computerhelpsource

Hi, I am a trained computer technician and I have a possible explanation for why the Recuva software couldn't recover all the image files including the 60 found but un openable. The computer when it saves a file saves the information on how to find the file in a table in the reserved memory of a card or hard drive (beginning of the drive for HDD's), this is the same whether you use FAT32 or NTFS, and then writes the files in the first available memory spot. When you delete a file from the recycle bin or from a card/drive it only deletes the entry in the drive's file location table but not the file itself but it reports that the space and location of the file is available for use. The Recuva software works by searching a drive's contents for known file formats and can restore the file location information to the file location table as long as another program has not already written over the file that you want to locate. In your case when your boyfriend deleted the files it only deleted the info on how to locate it but as soon as the computer saw that the space was free it claimed a portion of it for Windows Vista's ReadyBoost. (Readyboost does speed up a laptop's speed and increases stability by loading information into the card as if it were RAM and decreases the access time to the information.) ReadyBoost only claims as much space as it needs unless you have specified a ReadyBoost filesize. Once ReadyBoost started to write files it was just really writing over your pictures. The reason why your older files are still there is that Windows writes to the quickest spot available and files can sometimes be written on a drive in random order especially in the case of SD cards which have no true beginning or end, if it was a traditional HDD the oldest ones would have most likely overwritten. As for the 60 it found but couldn't open the software found enough fragments of a file to recognize it but not all of the file making it impossible to open. Any file(s) can be recovered but in your case you would need to send it to a lab that specializes in that or get specialized card reader and that can get expensive. A file is not officially been erased until it has been overwritten at least 7 seven times.