First Time Using Recuva

Recuva
1

So, after some whoops and some failures restoring a hard drive with my normal methods, I decided to try some recovery software.

First, I downloaded one of those 'free to see, pay to get em' programs (recover my files? somethin like that) and saw that all my stuff was still definitely there.

Next, I started using Recuva. After finally getting thru the scanning process on the third shot (first time: WHOOPS forgot to turn off windows vista auto-update and it decided to be helpful at 3am. second time: got all the way to 100% and it started lagging system like crazy... looked a bit into it and saw that there was no 'files found' due to me not checkmarking the 'look for undeleted' files in my deep scan.) its now lagging again, but it does show 6.2 million files found.

I'm basically assuming Recuva is trying to build and sort its list at this point. It took about 14 hours to scan my drive, I'm assuming its going to take a long, long time to build the list as well. Just as a quick note, the other program I tested with built its list as it scanned and I was able to see things a lot quicker, but on Recuva I had to checkmark deep scan in order to see any files, and all I have is the number right now.

EDIT: Finally built the list, took awhile though.

EDIT2: So far able to recover what I needed, but any time I would try to change the order of the list with something that big, it would take a very, very long time to load. Could really have used a folder window/browser view of some sort.

Also, as a sidenote: typing in a single letter to start searching then starts searching immediately, which then takes 10 minutes+. When it finally loads and I see a bunch of junk I mousescrollwheel up... which then changes the search to something else... sigh.

2

Well, 6.2 million files is an enormous number which possibly goes beyond the scope of human manipulation. I usually advise chopping stage 2 of the scan, as it saves time and doesn't seem to add much.

Edit 2 footnote seems to be user error. If you type something in the file/path box and then scrollwheel up it will scroll up the file/path box options, not the file list. You need to position on the file list pane first.

Another footnote, Recuva will always scan the entire device no matter what selection is entered in the File/Path box. This is a pain if you want to look at a particular selection of files, but a lifesaver if you want to change your File/Path selection, as you don't have to repeat the scan.