Active@ File Recovery documentation

Active@ File Recovery > Documentation > File Recovery Overview

Overview

What Happened to my Data?

When a file is written to a hard drive, two separate systems come into play:

  1. A record of the file is kept in the Root Table or Master File Table (MFT).
  2. Data is written to physical hard drive addresses. The physical addresses are labeled as 'occupied'. These addresses are called clusters.

When file is deleted from a hard drive, the same two systems are notified:

  1. The file record in the Root Table or MFT indicates the file has been deleted.
  2. Clusters are labeled as 'unoccupied'. The data is not removed.

In the event of an accidental file deletion we strongly recommend that you perform the recovery operation as soon as possible. If any new files are written to the same drive, there is a chance that the file-writing process may allocate data to these clusters.

Welcome to Active@ File Recovery

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 CD/DVD or USB disk, so that the risk of overwriting your data is minimized.

Active@ File Recovery will help you to restore data residing on hard drives, floppy or USB drives formatted in any of the following file systems:

It works under all Windows family operating systems:

Active@ File Recovery supports:

RAID-5 of different types is being supported:

Active@ Scan technology allows you to recognize files based on file signatures for the following file types:

Custom file signatures can be defined via user templates placed into and loaded from text files.

After you recover files by signatures, you can use Active@ File Organizer to organize them in folders with readable (non-abstract) names.

The free evaluation version has full functionality of all features with a limitation only on maximum size of the file being restored.

Active@ File Organizer

The file organizer functions allow you to create folders based on information contained inside the file and outside the file system it is stored in, and move / copy the file to these folders. This is useful when you detected and recovered files by signatures, but recovered files have abstract names. The file organizer program is primarily used to open files of a chosen extension, look at data contained within that file, create a folder structure that matches the data contained within the file and move / copy the file to that folder.

 

Important

PROTECT THE DRIVE LOCATION WHERE YOU HAVE ACCIDENTALLY DELETED FILES.
Any program that writes data to the disk, even the installation of data recovery software can spoil your sensitive data.

DO NOT RECOVER DATA ONTO THE SAME DRIVE THAT YOU FOUND ERASED DATA!
While saving recovered data onto the same drive where sensitive data was located, you can spoil the process of recovering by overwriting table records for this and other deleted entries. It is better to save data onto another logical, removable, network or floppy drive.

IF YOU HAVE AN EXTRA HARD DRIVE, OR OTHER LOGICAL DRIVES THAT ARE BIG ENOUGH, CREATE A DISK IMAGE.
A Disk Image is a single-file mirror copy of the contents of your logical drive. Backing up the contents of the whole drive - including deleted data - is a good safety precaution in case of failed recovery. Before you start recovering deleted files, create a Disk Image for this drive.

 

Active@ File Recovery Users Guide (PDF) (Click to download)