Unless data is overwritten or the drive or media is physically damaged, there is almost always a chance for recovery. I've been both performing as well as teaching data recovery since the mid-'80 through my
training, consulting and repair business, and even turned the Data Recovery seminar I taught in the '80s into a
book that was
used by the Department of Defense for training. In most cases, data recovery requires the use of one or more specialized software tools and utilities, which is the topic of this post.
The single most powerful and versatile type of disk/data recovery utility is a disk editor, which allows you to manually edit sectors on disks or in files. Several that I have used over the years include the following:
*Although Symantec hasn't specificially mentioned the DISKEDIT program in any product descriptions, marketing material or packaging since the Norton Utilities v7.0 for DOS came out in 1993, later versions of both the Norton Utilities and Norton SystemWorks usually include DISKEDIT. At least this is true for all versions up through 2007 (SystemWorks 10), where the DISKEDIT files can be found buried in a "
\NU" folder in the distribution media. However, few people know that you can also download DISKEDIT from Symantec for free! To do so, first download the Norton Emergency Disk file called
ned_2001.exe from the Symantec FTP site. Then open it using a file archive/extract tool like
7-zip and extract the
Disk2.img file contained within (which is a 1.44MB floppy disk image containing DISKEDIT). Finally, open the floppy disk image file using an image extract tool like
WinImage and extract the
DISKEDIT.EXE and
DISKEDIT.HLP files, which make up the actual DISKEDIT program. For documentation, see the online
Disk Editor Tech Manual published by Symantec (note: many of the links on that page are broken, so here are some
alternative links that work).
While a disk editor is extremely powerful, it is also an entirely manual (and potentially dangerous) tool that requires fairly extensive knowlege and expertise in order to use effectively. In many cases a more automated or function specific tool is desirable instead. The following is a list of useful free and/or user supported data recovery or file system repair tools:
Many of the free editors, tools and other utilities listed above are included on the following bootable diagnostic discs:
There are also commercial data recovery tools, most of which offer free trial versions you can download and use to see if they will work for you:
If the data is extremely important and you are not confident in your skills, understanding, or the ability of these software utilities, then you may want to consider recovery by data recovery experts like
ActionFront (now Seagate Data Recovery). Scott.
