File restoring issues

If you have recovered a file, and it appears that the file contains errors and corrupted data, try to scan the logical disk.

Most operating systems use lazy-write. So, there is a time lag between file actions and actual changes to data on a hard drive. FileRescue analyzes data on hard drives only. That is why it does not always detects recent changes in data structure.

Most operating systems constantly write their service information on hard drives. Such writing is especially intensive during start-up and shut-down procedures. When an operating system deletes a file/folder, it treats the space where it has resided as empty and may write something in this place. If this happened, the file/folder and its parameters may be detected correctly, but its data may be lost.

Folder names like 'lost_folder_43328' on NTFS partitions mean that the folder has not been found on the drive but some references to it have been. For example, folders 'My documents', 'Work', 'Photos' have been found and they all have one parent folder, whose description has not actually been found on the drive, so its name is unknown and therefore represented as 'lost_folder_43328'. Most likely the description of the folder has been overwritten.

Folder names like 'lost_folder_43328' on FAT partitions mean that some folders have been found, but they cannot be included into the folder structure for this FAT partition. Sometimes, such folders may contain other folder structures.

For best results, it is recommended that the drive containing the lost data be connected as a secondary, slave drive to a working Windows system (or to a seperate partition on a working drive, just do not save or write data to the partition with the lost data). We suggest using an external hard drive as a temporary boot device if your system supports it.