Augeas

The peculiar thing about fragmentation, and defraggers, is that you never actually look at the storage device in any detail. The cluster map is created entirely from the Master File Table and the Cluster Bitmap (and perhaps a few other meta data bits) - it's a logical construct created by defraggers who, after loading those two files, don't need to access the drive at all. Fragmentation, or the lack of it, is defined in the MFT, not at the disk level. It's another logical construct created by the Windows File Manager NTFS. Files too are logical constructs existing soley in the mind of the MFT. The storage device knows nothing of files, folders, fragmentation or free space. The disk doesn't defrag itself. It can't, for the reasons given above. If it did then you would never be able to access a file again through the MFT.

I don't think that you are, or could be, physically prevented from doing what you like whilst a deep scan is running, but as the scan is very heavy on I/O any response might be so slow that you would get the impression that the device is locked. You are also altering what Recuva is scanning, with the possibility of damaging what you are attempting to recover, so it's not usual practice.

This message usually comes up when the deleted file is large, in excess of 4gb. When files of that size are deleted NTFS zaps the cluster addresses, so the data can't be found. Although the data may still exist on the disk it will be extremely difficult to recover. A deep scan should find the first extent, under a generated numerical name, but the other extents can't be identified without professional help.

You cannot remove the file name from the MFT with Recuva. You can overwrite the file's clusters but the file name will remain. If you Wipe Free Space with Drive Wiper in Ccleaner it will overwrite all the deleted file names. Perhaps you could try this.

It will never 'remove Windows' as it runs under Windows. It can, however, wipe a non-system drive completely whatever it previously contained.

In Advanced Mode enter all or part of the file name in the File Name/Path box. Or you can click on the various columns to sort in order.

It won't make Recuva run any faster (it still has to scan every cluster on the disk) but 15 hours is horrendous. After running a wfs a deep scan should find very few files. It will still show all the files in the MFT as these can't be removed. They should have invalid names though. If Recuva finds 175,000 deleted files then this is the amount of deleted files in the MFT. If this is the number reported as ignored than they are undeleted (live) files from the MFT.

Wouldn't it be easier to run CCleaner before a defrag?

I think that running in adbvanced mode gives more flexibility and control, but it won't give greater search or recover facilities. Recuva will, at the end of a scan, show files found and files ignored. The ignored files are live, zero length, or system files etc. You can show these by switching to advanced mode and then checking the relevant boxes in Options/Settings.

I guess you're running the wizard? I've never seen this message, but I don't run the wizard very often. Perhaps it's the selection choices for the source data. This message came after the scan? Recuva does not recover any files during a scan.

Because it's a suggestion, not a query. Because it's in the Defraggler Suggestions forum. Because moderators can't change any Piriform code or policy. Because it's not something we either like or dislike. Because we're not in the pay of Piriform. Because we don't know whether Piriform will act on this or not, or when. Because we only reply when we can offer something constructive.

Did you wipe free space using Drive Wiper? Drive Wiper overwrites the deleted records in the MFT so Recuva should return a long list of null, or ZZZ.ZZZ file names. All these null files should be a few hundred bytes in size, and be contained in the MFT. There shold be no clusters allocated to them. Are you still seeing the thumbnails? If you are, these should be found with a deep scan, and will have a numerical file name assigned instead of the actual filer name. These will not be overwritten by a live file, and can be securely deleted (which is just another overwrite). If you are seeing the thumbnails, go to the Info panel as described above and post a screenshot of what is there.

Well, it is four and a half years since Idlewild visited, so I don't think he cares one way or the other. The answer to his and your question is in paragraph two of my post. Let's stick to one thread, shall we?

Rob, if you look at any of the forums you will see that 'no one replies to anything' is nonsense, and only aggravates those who do reply. I understand that creating a disk image is a paid-for option, so you are entitled to direct support from Piriform. I have the free version of Recuva so I can't reproduce, or experience, your problem. You say that the screen goes blank, but fails the space calculation. Does it do both? If you're trying to recover a file or files, I would suggest that you don't run the disk image creation whilst there are problems with it.

If you open an existing ExCel spreadsheet a temporary file is created called ~$Filename.xlsx. This is 165 bytes in size. If you open an ExCel file called Invoice #150.xlsx a file of 165 bytes is created called ~$Invoice #150.xlsx. Forget what I said about the recycler, this is (I believe) what you have recovered and are trying to open. I can create such a file and open it easily, so I don't know why you are having any difficulty. However, it isn't the file you want. The empty ExCel file I created to test this is 7.63 kb in size. No valid Excel file is 165 bytes in size. Forget this file, it will get you nowhere. It appears to be left behind after a crash of either ExCel or your pc at some point. You need to search for another ExCel file and. depending on how many you find, recover them to a folder on another drive and then look through them to see if you have found your invoice,. Don't bother with files of 165 bytes.

I presume you can't rename it? The file is 165 bytes in size. I very much doubt that there's anything of use in there. Files sent to the recycler have their names changed to $Innnnnn.ext and $Rnnnnnn.ext. The $I file is an index and was (up to Win 10) 145 bytes in size. Perhaps this is what you have found. The $R component is the actual file data. That's the one you want.

The larger disks get, the more difficult it is for both recovery software and the poor person handling the recovery to manage such large amounts of data. Whilst a pause or save facility might seem a good idea it brings the problems that if the pc is being used then the underlying data is being changed, it would taks some time to reload or locate previously found data, and worse of all Recuva would have to write a fair amount of data to the disk, which is something that it tries very hard not to do, as this can destroy what's trying to be recovered. Files can't be reconstructed or recovered in place. The complexities of modifying MFT records, MFT bit map, cluster bitmap, folder entries, and clusters (even assuming that they were still available for resurrection, would be horrendous. Add MFT extension records, index records etc and it's even worse. NTFS does not allow anyone to touch system metafiles either. Recovery to another device is just, well, safer by far.

Recuva hasn't been updated for yonks, mine is dated Feb 2017, so it's not somethiong that has changed in Recuva. 1) Don't know 2) Who knows what it's doing? 3) Run a wipe free space with Drive Wiper. Recuva will probably still take as long but you won't get the huge list of found files.

It probably has no, or very little, effect on the lifespan of the device. A retrim (which is what an SSD optimise is) will issue the same TRIM command to pages already trimmed, as NTFS - which issues the TRIM and retrim commands - has no knowledge of what pages have already been trimmed. I would imagine that the SSD controller would recognise that a page has already been trimmed and ignore the retrim command for that page. A cluster which has had a successful TRIM executed against it does not have a physical page allocated to it so it's difficult to see how it could be trimmed a second time. I've used the words probably and imagine as nobody here knows how the propietary software in SSD controllers works at this level of detail.

It isn't easy to describe a problem and it certainly isn't easy to diagnose one from a distance. It would help if you could answer the questions asked: Is the file system FAT32 or NTFS? In Recuva Advanced mode select one of the thumbnailed files and in the info panel on the right: How many clusters are allocated to the file? How many clusters are overwritten? What is the name of the overwriting file? P.S. Don't pick the 2mb file, pick something around 20k. P.P.S. Confirm that the disk isn't an SSD, and isn't a shadow copy etc.

That seems rather bizarre, that you should delete a live file because it has overwritten a deleted file. Don't you recognise the thumbnails? Is thsi FAT32? What is the name of the file that's overwriting these files?

Yes, a live file is one that hasn't been deleted. The thumbnails belong to the live file that has overwritten the deleted clusters. They do not belong to the deleted file (if the deleted file has been completely overwritten, that is). If you look at the comment alongside the file you will see what is overwriting the deleted file, and in Advanced mode you can see whether some or all clusters have been overwritten. You cannot get rid of anything that belongs to the overwriting file. It is live data.

In my opinion there's no practicable chance of recovering overwritten data no matter what the overwrite pattern was, so yes, multiple passes is pointless. And there's even less chance of recovering what was there 48 hours, or six months ago.

It means what it says, that the clusters of the deleted file have been overwritten by a live file. What you are seeing are thumbnails (or whatever) from the live files. You can't overwrite these clusters, they contain live data. I suspect that this is FAT32? If it's NTFS you could run Drive Wiper. This will wipe the MFT and you will no longer get these messages. By the way these messages are returned from the normal scan that a deep scan runs automatically as part of its process. Files found by the deep scan component (with a [001234].ext file name) will not, and can not, be overwritten by a live file.

After more than six years I don't think that he cares any more. Why do spammers tack on to such old threads? For spam this surely is, or will be.