GetDataBack for NTFS 4.0

GetDataBack for NTFS is and advanced data recovery tool which has support for NTFS. NTFS is one of the best file systems.

No one fully knows the internal working of NTFS which is a trade secret of Microsoft. It has advanced monitoring and security features. Windows 7 doesn’t support installation into a FAT32 volume.

Now, how does a file recovery program recover deleted files? When we delete a file, its data is not erased from the disk quickly. There is a database in the start of the disk that stores all the names of files/folders and their location in the disk which is modified when we delete the file. File data is actually gone when we write some other file on the disk. So, if this data is not overwritten by new files, we have a chance of recovering it. This program is designed to recover deleted files as well as data from a damaged disk. It can also recover from a disk that has been formatted.

The program looks nice and is user friendly. We are presented with choices on the type of recovery that is; quick scan (if the partition suddenly disappeared), systematic file system damage (if you want to recover data from a formatted drive), sustained damage, recover files. You may select the last option to recover deleted files. Scanning of an NTFS volume is lightning fast. It does it by directly reading from the MFT (Master File Table) file. I liked the search tool which has all the filters like filename, data modified, size, search depth, etc. If you have selected the advanced recovery options like the third or fourth option, more time is needed for scanning.

There is a provision for creating an image file of a logical volume or the entire disk. We can then use the image file to do our tests later. Remote drives on a different computer could also be accessed by using HDHost program. It can be downloaded free form the developer website. The scanning is really fast compared to other data recovery programs.

This program doesn’t have full support for FAT file system. There is the “GetDataBack for FAT” if you want advanced recovery options for a disk with FAT file system. The program doesn’t show correct value for the size of a GPT disk in ‘Physical Drives’ list. Recovering files needs administrative privileges.

A general warning for all: always format a drive with 'quick format' option. Otherwise, it is bad for the life of hard disk. It also makes file recovery harder.