Folder recovery issue

[JKang5]

I'm trying to recover from a hard disk that has not been overwritten (at least, not by me) and Recuva can't detect the folder structure of any of the deleted files. Is this normal, or is there something I can do to fix it (if it even is a bug)?

[Augeas]

It is probably normal, and not a bug.

 

You don't say whether you have done a normal or deep scan.

 

Folders exist only as records in the MFT. File records in the MFT chain back to the owning folder records.

 

In a normal scan Recuva will try to follow the chain back from the MFT file record through the folder records. If any of the folder records have been reused then the chain is broken. Recuva will go as far as it can and then put a ? as the lost folder name. It is not possible to retrieve those lost folders.

 

In a deep scan (which also does a normal scan first) the files retrieved by the deep scan - with names as [000472].jpg etc - will all have a path of c:\? as folder information is not held in the file clusters and cannot be retrieved.