What’s wrong with using (DIY) data recovery software to recover data from an ‘unstable drive’? By unstable drive, I mean a drive that has problems delivering the data due to underlying physical problems. Physical problems that potentially get worse due to stressing the drive. Reduce stress on drive So, first goal is to reduce stress.… Read More »
When choosing the best photo recovery software it’s important to consider from what type of drive you need to recover from. To recover photos from a hard drive, in 9 out of 10 cases generic file recovery software will do better, give less fuzz and be quicker than specialized photo recovery software. In advance: SSD… Read More »
Case study, Story goes like: Accidentally deleted some pictures. Recovered them but they’re corrupted. Anyway to fix it? “I used Recuva to recover a good chunk of my pictures that were deleted but it seems that even though the file was recovered I can’t view its contents? Any program that helps with this? They were… Read More »
When Windows Disk Manager does not find partitions it will display the message “You must initialize the disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it”. In other words the hard disk, SSD or removable device is “unallocated” or not partitioned. What does this mean and how do you recover your data if you need to?… Read More »
Please note that this about older versions of Disk Drill and may not all reflect the current version! An updated review will follow soon. Update January 2025: I had another look .. In all fairness, little of criticism I had back then survives the 2025 version. Disk Drill in 2025 is a more matured product.… Read More »
The error ‘The volume does not contain a recognized file system’ CHKDSK error message, is what I’d call a ‘catch-all’ error message. It is very generic and it can have multiple causes, but in essence Windows and chkdsk have trouble determining the file system on a volume whether this is on a hard disk or… Read More »
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives means the file system type of a volume can not be determined. As a result data may be inaccessible. The error indicates file system corruption. I need my files back now! Can you just give me your best recommendation … Yep. I am truly convinced that this is the most user friendly,… Read More »
When the need arises to recover your data, it is very convenient if data recovery with original file names is possible. Also, if you can restore the entire directory structure, then that’s also a plus. Whether data recovery with original file names is possible largely depends on to two factors: State of the file system… Read More »
As the error message suggests, “The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable” this is a case of file system corruption. It may happen when you try to access a specific file or folder. It can also happen that you can not access the entire drive (D:\is not accessible – drive letter varies of course). For… Read More »
Recovering data from a SD card or any other type of memory card is essentially the same as recovering data from a regular disk. As memory cards are typically ejected and inserted on a regular basis they appear to be a tad more prone to file system corruption. If this happens the memory card file… Read More »