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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : recovering deleted or lost files
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| raketenbuggy Newbie  Joined: 08/02/2014 Location: GermanyPosts: 21 |
In the light of current events and because I didn't find anything in this forum I decided to write this post. Maybe it will be helpful for someone who ecounters similar problems. If you accidently deleted or lost files there are two very nifty programs for recovery: TestDisk "TestDisk is powerful free data recovery software! It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software: certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy." (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk) This is only a short description of what the program is capable of. It can not only recover deleted partition tables but also (accidently) deleted files. At leat as long as the entry in the FAT and the concerning data area ist not overwritten. If the FAT entry is already overwritten or if the FAT is completely destroyed there's another program that is very helpful. PhotoRec "PhotoRec is file data recovery software designed to recover lost files including video, documents and archives from hard disks, CD-ROMs, and lost pictures (thus the photo Recovery name) from digital camera memory. PhotoRec ignores the file system and goes after the underlying data, so it will still work even if your media's file system has been severely damaged or reformatted." (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec) As written above, this program can not only recover jpeg-images but also some other known fileformats. BAS-files e.g. are not know directly to PhotoRec, but they are recognized as text-files and hence can be found and restored. As always there's also a limitation: If files are fragmented only the beginning can be restored. Eventually the other parts can be restored too, but PhotoRec doesn't put them together automatically. So if your filesystem is not fragmented too much chances are high that you can get at least part of your lost data back. And last but not least: TestDisk and PhotoRec are free, they are distributed under GNU General Public License. They can be downloaded here: http://www.cgsecurity.org/ Documentation (in many languages) is available here: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec I used these two programs recently after the filestem on my TFT-Maximite SD-card was demaged (see my post at Geez...Things were going so well...) . They did a great job. I got almost all files back. For the last two files I had to use a hex-editor and go through the card by hand. But I knew exactly what I was looking for, otherwise it would have been a hopeless endeavor! Michael |
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9066 |
Awesome - thanks for posting. 
I don't have a need for these programs - yet - but they would be very very useful if anything corrupted the SD card on any system. Not a guarantee, naturally, but still better then nothing at all. Nice find.  Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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TassyJim Guru  Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5914 |
I used to use "GetDataBack" https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm Still have it and hope I never need to use it again. I was always amazed that travelers would fit all their holiday snaps onto the one memory card without any backup. The look of joy when I recovered the 300+ wedding and honeymoon photos! I think I did that one for free. Others I did charge for the full time spent on the task. Jim VK7JH MMedit MMBasic Help |
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