Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ptsfb.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!gymble!lll-crg!dual!ptsfa!ptsfb!che
From: che@ptsfb.UUCP (Mitch Che)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Norton utilities question
Message-ID: <198@ptsfb.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Jul-85 00:05:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: ptsfb.198
Posted: Sat Jul 13 00:05:17 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 08:39:08 EDT
References: <5507@tekecs.UUCP>
Reply-To: che@ptsfb.UUCP (Mitch Che)
Distribution: net
Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco
Lines: 32

In article <5507@tekecs.UUCP> glenm@tekecs.UUCP (Glen McCluskey) writes:
>One of the Norton utilities claims to be able to recover
>deleted files.  Does it actually do this?  If so, how?
>Can anyone share experiences with actually recovering files?
>
Yes, the UnErase (UE) utility allows you to "unerase" a file.  It works
quite well on the few occasions I've managed to erase the wrong files.
I've used it both on an XT hard disk as well as on a standard floppy.

How does it work?  The act of deleting a file doesn't actually
do more than mark the file name in the disk directory and remove the space
allocation for that file.  UE just restores the directory entry and tells
you whether the first sector of the file is intact.  If it is, then you have
a good chance of recovering the file.  If it isn't, you probably wrote something
else onto the disk.  In UE, you follow a mechanical process to recover the
remaining sectors... It's obviously possible to do this with the Dos debugger,
but it's a lot harder.

What is the message it all of this?  If you ever screw up and erase a file,
or do something extremely bad unintentionally, (like: DEL *.*
Are you sure (y/n)? Y .......   OH MY GOD, NO!!!)  it is extremely important
that you STOP and do not do anything else to the disk (or hard disk)!
It is possible to recover ALL of your files most of the time  The worst 
thing to do is start writing to the same disk (unless you didn't really 
care about it...)   Note: this applies to DEL or ERASE only, not FORMAT!
-- 
Mitch Che
Pacific Bell
---------------------------------------
disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer, too
(415) 823-2438
uucp: {ihnp4,dual}!ptsfa!ptsfb!che