Basic File Recovery

Top  Previous  Next

NEVER TRY TO SAVE RECOVERED FILES/FOLDERS ON THE SAME LOGICAL DISK WHERE THEY RESIDE!!!

Or you may obtain unpredictable results and lose all your data.

See the Data Recovery Issues topic for details.

Basic file recovery can be made for deleted files that has resided on an existing logical disk visible by the operating system. In all other cases, Advanced Data Recovery is required.

To recover deleted files from a logical disk (recognized partition),

Double-click a logical disk on the R-Studio's Device/Disk panel to enumerate files on the disk

Other ways to enumerate files

Select the disk and click the Open Drive Files button,

or

Right-click the selected disk and select Open Drive Files on the shortcut menu,

or

Select the disk and press the F5 key.

or

Select Open Drive Files on the Drive menu

If you try to enumerate files on a hard drive or another object without a valid file system on it, a Double-click a logical disk... message will appear. Select a logical disk on the object or scan the object.

ÜR-Studio will change its panel showing the disk's folders/files structure

R-Studio analyzes MFTs on NTFS partitions, FATs on FAT partitions, and SuperBlocks on Ext2FS partitions. Then it displays all files which records have been found in the analyzed tables. Then deleted files, which records still remain, can be recovered. If files have not been found, that means that their records have been deleted. To find such files, Advanced Data Recovery is required.

Please note that R-Studio shows only those files/folders that match a specified file mask.

R-Studio Main panel

Click the panel regions to learn their functions.

Back (Select Drive)Reopen Drive FilesRecoverRecover MarkedFindFind NextFind PreviousFile MaskUpStop (Esc)Preview (Control+Q)Find Results panel

Panel view options

You may set which panels and bars to enable/disable. To enable/disable

The Toolbar

Select/clear Toolbar on the View menu

The Status bar

Select/clear Status bar on the View menu

The Folders panel

Select/clear Folders View on the View menu

The Files panel

Select/clear Contents View on the View menu

The Log panel

Select/clear Event Log on the View menu

The Find Results panel

Select/clear Find Results on the View menu

You may select how the data the will be graphically represented in the Files panel. To view the data as:

Large icons

Select Large Icons on the View menu

Small icons

Select Small Icons on the View menu

List

Select List on the View menu

Details

Select Details on the View menu

You may also arrange the data as required. On the View menu, select Arrange and them a required arrangement.

The Log panel will show how many files and folders are on the object, and their size. You may specify which events will be shown in the log pane by setting a log filter.

Note: Metafiles are the file system's internal files invisible to any user, or file system data, which R-Studio represents as files. These files do not contain user data directly. Unless you want to scrutinize a disk file system, do not restore them.

If the Too many files... message appears, you may temporally stop file listing and browse through found files. Then you can resume file listing. You also may skip this file topic and continue. R-Studio will keep information about the entire file structure.

Select a file/folder to recover

You may select several files/folders in the same parent folder by pressing the Shift button and clicking the objects simultaneously.

Marking multiple files/folders from different parent folders:

Mark a file/folder to recover by clicking the box left to the object, or select Mark on the shortcut menu. You may mark several files/folders in different parent folders. You may mark all objects in the folder by selecting Mark All on the Tools or shortcut menu. To unmark an object, click the box left to the object once more or select Unmark on the shortcut menu. You may unmark all objects in the folder by selecting Unmark All on the Tools or shortcut menu.

The Log panel will show how many files and folders you have marked, and their total size.

R-Studio can search for a particular file. Go to the Searching for a File topic for details.

File content may be previewed before recovery. Go to the Previewing Files topic for details.

If you do not find files that you want to recover:

If you do not find files that you want to recover but are sure they have existed on the logical disk, you need to use Advanced Data Recovery to find them.

ƒClick the Recover or Recover Marked button

Other ways to recover selected files

Right-click the selected file/folder and select Recover or Recover Marked on the shortcut menu,

or

Select Recover or Recover Marked on the File menu

or

Press the F2 button.
Specify recover options and output folder on the Recover dialog box and click the OK button

Recover dialog box

Recover options

Condense successful restoration events:

If this check box is selected, R-Studio recovers the folder structure in which all files to recover reside starting from the common topmost folder.

Restore folder structure:

If this check box is selected, R-Studio recovers the entire path to the selected object.

Restore from root

If this check box is selected, R-Studio recovers the entire path to the selected object starting from the root folder of the disk.

Recover metafiles

If this check box is selected, R-Studio recovers disk metafiles. Metafiles are the file system's internal files invisible to any user, or file system data, which R-Studio represents as files. These files do not contain user data directly. Unless you want to scrutinize a disk file system, do not restore them.

Ignore file mask:

If this check box is selected, R-Studio recovers all content of a selected folder, ignoring specified File Mask.

Recover alternative data streams:

If this check box is selected, R-Studio recovers alternative data streams for NTFS files. Has no effect on FAT files.

Recover security:

If this check box is selected, R-Studio recovers security attributes for NTFS files. Has no effect on FAT files.

Recover extended attributes:

If this check box is selected, R-Studio recovers extended (HPFS) file attributes.

Remove hidden attributes

If this check box is selected, R-Studio will remove the Hidden and System attributes from recovered files enabling the user to see them in the Windows Explorer.

NEVER TRY TO SAVE RECOVERED FILES/FOLDERS ON THE SAME LOGICAL DISK WHERE THEY RESIDE!!!

Or you may obtain unpredictable results and lose all your data.

If a file to be recovered appears to have an invalid name, a Broken File Name dialog box will appear. You may correct the name and resume file recovery.

Broken File Name dialog box

Broken File Name properties

File name

Shows the current incorrect file name.

New name

Field for a new file name.

Edit broken symbols only

If this check box is selected, only invalid symbols may be corrected

Change all invalid symbols to

If this check box is selected, all invalid symbols will be changed to the specified symbol

Buttons

Rename

Click to resume file recovery

Rename All

Click to resume file recovery. All other files will be renamed according to the specified rule.

Skip

Click to skip this file

Skip All

Click to skip all files and stop file recovery

ÜR-Studio will recover the selected/marked files/folders to the specified folder and show the results in the Log pane

Note: R-Studio recovers files from Ext2FS partitions, but writes it to FAT or NTFS local disks. Or you may write such files to network disks. R-Studio successfully recovers files from Ext2FS partitions except its security attributes. R-Studio recovers symlinks as files containing the path to files which symlinks point to.

Searching for a File

Previewing Files

File Masks

Regular Expressions

Event Log

Mass File Recovery