MickJ

Thanks @Augeas I guess I don't understand the terminology here - 'live files' are you suggesting these files do not need to be recovered? I have pointed recuva to a folder that once contained jpg's and now shows as empty, these file were not deleted - problem with directory glitch - I feel recuva can see the the files but not recover them, any more thoughts please?

Just had an external drive fail, I have run Recuva and it seem to see 16731 files, after half an hour the wizard finishes and the message is 16793 ignored. Obviously these are the files I would like to recover. Am I missing some settings somewhere ? I am using the latest free version. would the paid version produce better results ? Should I be using something else ? Am I wasting my time, perhaps these files cannot be recovered. Many thanks for any help.