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.
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.
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.