Freeware File and Password Recovery Solutions
There is a more up to date site
here.
Hard Drive Recovery
BootMaster Partition Recovery 1.1 - http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz/ and http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz/recover_boot_sector.html - "Master Boot Record ( MBR ) and partition boot sector recovery, easy to use and as safe as such a utility can be. Can restore booting and access to partitions after virus damage and computing accidents. Extensive help system. Installation requires one floppy disk."
Recover Fixed/Floppy Disk, Version 1.4 - http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/55929.shtml - recover fixed/floppy disk v1.4 ( v1.2a already 4-star rated). Directory / file level data recovery utility for hard disk drives and floppy disks. Handles two very-difficult-to-handle areas; one being damage to the file allocation table of hard disks and floppy disks; and the other being all-directories-gone condition. Recover fixed/floppy disk handles these areas at individual directory levels that can be engineered into a simple but powerful backup solution. Recovers all the files from the specified directory on 16-bit and 12-bit FAT file systems in dos and windows even if both copies of the FAT have considerable number of damaged sectors, if the disk involved had been regularly defragmented. If FAT is good, FAT1 or fat2 can be used. All you need to do is put all your important files in a few directories (note: entire drives can be zipped up and sent to the backup drive) and defrag that backup drive after each update and if you want to be playful enough, note down the first sector of file(s) or if you want 100 percent safety, save the subdirectory having your important data as a file somewhere else. If you defrag floppy/hdd regularly, you get the utmost benefit. If you don't, you can do a research on FAT file systems. Supports FAT12 file systems (floppies) from dos to windows 98 and FAT16 file systems in dos, Windows 3.1/3.11, Windows 95, and (up to 2 GB partitions in) windows 95-osr2 and windows 98 (hdd can be 10 GB or 20 GB). The documentation for version 1.2a of the program received a 5-star rating. Future versions will help the user access what the OS cannot. A future version will withstand entire directory and both FAT's gone situations. This program is certainly for those who backup because backup programs never talk about uncertainties w.r.t. FAT and directory entries. A floppy or <= 2 GB FAT16 partition needed to get started.
Data Lifeguard Diagnostics - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=3505 - This is a Windows version of the Data Lifeguard Diagnostics utility. The utility can perform drive identification, diagnostics, and repairs on a Western Digital FireWire, EIDE, or USB drive. In addition, it can provide you with the drive's serial and model numbers.
NTRecover - http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntrecover.shtml - NTRecover is an advanced Windows NT dead-system recovery utility for x86 NT installations. Using NTRecover, NT machines that fail to boot because of data corruption, improperly installed software or hardware, or faulty configuration, can be accessed and recovered using standard administrative tools, as if the machine were up and running. Using an adjacent NT-based computer connected by a serial cable, NTRecover allows an administrator to: Copy files between the non-booting system and the working NT system. Edit or delete files that may be preventing the system from booting. Run virus detection and removal programs. Repair damaged filesystem structures using chkdsk. We are offering a free trial version of NTRecover that behaves just as the retail version, except that it permits only read-access to the damaged system. This version is sufficient for salvaging data off dead NT systems, and demonstrates the ease with which files and data on a dead system can be inspected and corrected. Restoring files or repairing drives on a dead system is possible with the write-capable retail version of NTRecover.
Active NTFS Reader for DOS 1.0.2 - http://www.ntfs.com/products.htm - NTFS Reader for DOS is a freeware tool that provides read access to NTFS partitions within the MS-DOS environment. You can preview files on NTFS and copy files from NTFS to FAT volumes or network drives. Product's interface is easy-to-use. Can be run from DOS bootable floppy. These important features allow you to: save and run from bootable floppy; display complete physical and logical drive information; support IDE / ATA / SCSI drives; support large (more than 8GB) hard drives. The product features support NTFS, NTFS5 file systems for reading; support FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 file systems for data writing; support compressed and fragmented files on NTFS; support partitions created in MS-DOS, Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP; display non-English and long file names; preview file(s)/folder(s) before copying; support search by file name or mask; display content of the file in Hex/Text mode by Disk Viewer. Version 1.0.2 features minor improvements and bug fixes.
NTFSDOS - http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/NTFSDOS.shtml - If you are interested in accessing NTFS drives from Windows 95 or Windows 98, then you should use NTFS for Windows 98 rather than NTFSDOS. Full read/write access to NTFS drives from DOS is available with Winternals NTFSDOS Professional Edition. If you want to salvage files off a corrupt NTFS volume or repair an NTFS boot sector or partition table, see Winternals' Disk Commander. NTFSDOS.EXE is a read-only network file system driver for DOS/Windows that is able to recognize and mount NTFS drives for transparent access. It makes NTFS drives appear indistinguishable from standard FAT drives, providing the ability to navigate, view and execute programs on them from DOS or from Windows, including from the Windows 3.1 File Manager and Windows 95 Explorer. Different company and program from above.
NTFSDOS Professional - http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdospro.shtml - If you are interested in accessing NTFS drives from Windows 95 or Windows 98 you should use NTFS for Windows 98 rather than NTFSDOS Professional. If you want to salvage files off a corrupt NTFS volume or repair an NTFS boot sector or partition table, see Winternals' Disk Commander. NTFSDOS Professional mounts your NTFS volumes and gives them drive letters, so you can run applications and use files on NTFS volumes transparently. NTFSDOS Professional is small enough to run from a MS-DOS boot diskette so you can even access NTFS volumes on a system where Windows NT/2000/XP isn’t installed or able to boot. This makes it ideal for repairing corrupt files or configuration problems that prevent a Windows NT/2000/XP system from booting. The advantage NTFSDOS Professional has over NTFSDOS is that it relies on Microsoft's implementation of NTFS rather than our own information on the NTFS file-system layout. However, NTFSDOS is still sometimes useful for cases where you want to recover data off of a NTFS drive that Windows NT/2K no longer recognizes, because NTFSDOS is more lax about recognizing NTFS drives than the Windows NT/2K NTFS driver. NTFSDOS Professional also comes with NTFSCHK, a tool for running the Windows NT/2000/XP CHKDSK program from within MS-DOS. NTFSCHK allows you to verify and repair the NTFS disk structure in case of accidental corruption.
iRecover™ 1.0 - http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/irecover.htm - iRecover is a Windows based, read-only data recovery utility. iRecover offers FAT, FAT32 and NTFS file system support, and supports all current Microsoft Windows versions (including 2000 and XP, server and workstation). iRecover allows you to recover data from deleted, corrupt, reformatted and intact (for recovering deleted files) volumes by copying this data to any destination Windows assigns a drive letter such as additional hard disks, partitions, ZIP disks and mapped network shares. The program can be used by users of any experience level. The user is stepped through the recovery process from screen to screen. There are 2 modes of operation: Simple mode will only ask the user to select the disk and partition data should be recovered from. From there no user interaction is required until the to be recovered files can be selected from a list. The advanced mode allows the user to influence the recovery during all recovery phases though this is usually not required. Demo allows recovery of one full directory only.
DFSee - http://www.dfsee.com/dfsee.htm - Display File Systems (DFSee) is a generic partition and filesystem utility. It supports partition-tables (FDISK, LVM), (V)FAT, FAT-32, HPFS and some NTFS and JFS. DFSee is NOT free software, however a fully functional 1-month evaluation version is available without requiring immediate registration. For regular use several licence models are available, starting with a cheap single-user individual registration for just 30 euros. DFSee can be used in one of several ways: As a replacement for the classic FDISK and LVM programs. DFSee is a complete replacement for the partitioning tools as found with DOS, OS/2, Win9x and Windows-NT/2000/XP. It is also a replacement for the LVM utility that comes with eComStation, and all OS/2 versions 4.50 or newer. Only creation of 'LVM' type volumes as used with JFS and partition-spanning is not supported yet. Apart from the standard create/delete type of functions there are a lot of special commands to display information and fix all kinds of problems related to partition-tables and LVM information. A fully interactive partition-table editor is included as well (PTEdit). Finally, this FDISK capability is being used by large organizations for automatic (and unattended) roll-out scenarios. To recover from partition problems and disasters (UNFDISK). An often used function here is the DFSUNFD script that automates the collection of needed information to 'UNDO' an accidental FDISK operation or other partitioning related disaster. Another important feature is the ability to save and restore ALL partitioning information in a regular file that you can keep as a backup on a diskette so recovery operations will be MUCH easier. As a tool to copy whole disks or partitions Two main functiones are available: IMAGING Whole disks, partitions or parts of partition can be saved to an imagefile, either RAW or in a compressed format. The imagefiles can be restored to the same or a different location resulting in backup or copy functionality. CLONING Cloning can make an exact copy of (part of) a partition or disk to another area on the same or another disk. This can be used as a very fast backup facility (speeds of 30 Mb/sec are not uncommon) and to move partitions arround. These DFSee functions are comparable to programs like Norton GHOST and PowerQuest DriveImage.
As a tool to 'UNDELETE' files that have been accidentaly deleted. This feature is implemented for HPFS and NTFS only, but on those filesystems it is a very powerfull tool. It works by finding all deleted files (DELFIND), and then letting the user make a selection based on a wild-card filespecification and a recoverability outlook percentage (DELSHOW). The actual recover operation will copy the matching files to a specified directory, if possible on another disk (RECOVER). As an analysis and recovery tool for most used filesystems. This includes boot-sectors, superblocks and low-level directory structures. For most supported filesystems some specific commands are available that fix common problems with that filesystem. To support a large number of possible filesystems, DFSee uses specific modes of operation. Every mode has its own set of of dedicated commands and recognized data formats (sector types). Generic commands (and sector types) are available in all modes. On selecting a data-source (disk, partition, volume) DFSee will try to recognize the involved filesystem and activate support for it automatically. \The most important modes are: FDISK for partitioning work, default active at startup HPFS native filesystem on OS/2, eComStation, WsEB ... FAT classic PC filesystems including FAT32 and VFAT NTFS native filesystem on Windows-NT or Windows-2000 JFS journaled filesystem on OS/2, eCS or WsEB AUX Auxilary mode for unrecognized data Commands specific to a mode are available in that mode only, except for the FDISK commands that are available all the time just as all the generic commands are. As a simple but powerfull binary (or HEX) display and edit tool. DFSee can access data on hard-disks, operating-system volumes like diskettes or CDROM and (image) files.
Remote Recover - http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/remoterecover.shtml - Access unbootable systems from across a LAN or WAN. With Remote Recover you can access a dead x86 NT system's disks from a good system over a TCP/IP connection. You can then salvage data off of the drives using native NT commands and utilities. With the write-version you can even chkdsk, format or partition the dead system's drives! The read-only version is freeware.
Norton™ Zip® Rescue™ - http://www.iomega.com/software/nzr.html - NZR keeps you running! Restore failed systems in minutes with a Zip Rescue Disk and Norton™ Zip® Rescue™ software. And best of all, it's FREE, courtesy of Symantec™. Create your Zip Rescue Disk:1. Download Norton Zip Rescue. 2. Install the software. 3. Create and test your customized Zip Rescue Disk. 4. Store your Zip Rescue Disk in a safe place. Features: Disaster recovery software on a single 100MB or 250MB Zip disk. Quick and easy system recovery. Works in familiar Windows environment. Custom rescue disk maintains your unique settings.
MBRtool - http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/%7Etkuurstra/mbrtool.htm - MBRtool is a DOS program designed to backup, restore and manipulate your hard disk MBR. The MBR is by some described as the most important sector on your hard disk. If anything happens to this sector is can have consequences for booting your PC and/or for accessing data on your hard disk. MBRtool is not an automatic recovery program but will allow users to prevent data loss due to MBR corruption (by backing up the MBR), and offers power users all the power they'll ever need to 'mess' with their MBR. MBRtool is freeware.
Diskman - http://diskman.no-ip.com/ - Diskman is a suite of advanced programs designed to perform a variety of low level hard disk related tasks. Diskman is free for noncommercial use. Diskman products may be licensed for commercial use and may be fully customized to suit particular application requirements. The core Diskman library supports a variety of file system and disk manipulation commands which can be used to extract and modify information not normally available from the OS. Diskman is currently supported by MS-DOS (and its clones) and Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP. A Linux version of Diskman may be developed in the future. Diskman 4 is the latest MS-DOS compatible release: Diskman 4 is the most powerful, stable and refined release yet available: Backup and restore VFAT (Windows 9x/NT/2000) Long File Names (LFN). Archive compatible with DOSLFNBK, the leading LFN backup utility. Delete, create and manipulate disk partitions. Quickly format FAT volumes as FAT12, FAT16 or FAT32. Support for hard disks/partitions up to 2TB. Support for disk image files up to 2GB (4GB coming soon). Support for spanned image files up to 2TB. Securely erase either volumes or entire drives. Mount and manipulate disk images (such as those created for Rawrite). Export volumes or entire physical drives for later restore. Quickly copy every file into image files for easy backup and later restore. Browse FAT volumes quickly and easily. Directly edit disks at the sector level. Support for all BIOS supported disks, DOS supported drives and Image files. Help repair disks after a virus attack or rescue critical data. Backup and restore CMOS memory images, including latest 256 byte chipsets. Embryonic support for NTFS. Free for noncommercial use.
Partition Resizer - http://www.zeleps.com/ - The popular freeware partitioning program is back! The first free program to resize and move partitions without data loss, is now more complete, with support for disks up to 2TB of size. New features include: Int12 extensions support allows handling of disks up to 2TB (2048GB) of size. New Resizing/Moving engine with simpler interface. Move and resize your partitions in one step. Transparent extended partition resizing (no more confusion with extended partitions). Command line parameters for accessing advanced options (read-only operation etc.). Partition Resizer is a small DOS executable, which requires no installation, and can perform, all these tasks in a short while, giving you the opportunity to re-arrange your partitions safely, quickly and fuss-free.
Ranish Partition Manager - http://www.ranish.com/part/ - Ranish Partition Manager is a boot manager and hard disk partitioner. It gives users high level of control for running multiple operating systems, such as Windows 98/NT/XP, Linux, FreeDOS, and FreeBSD on a single disk. The latest version could create, copy, move, and resize up to 32 primary and extended partitions. There are, also, included command line interface similar to gdisk and a simulation version that works with the large files instead of messing with the real disks.
COPYMASSTER - http://www.ics-iq.com/downloads.cfm - Allows duplication of your hard drive to another slave hard drive in your computer!
Restorer2000 Free DEMO 2.0 - http://www.restorer2000.com/ - Restorer2000 Free DEMO 2.0allows you to evaluate Restorer2000 products and displays your hard drive structure with deleted files and folders. Also, with Restorer2000 Free DEMO 2.0 you can create an Image file for an entire disk, partition or its part. Then the Image file can be used like regular disk.
HDCopy - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1288 - With HDCopy you can make an identical copy of a hard drive onto another hard drive. If you buy a new hard drive and don't wish to change your Windows configuration in any way, you can use HDCopy to copy your old hard drive completely to the new one (hidden files as well).
recoverdm - http://www.vanheusden.com/recoverdm/ - This program will help you recover disks with bad sectors. You can recover files as well complete devices. In case if finds sectors which simply cannot be recovered, it writes an empty sector to the outputfile and continues. If you're recovering a CD or a DVD and the program cannot read the sector in "normal mode", then the program will try to read the sector in "RAW mode" (without error-checking etc.). Experts level program.
ds3recvr.- http://members.fortunecity.com/bigg5/frw/diagn.htm - Special requirements: DriveSpace 3 - Manually recover corrupted DriveSpace 3 drives. The "DriveSpace 3 Disaster Recovery Kit" is a toolkit for salvaging files and data from DriveSpace 3 CVFs (those .000 or .001 files) that have been corrupted beyond the ability of ScanDisk to repair. It is meant to assist someone who already has a good understanding of how data is stored on (ordinary, uncompressed) hard drives in manually recovering otherwise inaccessible compressed cluster data from within damaged CVFs, and then in piecing the recovered clusters back together into files. The kit contains a ReadMe file which explains how the programs work and how to use them, as well as explaining how drive data is organised within a DriveSpace 3 CVF. The programs themselves are command line utilities, and do not require Windows. Note that this kit is intended for DriveSpace 3. This is the version that shipped with Windows 95(b) OEM 2, with the Windows 95 PlusPak!, and with Windows 98. The programs have not been tested on earlier versions of DriveSpace, and probably would not work. Nevertheless, the information included in the kit may still be useful to someone attempting data recovery on an earlier-version CVF, and the programs could probably be modified appropriately with little effort.
Recovery 4.0 - http://www.simtel.net/product.php?id=59096 - "Recovery is a utility program providing a convenient and prompt method for restoring Registry and System files. Something, that can be very useful, should your computer fail to function properly due to faults in these files. The program has options for saving multiple copies (Images) of the Registry and System files. So snapshots can be saved of your computer set-up as it may change over time with new programs added and others deleted. Saved snapshots can be copied back to system restoring computer to a previously saved set-up. To be fully effective Recovery relies upon there being sound and reasonably up-to-date copies of the Registry and System files saved on disk. Version 4.0 is a major update and is free to private users. Business users please refer to License information."
ds3recvr.zip - http://www.simtel.net/product.php?id=7665 - "files and data from DriveSpace 3 CVFs (those .000 or .001 files) that have been corrupted beyond the ability of ScanDisk to repair. It is meant to assist someone who already has a good understanding of how data is stored on (ordinary, uncompressed) hard drives in manually recovering otherwise inaccessible compressed cluster data from within damaged CVFs, and then in piecing the recovered clusters back together into files. The kit contains a ReadMe file which explains how the programs work and how to use them, as well as explaining how drive data is organised within a DriveSpace 3 CVF. The programs themselves are command line utilities, and do not require Windows. They were written in Borland
Pascal 7.0, and the source code has been included. Note that this kit is intended for DriveSpace 3. This is the version
that shipped with Windows 95 OEM 2, with the Windows 95 PlusPak!, and with Windows 98. The programs have not been tested on earlier versions of DriveSpace, and probably would not work. Nevertheless, the information included in the kit may still be useful to someone attempting data recovery on an earlier-version CVF, and the programs could probably be modified appropriately with little effort.
novre217.zip -http://www.simtel.net/product.php?id=44347 - "Tiramisu for Novell v2.17: Data Recovery"
drs120.zip - http://www.simtel.net/product.php?id=44201 - "Data Recovery Software: Reads BAD disks"
CleanStart Floppy Disk Boot Driver (Free) - http://download.filerecovery.biz/ - CSFD.EXE not only installs the CleanStart driver on your floppy disks but is also a very capable heuristic boot virus detecter/cleaner. So what is this program all about, anyway? Read about it here.
Deleted File Recovery
Restoration - http://hccweb1.bai.ne.jp/~hcj58401/ - Restore files which are deleted from the recycle bin or deleted while holding down the Shift key by mistake. Conversely, this program has another function that makes it almost impossible to restore all deleted files. You can use it after deletion of confidential documents, embarrassing files and so on.
NTFS File Undeleter - http://download.filerecovery.biz/ - Small, simple but effective file undeleter for NTFS. DOS program, can mount NTFS volumes and extract deleted files. Run from a pure DOS prompt or a Win9X/ME DVM (does NOT run from a DVM on any version of NT). Also available on a FreeDOS formatted boot diskette, pre-configured for optimal operation.
Undeletion Wizard v1.1 Win 9x/ME - http://paradiseprogramming.tripod.com/uw.html - Undeletion Wizard is a file undeletion program for windows. It can recover (undelete) deleted files from your hard disk. Currently Undeletion Wizard supports undeletion only from fat 32 partitions. It can search your hard disk for undeletable files. Advanced Search options allows you to search deleted files by specifying their file names (whole or part) or by their extensions. Undeletion Wizard can also undelete files from deleted directories. It can scan recursively your disk's directory structure. Undeletion Wizard uses low level disk access for reading the contents of the deleted file from the file system. All disk writes are done through standard file IO functions. So Undeletion Wizard had no chance to damage your fat 32 file system. Undeletion wizard is free for non-commercial use.
PC Inspector File Recovery - http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm - PC INSPECTOR File Recovery is a data recovery program that supports the FAT 12/16/32 and NTFS file systems. Here are some of the new features in PC INSPECTOR File Recovery 3.x: Finds partitions automatically, even if the boot sector or FAT has been erased or damaged (does not work with the NTFS file system). Recovers files with the original time and date stamp. Supports the saving of recovered files on network drives. Recovers files, even when a header entry is no longer available. Competition products cannot recover such files. The Special Recovery Function supports the following disk formats: ARJ, AVI, BMP, CDR, DOC, DXF, DBF, XLS, EXE, GIF, HLP, HTML, HTM, JPG, LZH, MID, MOV, MP3, PDF, PNG, RTF, TAR, TIF, WAV, ZIP.
Disk Investigator - http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/dskinv.html - Disk Investigator helps you to discover all that is hidden on your computer hard disk. It can also help you to recover lost data. Display the true drive contents by bypassing the operating system and directly reading the raw drive sectors. View and search raw directories, files, clusters, and system sectors. Verify the effectiveness of file and disk wiping programs. Undelete previously deleted files.
Word Document Extractor - http://download.filerecovery.biz/ -For FAT file systems. Originally written as a demonstration of "lost file" recovery techniques this neat little program can recover Word document files with the original names and file times even after the directory entries are destroyed.
Coming soon: new version will work on NTFS as well as FAT file systems and recover all Office docfile types rather then just Word docs. Will at that time escalate from "free" to "cheap" (sorry, but I can't give away everything!).
Roadkil's Sectedit - http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~roadkil/ - Sector edit allows you to access the physical sectors on a hard or floppy disk. The program allows you to make changes, copy data, export/import to a file, print or even search the entire disk given information. This program can be used to repair or backup information on your drive and also see how a disk is really laid out. On Windows 9x system access is only allowed to Logical Drives which means that the hard disk partition table is not accessible, however under Windows NT/2000/XP this areas are accessible. All other areas of the disk such as the boot sector, directory tables, allocation tables are all viewable on all systems. Caution should be used when making changes, changing information directly on the disk can make the information stored on the disk unreadable.
Sector Spy - http://www.lexunfreeware.com/ - Features: Examine all data on a hard drive or diskette, at the sector level! Use SectorSpyXP/98 forensically to find and retrieve incriminating evidence! Append text information evidence to a text file. SectorSpyXP/98 will not write any information to the media, avoiding contamination! You can override this with a key. Retrieve lost information, text that has been deleted and removed from the recycle bin, like e-mails, Word documents, notepad and WordPad documents, Excel spreadsheets, database text data, and any text data that has been written to the hard drive, and not yet overwritten by the operating system! Search for a list of keywords! Navigate the sectors with the mouse or keyboard! Supports the following file systems: FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, and diskettes. SectorSpyXP/98 is 100% free. Pass it around. Link may be dead, looking for new link. Write me for a copy if you need it.
PieceCopy v1.2 - http://www.inner-smile.com/dl_piece.htm - PieceCopy is a tiny tool which will extract a portion of a specific file. You can use it to extract data of files, to cut file headers, to retrieve binary data of a specific position, to rescue parts of damaged files/disks or whatever.
R-Linux - http://www.r-tt.com/RLinux.shtml - R-Linux is a free file recovery utility for the Ext2FS file system used in the Linux OS and several Unixes. R-Linux uses InteligentScan technology and flexible parameter settings that give you real control over the fastest data recovery ever seen. It recovers files from existing logical disks even when file records are lost. However, there is no any network capabilities or ability to reconstruct damaged RAIDs or stripe sets in R-Linux. Only works for Linux.
Active@ Data Recovery Service - http://www.file-recovery.net/service-price.htm - [Only recovers files 32 KB or smaller in the Free Access version.] Active@ Data Recovery Service is designed to recover data, whether it has been accidentally erased, or if data is missing due to a virus or malfunctioning software over an Internet connection. This is the first on-line file recovery service available anywhere. Active@ Data Recovery Service will recover deleted files and folders on a user's local drive ﾖ it will even recover files from deleted or damaged partitions and drives not accessible by the operating system. The Web service operates in all Microsoft Windows environments from Windows 95 up to Windows XP with an intuitive Microsoft Explorer style interface. Complete folder and file information is displayed for all drives, allowing drag and drop operation to restore deleted data. File recovery utilities take advantage of the fact that the actions performed when emptying the Windows Recycle Bin are reversible. When a file is deleted, the operating system only changes the attribute of the space used by the file from occupied status to available. The file's information is hidden until it can be unlocked by a recovery utility. Because data will be written onto any available disk space, it is a good idea to avoid writing files to the affected drive partition to steer clear of writing over data that you wish to recover. Secure, digitally-signed ActiveX component files downloaded from Active@ Data Recovery Services are only about 350 kb in size, so chances of overwriting deleted data are minimal.
Active@ File Recovery - http://www.file-recovery.net/features.htm - [Only recovers files 32 KB or smaller in the demo version.] Active@ File Recovery is a powerful software utility, designed to restore accidentally deleted files and directories. It allows you to recover files that have been deleted from the Recycle Bin, as well as those deleted after avoiding the Recycle Bin (e.g. Shift-Delete). Active@ File Recovery can be installed on and run from a floppy disk, so that the risk of overwriting your data is minimized. Active@ File Recovery will help you to restore data residing on hard drives or floppy drives formatted in any of the following file systems: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, and NTFS5 .
FILERECOVERY for Windows - http://www.lc-tech.com/Filerecovery.htm - [Only recovers files 10 KB or smaller in the demo version.] FILERECOVERY® for Windows® is a safe and affordable do-it-yourself data recovery solution that is designed to recover deleted files from all types of media such as Hard Drives, Floppy Drives, SmartMedia, CompactFlash, Memory Sticks, and other types of removable media. FILERECOVERY® for Windows® recovers files whether they have been deleted from the command line, from within an application, Windows® Explorer, or removed from the Recycle Bin. FILERECOVERY® for Windows® will scan the drive and bring up list of files which can be saved from the scanned drive. FILERECOVERY® for Windows® is a non-destructive read-only application and will not write or make changes to the drive it is recovering from. To preserve the drive with the deleted files, all recovered files must be saved to another storage device or another drive letter in the system. DO NOT download the software to the drive that you want to recover. If you want to recover data from your system drive, download the software to another system and burn it to a CD. Then run the software on the affected system from the CD.
Deleted File Analysis Utility 2.0 - http://www.execsoft.com/freeware/freeware.asp - [Flexible utility to see what is recoverable then use one of the programs above to do the actual undeletion] Deleted File Analysis Utility allows you to scan your computer and see which files could be easily recovered from your disk - even though you may think that they are gone, because you deleted them from the recycle bin. The program allows you to select the folder or drive to scan and also to search for a specific or partial file name. Deleted File Analysis Utility does NOT undelete any files, it only shows you which ones COULD be undeleted with most data recovery tools. At the same time it promotes a popular Undelete software that could be used to recover the files if needed.
CD and DVD Data Recovery
Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier - http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~roadkil/ - This program is great for recovering files from scratched CD's or defective floppy/hard disks. Normally when your computer is unable to copy a file from a damaged disk it will abort and delete the partition of the file it has copied. This program however will continue to copy the file right to the end. Any data that is not recoverable after many retries is replaced with blanks. This will allow you to truly recover every byte of information that is available for recovery. The program allows you to specify a single file, a group using wildcards (* and ?) or if you wish, select a starting folder and the program will copy all data from it and any sub folders it may contain. This program doesn't just need to be used for copying files form defective disks, it can be used to transfer any files!
IsoBuster 1.2 CD/DVD data recovery tool - http://www.smart-projects.net/ - IsoBuster is a CD/DVD and (Disk)Image File data recovery tool, that can read and extract files, tracks and sessions from CD-i, VCD, SVCD, CD-ROM, CD-ROM XA, DVD, DVCD and others. It also supports the following image file formats: *.DAO (Duplicator), *.TAO (Duplicator), *.ISO (Nero, BlindRead, Creator), *.BIN (CDRWin), *.IMG (CloneCD), *.CIF (Creator), *.FCD (Uncompressed), *.NRG (Nero), *.GCD (Prassi), *.P01 (Toast), *.C2D (WinOnCD), *.CUE (CDRWin), *.CIF (DiscJuggler), *.CD (CD-i OptImage) and .GI (Prassi PrimoDVD). The program uses several retry-mechanisms to aid you in getting the data, even if Windows is not able to do so. Additional features include Mpg (.dat) Extraction, support for file system properties, CDText support and much more. The vast majority of the features available are free, however some advanced features like UDF support are only available in a registered version. You can choose at install time, which version to use.
CDCheck - http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/ - CDCheck is a utility for the prevention, detection and recovery of damaged files on CD-ROMs with an emphasis on error detection. With CDCheck you can check your CDs and discover which files are corrupted. By using the program proactively, you can insure that your data on CD-ROMs are safe -- before it's too late! CDCheck provides the following features: readability verification, binary compare, CRC file creation (and verification) and file recovery.
CDmage - http://cdmage.cjb.net/ - Freeware CD image handling tool. Extracts, scans for corruption, and repairs found errors in CD-ROM files on the hard drive. [Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP]
Floppy Recovery Specific
FlopShow v1.2 Win 9x/ME/ME/2K - http://paradiseprogramming.tripod.com/flopshow.html - FlopShow is a file recovery + file undelete utility for FAT - 12 partitions (floppies).Like any other recovery/undeletion utility this program also don't offer you 100 % recovery or undeletion .The recovered/undeleted files may (may not be) corrupt . This newer version of the program also has options to create floppy disk images and later to restore it. Excellent
Recover - http://paradiseprogramming.tripod.com/ - A file recovery program for floppy disks.
Fundelete - http://paradiseprogramming.tripod.com/ - A file undeletion program for floppy disks.
dsksvr10.zip - http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/15015.html - Disk Saver is designed to take trashed disks and recover as much readable data as possible. With its intuitive interface and extensive help file, recovering important reports and documents are easy. Disk Saver offers settings that advanced users can tweak, as well as several
presets.
Disktest PRO - http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/33185.html - Disktest PRO: Test, Repair Floppy Disks.
ANALYZER for RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk 0.1 - http://www.geocities.com/systechsoftware/arfd.html - "ANALYZER for RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk V0.1 FREEWARE visually reports on bad sectors in system area of floppy dIsk. You can check if Boot Sector, FAT 1, FAT 2, and ROOT FOLDER sectors are good or bad. You find how much of remaining file system can help recover files when you use RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk. While RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk (RFD) brings simplicity into data recovery, ANALYZER for RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk V0.1 gives a head start to using RFD. When first Root Folder Sector is bad, WINDOWS 98SE displayed a window with this error message:
A: is not accessible:The system cannot read from the specified device.When Boot Sector on floppy got damaged, WINDOWS 98SE displayed a window with this error message: The disk in drive A: is not formatted: Do you want to format it now? Use ANALYZER for RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk V0.1 to find out what has happened. If it is the Boot Sector or the first ROOT FOLDER sector that was damaged, you can use RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk to recover your files. Have you ever thought loss of File Allocation Table is as much as nothing to you? If you run Disk Defragmenter quite often, even if both FAT copies got damaged, it is easy to recover your files by using RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk. Must-have disk utility for all. No more groping around for locating disk surface damage in system area. If your OS says it can do nothing, it is not going to affect your decision making.
ANALYZER for RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk V0.1 eases managing damaged / corrupt floppy disks. It gives you a head start in accurately locating disk errors that unsettle the Operating System. You can figure out what system area got damaged and to what extent. This serves as a starting point for using RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk. ANALYZER for RECOVER Fixed/Floppy Disk V0.1 simplifies reporting on Boot
