Defragging deleted files

[mr don]

I read that Recuva may not be able to recover deleted files that are fragmented when it is doing a deep scan to search for headers indicating a file exists in that region of the drive.

 

Is there any way to add an option to defraggler to defrag the "hidden" or deleted files so that recuva can recover them? I understand that defraggler normally only defrags "visible" or non-deleted files. If you include the option to defrag the "invisible", or deleted files, wouldn't recuva have a much better chance of recovering them?

 

Thanks!

[Augeas]

Don, I can't believe you're asking this.

[Aethec]

What the... ?

 

If Defraggler wanted to defrag deleted files, it should recover them first, you know.

[mr don]

Don, I can't believe you're asking this.

 

I only ask because, in some cases if it is true that a deep scan with recuva is unable to recover the files that are fragmented, I was wondering if it was even possible to defrag the "deleted" files so that it could recover it. Of course, this may be next to impossible, but I was at least exploring the possibility in resurrecting files from the dead.

 

I have heard that there are some data recovery techniques that I am sure defraggler probably does not incorporate, but may be nice to know. Just like the highways we travel on, tracks on a harddisk have the middle, inside, outside, & underside "ghost" images from what I am told. A lot of drives have a way you can plug into them to sidestep normal disk drive operations if you know what you are doing, & cause it to read slightly off center the track to recover image information. Or, so I am told.

 

In addition, there is electron scanning microscope tech, + the ability of certain softwares to guess that if this is a 1 now, it used to be a 0 bit before, & arrive at what used to be there, even though it may be overwritten now. Have heard that some utilities may be able to reach several layers deep, but it could take a long time.

 

The problem being of course, I don't have an electron microscope to test this, nor some other... ahem! advanced machinery! I do know that one of the best recovery programs I have used so far (handy recovery) is able to recover files even from XP/Vista password protected user accounts, & that if you cannot recover files with it, it probably cannot be recovered.

 

It also has the ability to scan for deleted partitions. Recuva does a nice job, but it does not scan for deleted partitions. Why would you want this, you ask? It happens that sometimes you plug a drive in & the MFT can become corrupted in a fat32 or NTFS (yes, even though NTFS stores 2 copies of the MFT) and cause it to show the drive as raw, instead of fat32 or ntfs.

 

Having the ability to scan for deleted partitions aids data recovery because after all, if you cannot see the partition you just lost, then how are you going to recover it? To me, this seems almost miraculous.

 

I said all that to say this. I think the coders here are whizes. I believe if anyone can pull it off, they can! I am not in any way suggesting that defragging deleted files will definitely aid recovery, but it is something I was thinking seriously about when I read directly on this site that it recuva could not recover fragmented deleted files.

 

Of course, perhaps if this is possible, I may have made a mistake & placed this in the wrong location. Perhaps a version of Recuva could be crafted, that upon failure to find the necessary files, it would ask if they wanted to defrag the deleted files & then do a data recovery scan? Perhaps have it do like defraggler, only a custom version specifically for Recuva & only for deleted files!

 

I do know a lot about some things, but I am not perfect of course, so if any of you know about this & what is possible/not possible to do, I would of course, love to know!