Supported File Systems

 

DataRecovery.net.au can retrieve data from these file systems:

• Operating System   File Systems Used
• PC Floppy disks       FAT12 only

• DOS         FAT16 only

• Windows 3.x           FAT16 only

• Windows 95             FAT16 or FAT32

• Windows 98             FAT16 or FAT32

• Windows ME            FAT 32

• Windows 2000         FAT 16, FAT32 or NTFS

• Windows XP

• Windows Server 2003

• Windows NT 3.x or 4.x           FAT 16 or NTFS

DataRecovery.net.au can also retrieve data from SCSI hard drives, and Iomega Zip and IDE Jaz removable disks.

 

 

 

• RAW scan - DataRecovery.net.au can recover files without any file system structure information. DataRecovery.net.au will read all sectors on the disk sequentially (sector-by-sector).  This scan will recover small files that are stored in one cluster or larger files stored in consecutive clusters on the disk.

 

• Cluster - A cluster is a logical unit of storage (one or more sectors) on a hard or floppy drive.  It’s size is managed by the operating system and varies from 512 bytes to 256k bytes, depending on the particular file system and the partition size.

 

• Cross-linked files - If your system crashes while you're saving a file, the FAT may report that two files contain at least one like cluster on the drive.  These are cross-linked files.  These are not allowed by either FAT or NTFS file systems.  NT does support hardlinks and they will not be described as cross-links.  A hardlink is simply another name (possibly in another folder) that contains exactly the same contents.

 

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Viewer Formats 

All data on a computer is in binary (Base 2) form.  When displaying binary code, the numbers get large very quickly.  Programmers use different ways to display/convert these 1s and 0s to make it convenient.  Most often they use a hexadecimal format (Base 16), because you can represent one byte of data as two consecutive hexadecimal digits.

There are other ways to display the same data, though.  The Disk Viewer and File Viewer display changes depending on your Format.  Go to Format from the View menu to change this.  Changing the format will not make it easier to find a text string.  To do that, use the Find command.  

Decimal view: How we normally look at numbers (Base 10).  You'll see 16 columns of three-digit decimal numbers, representing one byte. 

Octal view: The Base 8 system.  Each octal digit converts to three binary digits, so it’s relatively easy to convert.   Here you'll also see 16 columns of octal digits per byte. 

You'll find these options under the Hex sub-menu.  For all of these, two digits represent one byte: 

Byte view: The default.  Most users will want to stay here.  Displays in standard hexadecimal with 16 columns of two-digit numbers.  The letters A-F represent the decimal numbers 10-16. 

Word view: A word (in this context) is not like the characters you’

re reading now.  In programming, a word is a group of 16 bits (or two bytes).  You'll see eight columns in this view, with two bytes in each column. 

Dword view: Dword (or double-word) is a 32-bit group.  There are four columns here, representing four bytes in each column. 

File Allocation Table 

In DOS and Windows, data is stored in distinct clusters on the drive.  DOS creates a File Allocation Table (FAT) to track where each file is stored. 

• File System 

A file system consists of files, directories, and the information needed to locate and access these items. 

• Cluster 

A cluster is a logical unit of storage (one or more sectors) on a hard or floppy drive.  It’s size is managed by the operating system and varies from 512 bytes to 256k bytes, depending on the particular file system and the partition size.

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