Is there a "Recuva for Dummies" anywhere?

[srkriston]

I only consider myself slightly computer illiterate but I may be wrong. I am specifically trying to recover some word documents. I have ran the scan multiple times with multiple options and the only results that I seem to be getting are temporary internet files for the most part. Also, it seems that no matter how I do the search, the dates that I am looking for don't exist. In the "Last Date Modified" field, there is a huge gap. It goes from May 30, 2009 and then jumps straight to June 14, 2009. Oddly enough, all of the files that I need recovered were created and last modified within those dates. Can someone please help me? I am at my wits end with scanning. Thanks!

[hazelnut]

Have a read here and see if it helps

 

http://docs.piriform.com/recuva

[Augeas]

When stuff is deleted it leaves the entries in the master file table (that's what Recuva uses to list what's deleted) available for other newly created files to use. The MFT probably uses some sort of first available entry algorithm to choose which entry to use, so the most recent entries (i.e. the files most recently created and deleted) are the most likely to be reused. If some event happens on Jun 13th, say a sys restore point, new application download or update, Windows update etc it could wipe out (or resuse) a whole chunk of MFT entries. Thus the gap between May 30th and June 14th.