Recuva shows E:\?\ (and variants such as E:\?\Name1\Name2\) as the path for deleted files it has found on one of my HDDs. Does the \?\ mean it can't determine the proper path name, or what? FWIW, this drive was recently reformatted (quick format). Thanks,
Jerry
In NTFS there is an record in the Master File Table for every file and every folder. The MFT record for a file holds the MFT record number of the owning folder, and the record for that folder holds the record number for its owning folder, all the way back to the root. If a folder record is reused or is otherwise unavailable then Recuva can't recreate the path.
(This is probably the same in FAT too, but I haven't looked into it.)