Whenever I run a deep scan or a search for a search term of my choosing Recuva seems to stop at 8%. I'm just trying to find a single video file, any tips or help would be greatly appreciated.
without knowing the size of the drive we'd be at a loss, but to say deep scan (for any recovery program) takes a long time especially of large (i.e. modern multi GB) drives. a deep scan is looking for files that have any chance of existing even if heavier erasing has been done (and,I believe/working theory, marks files as better quality (Green, Yellow, Red) than they would be in a regular scan)
Its about 300gb, not too big, its on my laptop. Got 3gig ram and a amd athlon II p320 dual core processor. It got stuck on 8% when I did a search for a search term and not deep scan aswell. And the deep scan would probably have to be on for a few years? Whenever it got to 8% on both, the time left estimate just starts growing from 1-2 hours to more and more and more, nothing else really happens.
Try running in debug mode, reproducing the issue, and then attaching the log to your post
http://www.piriform.com/docs/recuva/troubleshooting/running-recuva-in-debug-mode
I'd run a chkdsk for a start, to see if the disk is clean. There's little point in searching for a specific item, as Recuva will scan the lot and then filter the display. I'd scan, and then filter.
A deep scan on my modest 160 gb machine takes about 40 mins or so (I think, I don't run them often).