We have released a new version of iRecover.
This new version improves the support for Linux file systems, and adds support for the XFS file system.

The new version can be downloaded from our download page.
Make sure to uninstall the previous version before installing the new version.

Product page: http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/irecover.htm
The setup: http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/downloads/Demo/iRecoverSetup.exe
Download page: http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/download.htm

This upgrade is free for all current version 5 users; simply uninstall your current version and install the new one. Use your current license key to unlock the full version.

If you have a previous version of iRecover (4 or older) then note that your old serial numbers will not work with version 6. If you need to upgrade to version 6 then drop us an email with your order ID (do NOT post your order ID in the forum!).

Regards,

The DIY DataRecovery team

ToolsThatWork (owned by Tech Assist) has gone out of business. They provided forensic recovery services, failed hard drive recovery assistance, and general data recovery options.

A few of the tools they sold were created by us: BringBack (our iRecover), ByteBack (our DiskPatch) and ReviveR (our iUndelete).
ToolsThatWork had not updated these tools in a very long time, so we'd like to offer all ToolsThatWork customers the following: upgrade any or all of the tools you have through us, and we'll give you a 20% discount. Please note that our prices already are much lower, ToolsThatWork followed a different pricing scheme.

If you'd like to upgrade your BringBack, ByteBack or ReviveR, send us an email with anything that proves you are the owner of the software, and we'll send you details on how to get the latest versions for 20% off.

Contact us at support@diydatarecovery.nl

We're happy to announce the release of version 5.1 of iRecover.
Among the improvements are:

- RAID recovery has been improved (memory footprint reduced, accuracy improved)
- Linux MD RAID recovery added
- 'delayed parity' feature added to RAID recovery
- logical disk access option added

The new version can be downloaded from our download page.
This upgrade is free for all current version 5 users.

Hello,

All DIY DataRecovery products are on sale right now! With all prices being really, really low as they are right now, this is the perfect time to upgrade your iRecover license because that will give you an additional 45% discount! If you are an iRecover license holder (version 1, 2, 3 or 4), all you need to do is send us an email with the order ID for your iRecover purchase, and we will send you a coupon for an additional 45% discount.

iRecover STD, normal price 39.95, now 29.95
iRecover STD+, normal price 49.95, now 39.95
iRecover PRO, normal price 89.95, now 49.95
DiskPatch, normal price 69.95, now 39.95
iUndelete, normal price 19.95, now 14.95*

*) Did you know iUndelete is the perfect companion for iRecover? Although you can recover deleted files using iRecover, iRecover needs to scan the entire volume which may take a lot of time depending on the volume size. Which is a bit of overkill when you need to quickly undelete a file. Using iUndelete the scan time will be reduced to a minute or so.

Regards,
The DIY DataRecovery.nl Team.

http://www.diydatarecovery.nl

We have updated the simple volume recovery guide for iRecover (forum): http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/forum/index.php/topic,368.0.html

In iRecover use 'Data Recovery for Windows and Linux' in scenarios such as, but not limited to:

• a drive has been formatted
• a drive has been formatted and Windows has been reinstalled
• a drive has become RAW (Windows does not recognize a file system)
• a drive has been become unformatted (extensive damage to the file system)
• mass file undeleting
• a partition was lost or deleted

Good luck!

We are pleased to announce the release of version 2 of iUndelete!

iUndelete helps you recover deleted documents, photos, archives or any other file type from hard disks, removable drives, camera memory cards etc.

Unlike many other deleted file recovery utilities, iUndelete tries to make deleted file recovery as simple as possible. Although file systems are complex, the procedure for locating deleted files is fairly straight forward because the file system itself is intact. iUndelete's interface reflects this 'straight-forwardness' by avoiding the need for 'wizards' as seen in so many other, overly complicated deleted file recovery utilities.



Fixes and new features in this version include Windows 7 compatibility, a new interface, added an image preview and added a long scan.

More info: http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/iUndelete.htm
Download: http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/downloads/Demo/iUndelete_Setup.exe

Please email us for upgrades (support@diydatarecovery.nl), make sure to include your order ID.

We are pleased to announce that DIY DataRecovery iRecover 5 is available as we speak. Some highlights:

Our RAID reconstruction engine has been entirely rewritten. The main advantage is that it's quicker: Once iRecover has enough info to rebuild the array it will continue to the next step rather than scan the entire array. In order to accomplish this automatic array type detection (RAID 0 or 5) had to go, so you now need to specify the array type yourself.

We finally addressed the fact that the serial number could not be entered on-the-fly, so now people using the demo can immediately get on with the recovery after entering a serial number.

We have added search options to make finding your data in the reconstructed directory tree easier.

You'll also notice that the interface had changed slightly (http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/IRscreenshots.htm) and that we have added support for GPT (GUID partition table) disks.

Please email us for upgrades (support@diydatarecovery.nl), make sure to include your order ID.

* And also: Within 2 weeks we expect to release iUndelete 2.0.

Our first language is Dutch, but to reach a wider audience our website, software and product manuals 'speak' English. Recently we have added a German language option to the iRecover interface. The help files, unfortunately, are still English only. I recently stumbled upon a German program description and Video tutorial that may be of use to German speakers.

iRecover: Software zum Wiederherstellen von Daten

"How do I know my files will be ok after recovery" is a question we get asked a lot. The final answer to this question is; you know a file is ok after recovery by trying. Recover the file and open it. That is the only sure way to find out.

There are however ways to predict if a file is recoverable before actually recovering them.

One way is by determining how the data was lost and what happened to a drive after it was discovered that the data was lost. For example, if a volume becomes unformatted or RAW all of a sudden (these things happen), then as long as you do not format the volume again, the data within the RAW volume is relatively safe. After all, you can not save new data on it, nor can Windows.

If however you deleted a file from your c: drive then there is a significant risk of you (or Windows, or background tasks) overwriting it. After deleting a file, it is by no means certain that the file will be uncorrupted after recovery!

These are just two examples.

Data Recovery software can also try to make educated guesses about the recoverability of files. Basically there are two ways, both nicely illustrated by two of our recovery tools:

Examine the (to be recovered) file content:
This method is used by iRecover. After iRecover has examined the volume it builds a virtual file system. One of the elements it determines for a specific file is the filename and the file extension (ZIP, DOC etc.). For certain file types iRecover knows the known-to-be-good file structures. So for a ZIP file it can read the clusters that belong to the lost ZIP file and see if the data in these clusters looks like a valid ZIP file. And if so, iRecover will assign this file a green icon in its file list.



Examine the file system bitmap:
iUndelete works this way. The bitmap is a structure that can tell for each cluster in a volume if it is in use or not. After iUndelete compiles a list of deleted files it determines if the clusters previously allocated to the deleted file are in use or not. If they are not in use then the chances are good that the file can be recovered intact. A deleted file for which all clusters are not re-used will receive a 100% score. However if one or more clusters are reported to be in use, these clusters have been assigned to a new file after the deleted file was lost.



Both methods can fail however: What iRecover assumes to be a ZIP file can be corrupt anyway. Theoretically it may even be an intact ZIP file but an entirely different one.
iUndelete may determine a file to be recoverable because all clusters are reported 'not in use' if they were written to and deleted again.

So, the final answer to the question is: you know a file is ok after recovery by trying. Recover the file and open it. That is the only sure way to find out.

RAID Capable Data Recovery Software.

If you are searching the web for RAID capable data recovery software then this probably is because you are experiencing a RAID issue that prevents you from accessing the data on the array. Two common problems are: the RAID controller failed -or- while the controller still fuctions, it stopped recognizing your array.

To be able to recover data from such a scenario, data recovery must be able to virtualize the array, because recovering data from the separate disks will render all files that exceed the stripe size corrupt. In case the file size exceeds the stripe size, the data recovery software has to be able to figure out the locations of the different pieces of the file on the different disks.

The majority of the data recovery software on offer unable to do so, even though they claim to be RAID 'compatible'. And indeed they are RAID compatible as long as the array iself is intact. As long as the array is intact it will present itself as a single disk to the data recovery software and the software can treat it as such. In fact there are only a few data recovery software vendors offering software that is capable of virtualizing an array. DIY DataRecovery's iRecover happens to be one of the oldest software titles that includes this capability.

There are 2 categories for software that can virtualize an array:

1. Software in the first category can virtualize an array as long as you can tell it what the array looked like. So, if for example your RAID 0 controller died and you are unable to replace it, you need to tell it the disk order, the stripe size and in some cases the offset. If a RAID5 controller died it becomes a tad more difficult because in addition to the above you will need to tell it about the parity-rotation. The more member disks in the RAID5 array, the more complex the situation.

2. Software in this category is capable of determining array parameters automatically. Basically all that is requested from the user is that he points the software to the disks that used to be array members. And again in this category there are different approaches to the problem:

(a) There is software that scans the array members and tries to figure out the different array parameters on its own.

(b) The other type relies on a database with known settings for the different controller brands and types.

And yet another difference that can be found among software that is able to virtualize RAID arrays (automatically or manually) is in the way that they allow you to recover data from the virtualized array: On the one hand there is software that will write the entire virtualized array into an image file. You will need a separate piece of software to extract data from the recovered array. On the other hand is the software that combines RAID virtualization with a file browser from which you can select the files you want to recover from the array. Note that the software in this sub category is often also capable of writing the entire array to an image file. 

software	manual	automatic	reconstruct	file browser	image	price ($)	remarks
FileScavenger	x		manual	x	x	185	$85 for RAID 0 only
Runtime		x	scan		x	99
R-Studio	x		manual	x	x	79.99
iRecover	x	x	scan	x	x	89.95	best value!
RecoverMyFiles		x	scan	x		99.95
DiskInternals	x	x	database	x	x	249
Getway	x	x	scan	x!	x	179	! read-only

red - only option available; for example, only automatic reconstruction vs. automatic AND manual.