Well, it worked for me!

I've had a hdd that went RAW in 2008 and lost thousands of personal and therefore irreplaceable files - music creations, photos, Word docs, etc.
This format recovery tool took an hour to read 49GB and another hour to copy all that I needed safely onto another drive.

Ok, some files were unhelpfully renamed like 000001 etc, but I'm well chuffed it did it at all. Nothing else I tried has worked.

Thanks GAOTD

This software is amazing...had click of death on an external and lost tax forms and precious pictures... formatted the drive and everything was gone. Ran this sweet proggie yesterday and have all my stuff back today! Ü Thanks so much!!!

Rather than relying on file recovery tools after the event, we should install preventative software. Somewhere out there is a program that will work in the background, (lets call it Proactive), maintaining a database of all file fragments on your hard drive. First install would scan the whole drive, so updates to the db are minor and done in real time in background. Then if u need to recover a deleted file, (assuming the db is intact-it could be on another drive or partition) Proactive would report if the file you deleted has been overwritten, if not it would recover it for you - no long winded data analysis, as the db is live and up to date. The db would keep track of fragmented files so this would not be an issue, though defragging a drive would result in a much smaller db being needed.

Anyone know of any software as i have just described??

I agree with oldscotty #26

"From the ridiculously high negative votes for any comment that praises the program I can only conclude that there is a concerted effort to discredit the program."

This sort of software, you want to have it just in case. But wish you never have a need to use it. It is like buying insurance to cover medical costs of cancer.

I do not have high regard for the + or - relating to the individual messages. Some of the people who click - probably do not even know what you are talking about. Or have hidden agendas.

..................

Giovanni
Don't demote yourself from King to Super Prince.
Now we have a King (Giovanni) and a Prince (Andy).
All we need is a Eunuch of freebies to complete the trinity.

Hello I Care Format Recovery People
I tend to use Recuva myself for most of my recovery needs that is because it does a pretty good job and it is always free to use. So I have not yet tried this program and hopefully with any luck I will never have a need to try the program.
However I have downloaded and installed the program today for free Thank you GAOTD & iCare Format Recovery. I installed it with out a hitch on My XP Pro SP3 Machine. So, I now have ICare Format Recovery installed in case I ever need it. I will try it out if Recuva can not meet my recovery needs..
Now, I must say something about this program that did bother me. I did not exactly find the brief intorduction about the software very well written. The way it is currently written would prevent me from actually trying what may actually be a good program. All because of the poor way they wrote the products introduction.
I have rewritten parts of it or should I say I basically corrected it to read the way I think it should actually read. In order to get a persons trust and or intrest in the product. I hope others will concur with my corrections
The way they wrote it.
iCare Format Recovery is able to restore files when you formatted drive no matter quick format or complete format, or reformat twice… It is also able to fix format related partition problems like drive has not been formatted. And it is featured with simple to use interface and no technical skills to handle the data recovery by yourself.
The way I think it should actually be written
iCare Format Recovery is able to restore files to a formatted drive no matter if it was a quick format or if it was a complete format, or even if it was reformated twice… It is also able to fix format related partition problems like when a drive has not been formatted. It is featured with a simple to use interface. One that does not need any technical skills to handle. You will easily be able to handle the data recovery by yourself using our program.
Signed
Rick Frog

Recently one of my computers lost one or more important 'shared' .dll or registry files during an advanced uninstall. Now I can't run .exe install files. The tragic irony is that this could fix it but can't be installed on it. With that in mind, how many crashes still leave a computer working enough to use this tool? Make it portable and workable from a boot disc and it's worth something. This is as useful as having an emergency set of bulbs in case the electricity is out. At least in my case and most I can think of.

Hi Jim, you are right . I checked a lot of the recovered 'corrupted' files and they were a lot of files just 3.98GB in size, too many of the same size to be a coincidence. :)

License Expired Message is displaying after entered the Activation Key provided by you in Windows 7 Ultimate OS. What to do next?

I downloaded this program and used it to recover data from a USB drive somehow turned all the data that I had saved into RAW files. I have tried TestDisk, PC Inspector and Recuva and none of them retrieved as much data from my USB drive as iCare's format recovery. PC Inspector was able to recover some files; Recuva could not even read the drive and TestDisk returned a message to the effect that no data could be recovered. So, thank you iCare and Giveaway of the day for recovering the data from my USB drive.

Thanks Gaia #49. I tried that and it still didn't work for me. What's up? There is still 4 hours left and my registration code does not work. I guess I'll be uninstalling. I'm too sleepy to fool with this.

@OldScotty

Although file type shouldn't make a difference, files like AVIs and MP3s are more likely to cover multiple sectors and corruption can make them unplayable. TXT and similar files can tolerate some corruption because the corruption shows up as bad text, but the rest of the text is readable. They are some of the simplest files. Program files can be highly susceptible because the corruption introduces bugs. ZIP and other compressed files are also highly vulnerable. One bad byte can ruin the whole file.

Anything that's completely intact should be fine, but computers have a way of writing over things and the older something is the more likely some bytes will have been changed making it less likely to be recovered.

Hi, discovered this Offer quite late in the evening and after registering decided to test it on my 600GB Drive.. while still working on other things on PC. Mistake!

OK, quick it is not, but sometimes "slow" might be a good sign? Perhaps it's THAT thorough?
Well, being a pretty patient person - had to abort it twice(!)

It really, really, is "over night", or away from PC operation, unless one doesn't mind "in your face" Console, without even possibility of sending it to Taskbar(!)

And if not - at least, and for that amount of cash(!), one would perhaps expect to follow some.. more entertaining "show"?
By that - I mean being able to see folders and files "mapped" for recovery, their names, pictures.., ANYTHING for that matter!!, lol. Anything to give hope and indication that it's worth waiting for!

No possibility to pause, or recover something found "in mid air" (folks usually know what to look for when employing Program such as this one)

Blue bar with Elapsed and Remaining time - is literally like watching the paint dry..

Sorry, I cannot say anything more about iCare Format Recovery at this stage, except things I would wish to see straight away?
"Simple to use interface".., hmm, makes you wonder:)
Not sure either if there are any big logs (hope not) stored after each operation - accomplished, or not?..

Make a version that repairs/unformat a Drobo drive...... then it would be well worth TWICE the price!!!!

btw EASEUS Recovery Wizard V5+ Recovers FULL drive partitions copied to a like sized separate partition, and makes it healthy again.

#10... you have no clue what is outstanding obviously and the -300+ Neg's, Yet You lacked to mention WHAT RECOVERY software will recovery the drive even after full format... EASEUS Recovery Wizard V5+ uses a very similair engine to today's giveaway and they both are two of the best '" FILE '" Recovery softwares there is. It makes no sense, but to see just how ignorant online users can be to what truly works well, Ruins Your drive that's a bunch of B.S. i have recovered Terabytes of files with both these softwares, sure some files cannot be recovered and these do not have every recovery option, but what they do have is lifesaver file recovery and that's a great thing... Anyway another to put on USB bootable thumbdrive is ACTIVE@Boot Utilities Priceless, just what the pc doc ordered to do all that's needed and with a nice GUI and plethora of modules to get what's needed DONE. Don't Kid a long time 29 year old PC Enthusiast of what works. These do and do it well, no convincing alot here that's for sure, happy neg tickers abound so happy thumbs down clicking have at it. System Restore ( outside of Windows from Recovery disc or re-image in the WinPE recovery environment usually negates utilities like these but alot of times that recovery disc is useless, so in time You will encounter the endless ways in which Your PC system can malfunction, I just like to point out that what i stae here is what works very well and works day after day and decades now prove without a shadow of a doubt Great Recovery tools I cling on to and cherish because they are few and far between...

Avid PC Enthusiast Since 1982...

@54 You are very mistaken about Recuva. I am a fan of Pirform products. Especially Ccleaner. But, Recuva is no where near the best file recovery software. Just because Recuva doesn't recover the fils does not mean they are gone. TestDisk and SpinRite are much more advanced programs and do a lot better job at recovering data. Recuva is not even in the same league as these two.

As an IT Tech there are very few file recovery software that I have not tried at one point or another. I can tell you from experience there are two that stand out. These two are rarely used by the general public but, are widely used by techs everywhere. The first one is SpinRite. It is best used to recover files when you need to do so from a bootable disc. In other words, when you do not have a docking station to place the drive in.

The second can be used from a live environment and is TestDisk. This is also available as an option on many utility cd's such as Ultimate Boot CD.

Recently I had an SD card with a ton of pictures that had accidentally been deleted. I used TestDisk and was able to recover every single file. After recovery, just out of curiosity, I formatted the card then wiped it using the Gutman 35 overwrite process. I then used TestDisk again and much to my amazement it still recovered all the files . Hard to believe but, it's true.

To everyone who thinks vote and rating tampering isn't a big deal and people should just download and try the software for themselves:

You're not getting it. Sensible people won't want to visit a site that stoops to deception to attract visitors, much less intentionally download something from it. Claims of "100% spyware and malware free" are meaningless when underhanded tactics like GOTD's go unchecked. I also used to be an avid fan of this site years ago, but it has degraded into a parody of what it once was. Shill comments, flame wars, and dumb jokes rule the day. People with legitimate questions are told to take them to the forums, where after registering, they are often ignored by a bevy of "moderators" who play and talk about nothing but games over their coffee. (Seriously. Go to the forums and see the questions gathering dust.) The website has lost whatever goodness it once had.

I think the point some people are making, and I agree, is that we don't WANT to try the software offered on a site like this. It's not a matter of not thinking for ourselves. In fact, it's the exact opposite. We don't see the word "free" and go into download mode. The smart thing to do is evaluate the situation BEFORE you download software (and God knows what else) onto your computer. But hey, it's your machine. Best of luck.

Absolutely flawless and lightening fast installation. XP Pro SP3. Recognized all 4 partitions across 3 drives. Come to think of it, I truly don't remember when a program 'installed' so quickly.

there's still 9 hours 20 min to go...
Get same message as #39 “The license has expired, please register it on the website”
Unlike #49, closing & restarting the program & even rebooting the PC does not help, still get the same.
There's no place on the website except to purchase another code,duh.

I downloaded a version Christmas a year ago, when they were offering it free, and what a great X-mas present. I had a flash drive (almost full) that wouldn't recognize ANY file on it! I did NOT re-format before running iCare. I believe iCare recovered everything (or at least 99%), and based on my sampling of the list of partial or corrupted, these were all files I had already deleted or moved (should have been running de-frags more religiously).
Top knotch – and they’re giving away today; but if I was in a bind, I think worth $70 to save the day. I was unaware of Recuva, until reading these posts, so I have not compared it, but I’ll give iCare 5 stars.

As a community we look pretty silly tearing into the posts and the system the way we do. GAOTD is not perfect, but this software is a great example of a try before you buy opportunity, which I intend to do. By far the best giveaway site on the web, and these companies might think twice after reading all this gibberish.

I'll give it an honest try just as a matter of principal. Would be ironic if it turns out this thing saves our butt one day... It probably recovers data as well as most of the freeware stuff out there.

Thank you iCare and GAOTD

I tried this (Windows 7, installed w/o a hitch) on an 8GB flash drive, that had no problems, took about 7 minutes for the first step. It showed 2x FAT32 partitions (Partition 1 & Partition 2), each 7.62 GB (though I had never partitioned the drive). When I ran the second step and built file-trees for each partition (another 7 min.), they appeared to each be the same (i.e. all the files/directories on the drive). In fact, the tree for Partition 1 actually says “1FAT32” when it builds.
Not really a complaint here, but just curious why it would show that way. I tried it on a different 16GB flash, and here only showed 1 FAT partition.

I tend to use Recuva myself for most of my recovery needs that is because it does a pretty good job and it is always free to use. So I have not yet tried this program and hopefully with any luck I will never have a need to try the program.

However I have downloaded and installed the program today for free Thank you GAOTD & iCare Format Recovery. I installed it with out a hitch on My XP Pro SP3 Machine. So, I now have ICare Format Recovery installed in case I ever need it. I will try it out if Recuva can not meet me recovery needs.

Now, I must say something about this program that did bother me. I did not exactly find the brief intorduction about the software very well written. The way it is currently written would prevent me from actually trying what may actually be a good program. All because of the poor way they wrote the products introduction.

I have rewritten parts of it or should I say I basically corrected it to read the way I think it should actually read. In order to get a persons trust and or intrest in the product. I hope others will concur with my corrections

The way they wrote it.

iCare Format Recovery is able to restore files when you formatted drive no matter quick format or complete format, or reformat twice… It is also able to fix format related partition problems like drive has not been formatted. And it is featured with simple to use interface and no technical skills to handle the data recovery by yourself.

The way I think it should actually be written

iCare Format Recovery is able to restore files to a formatted drive no matter if it was a quick format or if it was a complete format, or even if it was reformated twice… It is also able to fix format related partition problems like when a drive has not been formatted. It is featured with a simple to use interface. One that does not need any technical skills to handle. You will be easily able to handle the data recovery by yourself with our program.

Signed
Rick Frog

Tried it with an SD-card of my digital camera which lost its file system from one day to another. Unfortunately, the offered software doesn't even show the drive (letter) in its list, even though I can see it in my file manager. So, no way this software could help me. Thumbs down.

Am having trouble activating. After installing, I input the registration number into the software, and get the following message:

The license has expired, please register it on the website

This occurs repeatedly. What to do about it?

Well, just playing around, I plugged in an old flash drive. Wow, it did a nice job of finding several files I had lost and forgotten about. It restored a few Word files flawlessly... I tired a jpg and it restored it, but haven't been able to open it with any graphics programs. Anyone found a way?

Mike

Last month I suffered a 'this USB stick needs to be formatted' problem and couldn't recover all my MS Office 2003 Excel, Publisher, Doc and Word files (about 14GB)and around 5,000 jpeg files.. I spent nearly $300.00 on 'experts' and although they found some stuff, a folder with very important data was not recovered. However with this icare I have found and recoverd virtually everything except 2 Publisher files. I cannot speak highly enough about icare and this is NOT a jacked up praise either. For all you doubting Thomases, forget it, you will be hard pushed to find better in my opinion.

#17 Sounds like Eraser is wiping the data but not the FAT or NTFS' master file table. That's where all the filenames and pointers to location on the disk are stored. A poor undelete program will just believe what's written in that table even if the data has been wiped, and say your files are still there. If iCare is reporting those files as still there and recoverable, that's an indication that it's not a very good program.

The better undelete programs like Recuva will cross-check access times and subsequent writes to estimate if it's likely that the data has been overwritten.It shows the likelihood of successful recovery, then gives you the option to try to recover the file. Until you actually look at the data, there's no way to be sure.

#24 There are two reasons it can find 149GB of files on a 4GB drive. First, old deleted files are still listed in the allocation table. So if you wrote and erased 149GB of files onto the drive over its life and none of those entries in the allocation table were ever overwritten, then it will look like there are 149GB of possible files still on the drive. Like I said above, the better recovery programs cross-reference data sectors and access times to determine which files have likely been overwritten. If this program does not, it is not a very good program.

Second, in FAT (which is used on most USB flash drives), the link to the next sector of data is actually stored in the data sector itself, not in the FAT. The FAT only has the file name and a pointer to the first sector of data for the file. You read that sector, at the end of the sector is a pointer to the next sector. You read that sector, follow the pointer to the next sector, etc. Until you arrive at an End Of File byte. If a sector has been overwritten, it can send a recovery program on a wild goose chase following segments of multiple files which have been written over the same sectors. Not only that, but each of those files which were written to the same sectors will follow the same wild goose chase, resulting in there appearing to be more data on the drive than the size of the drive. As I keep saying, a good recovery program cross-references data sectors to make sure this isn't happening, as it's virtually impossible to recover a file when it does (if this happens at the end of a text file, the file would be recoverable with some garbage at the end).

#28 Formatting is Windows' (stupid) response to any problem it does not recognize. If you have data on the disk, do not format it. It makes Windows happier at the cost of making data recovery harder. I made the mistake of formatting a flash drive with this error once, and while I recovered about 98% of my files, the first letter of most of them had been erased and I ended up having to rename hundreds of files.

Google for "you need to format the disk before you can use it" and data recovery. You will find lots of tools that are able to cope with filesystems broken in a way which Windows refuses to touch. Most of them are based on Linux, but a few work in Windows. Get your data off first, then format.

The final thing that needs mentioning is to *never* write anything to a disk on which you're trying to recover deleted files. This includes installing programs and writing recovered files - don't do that. There's a chance that the program files or recovered data files will overwrite the data in the files you're trying to recover. This means the only safe way to run a recovery program from the same drive as the lost data, is to have it installed *before* you lost your data, and save recovered files to an external drive.

All good recovery programs have what's called a portable mode. You can install the program onto an external HDD (flash drive works if you only need to recover a few small files). Then you plug that external drive into the computer with the disk containing the lost files. You run the recovery program off the external drive, and save recovered files to the external drive.

I see no mention on iCare's website about a portable mode.

Thanks GAOD this program installed w/o problems registration, no problems. I see neg. reviews from some but I tell you if I don't like the programs I dont download the program. I always apreciated the greats programs we get must of the time, again thanks.

(Continued)...don't know how my post got scrambled, but it did.
If you find an unrecognized drive, right-click in the column to the right of the numbered column, and select Change Drive letter and path and assign a letter not already taken. I usually select one closer to Z. Then your drive will usually pop up like nothing ever happened.
Don't know why it happens in the first place, but it has almost instantly saved over a dozen HDs for me.

I have often used a built-in Windows tool to "recover" disks that demanded to be re-formatted. I don't recall the exact sequence for XP but this is what works on Vista:
Go to Control Panel
Select Administrative Tools
Go to Computer Management
Go to Storage
Go to Disk Management (Local)
You will see a numbered list of hard drives
If you find one that seems empty, right-click on the box to the right of the numbered column and select
Change Drive Letter and Paths
Assign a drive letter that is not already taken.
More often that not your blank or RAW drive will then pop up just like normal.
Try that FIRST before you try any HD recovery program.
This iCare program sounds very fishy - thanks to the fraudulent positive posts, as mentioned, and also claiming 149Gb recoverable data from a 4Gb flash drive. I suspect it finds no ending point for corrupted files and gives each of them a "file size" of almost 4Gb each ... basically infinity except limited by original drive capacity.

If you find unrecognized drives,

Recovering lost data takes time - possibly several hours, so be patient. I've used a couple of data recovery programs in the past and had to leave them running overnight to fully scan a large partition. Results included a ton of photos and documents which were recoverable, plus a bunch of partial files/corrupted files which were not recoverable.
to #18 - suggest you go ahead and reformat the drive then try the recovery which claims to handle reformatted drives, right?

This offering is hyped beyond belief! Use Recuva for free. If Recuva cant restore it, its gone for good.

addendum to my last post above; the 40 odd images I mentioned were not recovered, they are still accessible on the drive and have not been deleted or formatted over, so virtually nothing was recovered.

Just the other day a friend of mine brought two 40GB hard drives;
1. accidental quick format, nothing else
2. failed drive; windows would not recognize it anymore.

So I thought I gave iCare a chance too.

1. recovery worked like a charm. After a quick scan (35 mins) and a 15 minutes file list creation process, I could easily recover the outlook .pst archives from the local-settings folder. First job done : >

2. recovery worked like a charm. I already rescued data from this drive by using a Linux recovery cd. I ran two non-destructive badblocks test. Both times 3 bad sectors were found (and apparently not repaired either :s). Also, a copy of the MBR (??or something like that) was considered wrong by Grenier's TestDisk tool (same Linux disc). Mounting the drive would fail. Still, I could salvage all data (with some corruption here and there) with Grenier's file browser. TestDisk also noticed the corruption on file system level (copies not the same).
When I started iCare format recovery, all went like a charm again. Without any problems it again found a 100% match.

Recovering, again, the Outlook archive.pst files worked like a charm.

Then, I decided to also recover My Documents and Settings\User's\Documents. This folder, already salvaged with linux, contained many pictures. iCare missed those files. If this is due to bad sectors, I do not know BUT the Linux recovery saved almost all, without much corruption. 1000s and 1000s of documents and pictures were saved by linux, but not by iCare :/

I'm also running iCare on a regular Data-partition, several GB's big, where nothing special happened. This scan takes a loooonng time; 2.5h (211GB free of 226GB). I'll repost these results later (or not;p).

All in all I'm happy with today's GOTD, BUT for REAL data recovery you will need other tools. I guess it's named Format Recovery for a reason ;p

Peace!

Devvie



~~~ notemail@facebook.com ~~~

Cuisvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore persevare
——
All spelling mistakes are my own and may only be distributed under the GNU General Public License! – (© 95-1 by Coredump; 2-012 by DevNullius)

If I download this program and then have to reformat my hard drive, how do I recover my lost files? Seems like a conundrum.

If iCare really cared, they wouldn't charge $70 dollars for this!

I to got the message 'licens key is to old go to homepage to register' But! if you closed the program and restart it, and the code will work this time.
Gaia

Yes it does seen nonsensical NightKev, but that's what was extracted after spending several hours waiting, however there were only about 250 MB of useful files recoverable, the rest were gash.

Already I've found two glaring problems with this program; that is that it doesn't recognise the two hard drives I joined when installing them (a 3TB and a 1.5TB drive which showed up in the programs image of the different partitions as 100MB and the fact that it recovered 149GB of files from a 4GB drive.

I spent over 7 hours waiting for the files, (started recovering them about 8.30am about half an hour after the giveaway started; that was just over 8 hours ago) found on my old 4GB pen drive, to be recovered. The program finally finished about 20 minutes ago and I must say I'm not impressed. Of the 149 GB's of recovered files only one folder containing about 40 images of my daughters guinea pigs, some images from a game, several mp3's, some sound effects from a game and about 200Mb worth of other sundry files were recovered intact. The rest of the files were all unrecoverable, and all were found in a file called Raw files. I used four different archivers to unpack the zipped files (Winrar, Stuffit, 7 Zip and windows own file archiver) and all gave the message that they were corrupted.

@ #24 he said it found 149GB of RECOVERABLE data on the 4GB disk thus meaning he has deleted 149GB or data over the course that he has been using it not that it actually has 149GB data stored on it.

iCare Data Recovery has been part of my group of recovery utilities, but it is not my first "go to" app. For most people, I recommend Piriform's Recuva as a first step. Because different utilities use different approaches, sometimes one will find a "lost" file that another won't.

iCare Format Recovery is just a "module" from iCare Data Recovery - hang on to Data Recovery from previous giveaways. If you don't have iCare Data Recovery, install today's giveaway. Note that all recovery programs depend on reading system data on the drive for best results - so running a recovery program even hours later results in a much lower recovery rate. Today's giveaway is less useful and is intended for use immediately after an accidental format.

Recovery programs only have a chance with contiguous files. So defrag regularly! Defragging cannot be stressed enough as a method of keeping data viable and keeping access speeds up. Mydefrag, though slower than some other defraggers, does an excellent job, will defrag certain system areas, offers a screensaver version that works when the system is idle, and the base application is also portable. Note that defragging flash media will reduce the life of flash RAM, and there is an inherent tendency for flash media to have fragmented files (especially with smarter "load levelling" USB flash drives) - so backup flash to a hard drive frequently.

Overwritten data is not usable (especially in fragmented files). The recovered file contains (some) garbage. Wipe utilities only wipe data areas, and do not overwrite system areas - so the "deleted" directory, FAT & MFT file entries still exist, but they point to wiped data (the file names are still recoverable, so somebody can tell what you were looking at, but not the contents). The only way to truly wipe a drive is to do a "low-level" full drive wipe - which cannot be done except with storage professional equipment / software.

#5 Doesn't matter when its being given away for free now does it?

@ #24 - NightKev I am fairly certain it was a typo and he meant 149MB. You looked a little foolish pointing that out.

yes....the ridiculous comments and ratings nowadays are probably the reason we lost ashraf, bubba, etc. It is a joke now.

Patrick McNamara #3
File type as absolutely nothing to do with the ability to recovery as they are written and indexed in the same way whatever the file, any file is just a series of 1’s and 0’s on the hard drive!
Unscrupulous companies like to pretend that this is not true and sell you a program for individual file types, they sell a lot more programs this way.
Basically all they are doing is restricting the file type presented to you that they claim to recover.
Instead of a sensible page of comments today's look like Muldoon's picnic.

As my father always said, "panacea does not exist".
If someone is promising too much, he is lying.
It seems the today´s case.
Thanks GAOTD.

Why upon registration, with key provided in the readme file, a message pops up: "The license has expired, please register it on the website"? Anybody experiences this?

BEWARE Some of the free programs may bve as good but some of them only allow you to recover 1GB. After that you have to buy their paid version.
As far as using many of the GOTD programs, if you install them to your HD and then copy the installed program to a flash card, they usually work. Not all of them but most. You will have to create a new shortcut as the original will not work.

icare? And as others have stated above, anyone who understands how data is stored on magnetic media knows that once data is written over, it is gone forever. If this was not so, then when i read a byte of data and it gives me old data from that location last week, not the data i wrote to the loction 5 mins ago - result would be a zero reliability data store, crazy and impossible to run a computer with a hardware that will not give me the last written byte from a specific location. Users here seem to want a magic file recoverer, ie real black magic. It doesnt and will never exist. Recovery software accesses drive hardware just as the os does, it cant bypass the physical drive electronics.
If data you want has not been overwritten, it can be recovered as long as the file system knows how to piece the blocks together, hence some file systems keeping muliple copies of this info in case one index is corrupted. A well written app may be able to recover photos that occupy contiguous memory by recognising headers for specific file types and also end of file markers. Anyone know what apps exist with this particular skill?