties. This explorer is available only for NT based system registry SYSTEM hive.
• Network Configuration – Displays all installed network clients, protocols and services. Enumerates all defined network connections with its TCP/IP configuration. This explorer is available only for NT based system registry SYSTEM hive.
• Environment – Displays all environment variables. This explorer is available only for NT based system registry SYSTEM hive.
• Shell Folders – Displays shell folders (folders known to system). This explorer is available only for NT based system registry SYSTEM hive.
• Outlook Express – Digs out all Outlook Express accounts and their settings. This explorer is available only for NT based system registry USER hive.
• Raw Data – This explorer displays whole registry in known tree format. Contains powerful searching and data interpreter.

The data recovery software can be downloaded directly from the developers homepage. It is compatible with all Windows versions from Windows 95 to Windows Vista. The software program is fully portable.

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Its portability make it an excellent companion for a tool collection on an USB device. The usability of Encopy has a severe limitation. The file browser can be pointed to select exactly one file from the medium or folder. Users who rely solely on the file browser will be dissatisfied by this. It is possible to use wildcards to include multiple files in the data recovery process. To copy all executable files from hard drive d one would use the wildcard d:\*.exe to do so.

Encopy comes with a set of options that define and alter the data recovery process. It is for example possible to verify the data after, force faster copying or skip system files.

Encopy lacks the visual eye candy that many data recovery tools come with but makes this more than up by the impressive size of only 69 Kilobytes and the quality of the data recovery. It did throw a few runtime errors on a test system which could not be reproduced the next time though.

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Assuming that the initial backup completed error free the most common cause of loosing data are (partial) unreadable backups. It’s actually pretty easy to test if you have CDs or DVDs lying around that you burned several years ago. It is not uncommon that several files on those disks might be unreadable. There can be quite a few causes for this like scratches, exposure to sunlight, great heat or humidity.

One way of making sure that a DVD backup is still readable is to check it periodically with DVD data recovery software that can check file integrity on the disk and provide additional options like computing and comparing file hashes of previous tests or of files on the hard drive.

CD Check is a free for personal use CD and DVD data recovery software that can also check and compare files and directories on the disks.

The data recovery software provides four main functions that are all useful in the backup process.

• Hashing: Create hashes of files residing in a specific directory of the computer. This can be a partition, folder, CD or DVD drive. Various hash types like MD5, CRC-32 or SHA-512 are available. In addition ISO compliance can be checked.
• Check: Check a source folder for errors. Can be used in combination with a hash file to check file integrity.
• Compare: Compare two folders and define compare direction
• Recover: Data recovery that tries to recover unreadable files

The DVD data recovery software can deal with audio and data CDs, data DVDs and DVDs with media ratings. The software program comes as a portable version and an installer and is compatible with all Microsoft operating systems from Windows 95 to Windows Vista.

The download version requires a free registration at the software developer’s website to receive a free registration key to be able to use the dvd data recovery software for more than 30 days.

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Why would someone walk the extra mile and erase files that already have been deleted in Windows? The answer to that question is simple: Windows does not really delete the file, it only deletes the reference to the file which tells the system where files are located on the hard drive. It’s like loosing the address of a friend’s house. You could not point your finger on it on a map but it is still existing and calling the friend would reveal its location again.

Files can be recovered if they have not been erased properly. The age of a file plays a role in determining the chances of success. A rule of thumb is that new files have a higher chance to be recovered than files that have been deleted a while ago.

Prevent Restore was designed with ease of use in mind. The user picks a partition that he wants to erase files from, selects the type of data that should replace the deleted files and the program does all the hard work in the background. It uses several security algorithms to overwrite the deleted data on the hard drive ensuring that the data cannot be recovered with recovery software.

So how does it compare to Eraser? The user interface of Prevent Restore is not providing many options to choose from. This is less confusing but advanced computer users might miss features that Eraser offers. Eraser on the other hand comes with options that Prevent Restore does not offer. This includes the selection of the data algorithm to erase files or a scheduler that performs the operation regularly.

Eraser can also erase existing files and folders securely and it does support all Microsoft Windows operating systems from Windows 95 on while Prevent Restore is only compatible to Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Advanced users will most likely stick with Eraser while beginners might tend to work with Prevent Restore to erase files on their system.

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The software can scan remote drives for deleted files, preview those deleted files and eventually recover them. There is obviously the need for a direct connection between the client’s computer and the admin which is utilized by a TCP/IP network connection. A software is running on the client computer that initiates the connection to the admin computer. That connection can be initiated manually or automatically.

Once the connection is established the administrator can use a graphical user interface to scan the local hard drives. A filter can be configured to find only files that match the pattern.

The remote hard drive is then scanned for deleted files. Everything that gets found will be listed in an Explorer like window. The directory structure is shown in the left pane while the right pane contains the files that have been found.

Information about the files are shown as well, most notable the size of the file and an estimation about the chance of recovering the file. Another handy feature is the Wipe button that seems to remove the deleted files permanently from the hard drive. I was not able to find out which algorithm, if any, is used to do that though.

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The process is easy and straightforward. Just select one of the hard drives in the application. A click on the Scan button will start the scan for all partitions on that hard drive. Once the scan is completed it displays the working partitions with their corresponding drive letters and found partitions without a drive letter in two separate parts of the interface.

The found partitions are unmounted and can be mounted by clicking on the mount button. A drive letter is assigned to that partition and the data can be accessed normally for the time the partition is mounted.

Alternatively an image of the partition or entire hard disk can be saved and mounted later. A Windows restart will unmount the partition again.

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Testing media is time intensive and I would be doing nothing else if I would check all of my burned CDs and DVDs. Some data is more important than the other and it’s probably a good idea to concentrate on that data only and not on the backups of last year that have been replaced by hundreds of newer backups.

Media Checker is a portable application, it can be run from any location. The user has to select a directory or disk and click on Start to start the scan of the data. Files that fail the check will be shown with a red icon which makes it easy to distinguish them from the readable files.

If files are not readable anymore you could try the aforementioned Cd Recovery Toolbox or Iso Puzzle which utilizes different CD and DVD drives to recover the data.

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The Data Recovery Wizard software retails for $69.99 usually and can be compared to recovery tools like Recuva although it provides a far more sophisticated way to search for and recovery files. Supported operating systems are Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Windows Vista.

All you need to do is download the application from the Gotd website and install it today. This activates the software and you can use it.

The important question however is what the software is capable of. You can recover files with it much like Recuva does. Most devices and hard drive file systems are supported and you can even recover compressed and encrypted files in NTFS. Files can also be recovered from deleted partitions and formatted hard drives.

One of the most valuable features in my opinion is the Disk Image one. You can create a disk image of a hard drive or partition and use that to recover files afterwards. This is excellent if you want to make sure that no other sectors are overwritten during recovery or if you want to recover files on another computer. Just make sure you have a hard drive that is big enough to contain the disk image.

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Undelete Plus is a file recovery freeware that scans your hard drive for deleted files and recovers them for you. It supports the most common file systems such as fat16, fat32 and ntfs and is able to work with removable devices such as flash memory or disk drives as well. A great feature for a freeware file recovery software is the ability to work on network drives as well.

A little bit of background information why Undelete Plus is able to recover deleted files. Many users do not know that files that are deleted are not removed from the system at once. The complete file still exists on the drive but the reference to the file is deleted. File operations on those sectors make it harder to recover those files but the right tools (professional data recovery) can still detect those files.

This is one of the reasons why I would never sell my hard drives at ebay or other websites. The right equipment is able to check on my data and this is something that I do not want to risk. Even if you wipe it carefully there is the possiblity to recover files. Not with tools like Undelete Plus though.

The scan does not take this long until it is complete, on my 300 Gb hard drive it took about 20 minutes. After the scan finishes all files that can be recovered are displayed in the main window. The left window supplies some filters, you can choose that only a certain filetype is displayed for recovery, a certain folder location or a drive. (you may scan more than one drive).

Just mark the files that you want to recover and choose to keep the original folder structure of the files or move them all into a different folder. Undelete Plus found more than 60000 files that could be recovered on my drive which is a big number, I really have to think of a way to wipe them completely after a set number of days.

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Testdisk, which is a open source data recovery tool, might be the tool you need when you encounter a situation like the one described above. Testdisk will only help if the errors are software based, if you encounter a problem that is hardware based you are out of luck. Just download the version of Testdisk that is offered for your operating system and execute it. If you can’t boot the system you might want to use the gparted linux distribution instead which includes testdisk and can be booted from CD. (recommended)

Please note that you need to know what you are doing, you should have at least basic knowledge about partitions, file systems and the like to proceed using a tool like testdisk. You might erase data on other partitions otherwise. After selecting wether you would like to create a new log, append to an existing log or use no log you have to choose one of the hard drives that is currently connected to your computer.

You might want to disconnect other hard drives from your computer to avoid mistakes that could erase the data on that drives. Select a partition type afterwards, Intel/PC, Apple, None, Sun and Xbox.

After that you have many options – all of them are explained in great detail in the testdisk wiki. You may analyse the partition which displays partitions and searches for lost ones, write a test MBR, change the disk geometry, erase all data and access advanced filesystem utilities for Fat, NTFS and EXT2/EXT3 which leads to options to repair the partitions.

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All three smart pc tools are freeware and have been designed for this special purpose. Smart FAT Recovery makes it possible to recover files that have been deleted on storage devices of that type. Its similar with Smart NTFS and Smart Flash Recovery. Just scroll down on the page a little bit to reach the freeware tools.

[tags]freeware, software, recovery, undelete, delete, trashcan[/tags]

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Page loads a little bit slow but its worth the wait. I will check some of the tools out that I did not try out until now and if I find a gem review it here at ghacks.net.

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If you are like me, a program like Data Recovery might come in handy. The tool works on Fat 16, 32 and NTFS file systems, is of course free to use and can be run from an usb stick or floppy drive.

Another key feature is the ability to search for special strings that should be undeleted. Lets say you have deleted a word document called mortgage.doc and want it recovered. Enter mort into data recovery and the tool looks only for files that have mort in them.

Pretty useful if you ask me, it´s in no way a substitution for professional recovery tools but works well for the purpose it was designed for.

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