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