Corrupt or Missing Drive

A drive recovery will attempt to recover, if possible, all files on the drive with their complete file and folder structure.

Quick Start Tips

Don't panic, most deleted or missing data can be recovered;
Minimize the use of your computer until you have had the opportunity to try data recovery software;
Avoid writing any new data to the problem drive (or you may overwrite and destroy files that could otherwise have been recovered).

Try Before You Buy

Run Recover My Files in evaluation mode. If you can see your files (view the photos and read the documents) in the search results screen, then purchase an activation key to save them (you do not need to run a second search).

What is the best way to run Recover My Files?

Ensure that you install and run Recover My Files with full administrator rights. This is needed for low level disk access to recover your files.

A good methodology, if possible, is to connect the problem drive to another computer as the secondary drive. This enables you to

install Recover My Fils on the C: drive of the 'good' computer, and
use it to scan the secondary 'problem' drive to recover your files.

This methodology make it far less likely that Windows, or you, will write new data to the drive.

Of course this methodology is not always practical, as you may well have lost your files from your current C: drive and have no alternative that to continue to use Windows on this drive. Recover My Files is a small program (approximately 10mb), so installation of the software onto the problem drive, whilst not recommended, is a small risk.

If you see your files - Save Them!

It may sound silly, but when attempting to recover data, if you get to the position where you can see your missing files in the Recover My Files preview window - save them! Don't mess about trying lots of different options or ideas, or put off the saving to another day. Once the files are recovered and you have a nice secure copy of these files on another drive, then you can experiment all you want.

The "Recover a Drive" options is best used when:

a drive has been formatted;
a drive has been formatted and windows has been reinstalled;
a Windows recovery or system restore has resulted in a fresh installation of Windows and the previous user created files are missing;
a drive letter has gone missing;
the drive is recognized by your PC as RAW and not files can be read;
or some other problem has effected the entire contents of the drive.

To recover a drive, click the "Recover Drive" button then "Next" to proceed. (Note: If your data loss problem relates to the deletion of individual files, select instead try the "Files Recovery" option).

On a computer storage device, the term 'File System' is used to describe the schema by which electronic files are stored. The most common File Systems are;

Microsoft's FAT (File Allocation Table), usually used for external media and camera cards;
Microsoft's XFAT, an enhanced version of FAT for improved performance on external media and camera cards;
Microsoft NTFS (Maser File Table, [MFT]), primarily used for PC hard drives;
Apple Macintosh HPFS (High Performance File System); and
Linux EXT2/3.

A common characteristic of a File System is that they use a table on the drive to track every file on the disk. Each record in the table holds all information about a file, including its size, time and date stamps, permissions, etc., (required for file and folder name recovery), and tells the computer which storage sectors on the drive hold the file data.

This can mean that some of the files and folders on your drive display correctly, whilst others appear corrupt or missing altogether. You may also experience Windows CHKDSK attempting to fix your corrupt drive (and possibly making things worse).

A corrupt drive can be a more complex situation to recover from, as it may only partially effect your files. If you do not known the reason for the corruption, make sure you backup any remaining data of value onto another storage media, as the stability of the problem drive cannot be assured.

Attempting to recover files from a corrupt drive needs a well rounded approach. Successfully recovering missing data can usually be achieved by a combined search strategy. We suggest: