I downloaded and installed the portable version of Recuva on an external hard drive that is connected via USB to my desktop. The desk top runs Win 7 Pro, i7, quad core 64-bit.
I was using Wordpad to type in my family tree. For some reason, I overwrote both the primary and back up copy of that file with another Wordpad file. The first time I ran Recuva, it showed me all the PDF files currently on the hard drive. I changed the settings to txt, and on the second run it showed my all the txt files currently on my hard drive. During neither scan did it show me any deleted files.
I exited the wizard and ran it in advanced mode, and finally managed to see the two file names of the overwritten files, and the file size (7kb - which is the size of the current, overwritten files. The original files are somewhere between 60,000kb - 120,000kb). Also, in the last column, it states that there are no overwritten files.
Finally, I ran a deep scan, and now I saw a very large list of deleted files, however, the result with the two current files remains the same. i.e., no overwritten files/clusters found.
Even when I type in the name of the primary (or backup) file and have it search for that, it still comes up as no overwritten files/clusters found.
Is it possible I'm doing something wrong in the settings, or do I need to put the portable file on a thumb drive and run it from there. I have opened the primary and backup file - which is how I discovered what I did - and both files are overwritten/have been replaced by the other file.
it showed me all the PDF files currently on the hard drive.
Wordpad? PDF? Did you select Documents in your search? With what file extension are you saving your Wordpad files?
During neither scan did it show me any deleted files.
The Wizard only shows deleted files. What did you see? You saw no files at all, or you saw undeleted files? I don't think the Wizard allows you to see undeleted files, nor does it allow you to filter the results (except by file type).
Also, in the last column, it states that there are no overwritten files.
You may be confused about overwritten files, as you mention them several times. Recuva does not detect user overwritten files, just whether the deleted file's clusters have been overwritten by another live file.
do I need to put the portable file on a thumb drive and run it from there.
1. Yes, I had selected Documents. The Wordpad files are saved with an RTF (Rich Text Format - which shows as Rich Text Document when you look with Windows Explorer at the file type) extension.
2. First time running with the wizard it showed a long list of PDF files currently on my hard drive (if they were deleted files, it didn't show/tell me they were, so I probably didn't realize what I was looking at). But with the Document setting selected it only showed PDF files. After I changed the setting to TXT, it showed a long list of TXT files. Again, seeing all the file names in green color probably led me to believe they were current files.
3. Regarding overwritten files, that's what it said in the last column. I may have the wording not quite correct, but the statement was basically saying no overwritten files found, or something like that.
The reason I looked at that statement is because I'm trying to recover a file that I overwrote with another Wordpad RTF file, and from what I had been reading on the net was that Recuva was the program I should use to do that.
The deep scan showed the files I overwrote, but at their current size (about 7kb), and again in the last column was the indication that there were no overwritten files found (this may not be the exact wording, but it's close). Note: I have not done anything since Sunday evening when I overwrote the files, that would cause the OS to write anything to my hard drive and overwrite the space previously used by the larger files. I also looked at every file and the size listed to make sure I didn't overlook a file that was a partial/fragment of the file(s) I'm trying to recover. Assuming that those files were about 85,000 kb in size (or larger), I thought if I subtracted the current size (about 7 kb), I would see some files in that range, i.e., 85,000 - 7,000 = 78,000 kb or larger, but that wasn't the case. There's no indication at all that there's anything in there.
Hope I explained it correctly, and also that you may be able to help me.
If you overwrote your primary and backup files then they will still be live files, with the overwritten content. Recuva can't be used to retrieve what was overwritten by the user. If you find any deleted files with Recuva that seem to be your overwritten files, then they may be edit copies or some other copies. You can recover them and the contents may not be too out of date. Try it.