Best free disk/file recovery
Never reinstall Windows again, part 2
Do you really need to partition your hard drive or is it an outdated and unnecessary procedure?
This may seem like a strange question to ask in this, the last part of a series on how to partition and image your hard drive. It is, however, an important question that needs to be addressed.
But first things first: The final part of my tutorial on "Never Reinstall Windows again" is now online here:
http://techsupportalert.com/partitioning-hard-drives-3.htm
With that out of the way let's go back to the question: why do we partition hard drives?
In the past, partitioning was a necessity. For example, early versions of Windows 95 could only support partitions up to 2GB, so if you had a drive bigger than that, it simply had to be split up into several drives smaller than 2GB.
And there were performance reasons. Older file systems slowed down as the number of files on a disk increased, so you could get better performance by splitting a large hard disk into several smaller drives. Also, old single head disk drives performed much better on the outer tracks, so it made sense to put performance sensitive functions like the operating system on partitions that were located on the highest performing area of the disk.
Management was also an issue. It made sense to separate different types of data on different drives in much the same way you use folders to separate different kinds of data within a drive. Typically, this involved putting the operating system on one drive partition and user data on another.
This later scheme had some real advantages. First, it allowed the system partition to be easily backed up and restored without affecting user data. Secondly, it meant that size of the system backup was more manageable. Finally, it allowed separate backup regimes for system data and user data.
That was the past. Today's operating systems and file systems do not currently impose practical constraints on maximum disk size. NTFS, for example, allows partitions up to 16 terabytes. Furthermore, these file systems do not noticeably degrade in performance as the number of files increases.
Hard drives have also changed. Modern multi-head drives with large caches perform far more uniformly across the entire disk surface. Indeed, there are some that argue that with caching, a modern drive will perform better overall when it is not partitioned.
So if we don't have to partition anymore and there is no longer a performance advantage in partitioning, then why do it?
It all comes down to management, backup management in particular. This can be clearly seen by the way I manage my own PCs.
Over the last five years the first thing I did when I bought a new PC was to partition the drive. I created one partition of around 10-15GB for Windows, another of 1-4GB for the Windows paging file and allocated all the remaining space to a data partition.
This system has worked well. I backup the Windows partition regularly using a sector by sector drive imaging program (Acronis True Image) and back up my data using a file based backup program (Genie Backup Manager.) My drive images are a very manageable 6-8GB in size and I can restore Windows quickly and easily without overwriting my key data.
That's all very neat but there are other backup approaches:
I could, for example, have everything on just one partition and use True Image to image the whole drive to an external hard drive. That is, create one big image containing Windows and my data, the whole caboodle. That way both Windows and my data would be backed up at the one time.
Sure the image would be huge, maybe 150GB but it could be argued that external hard drives are so cheap it doesn't matter. Sure it would take a long time, but if it runs overnight who cares.
Similarly, I could use the external hard drive not for storing an image file but for creating an exact mirror of my hard drive. And there are a number of software products that allow you to do this easily. Some even allow the creation of a bootable mirror.
Then again there are various hardware Raid options. Today Raid and hard drives are so cheap that it's a practical option for home users.
A while back I decided to try out one of these alternative strategies on a new PC I had bought for my wife. So for the first time in years I didn't partition the drive as soon as the PC was delivered.
For backup I bought a large USB external hard drive and I set it up so every night a scheduled True Image backup job ran that imaged the whole C: drive to the external drive using True Image's differential backup mode.
That was about 6 months ago. Since then I've restored both Windows and data on that machine several times and it has worked well enough.
So I'm convinced. You no longer "have to" partition your drives for backup management
But I'm still going to do it.
I've found that I hate working on my wife's PC. With everything all mixed in together it's a mess. Furthermore, the drive gets fragmented more quickly. And because the hard drive works harder I figure it's got more chance of failing.
And there's the time factor. I can restore Windows on my own PC in 10 minutes. On my wife's PC it takes hours.
However, my wife who uses this PC doesn't share this perspective. She doesn't see the underlying mess because she only deals with her own data. Her view of the computer is "My Documents." Similarly she doesn't worry about the time it takes to do a system restore because she only uses the machine for one hour a day. Besides she leaves the maintenance to me.
So there you are. If you are an average user who can afford to buy good backup software and extra hard drives to store your backups then maybe you don't need to partition your hard drive. But if you are like me and want your computers well organized and easy to maintain then partitioning is still the way to go.
How to create a bootable rescue CD
Sooner or later it will happen to you. One day you'll turn on your PC and it won't boot. No matter how many times you desperately retry, Windows simply won't start up. All the time you will be thinking "why didn't I backup my data."
The good news is your data is probably OK; it's just that you can't get to it. Unless of course your hard drive has died. In that case maybe you really should have backed up your data :>)
Assuming your hard drive is OK, you can access your data and copy it onto removable media or another PC using a bootable rescue CD. With a bit of luck you may even be able to use the rescue CD to fix the problem with your PC and get Windows to boot again.
A rescue CD works by allowing you to launch an operating system directly from the CD so you don't need Windows to be running on your PC. From that CD-based operating system you can then access your hard drive and all your files.
There are lots of rescue CDs available based on different disk-based operating systems. Some use DOS or a DOS clone such as FreeDOS. Others use Linux, but my favorites CDs make use of a cut down version of Windows called the Windows pre-installation environment, the best known of which is Bart's PE [1].
Of the half dozen or so rescue CDs I have in my tool kit, the one I use most frequently is UBCD4Win [2]. It's a Windows-based CD that uses Bart's PE Builder to create the operating system. What I like about it is the huge range of tools included. Yes, you can set up a Bart's PE disk yourself with the same tools or even more, but it's not a simple process, while UBCD4Win comes ready to go.
One of the many valuable tools on the CD is the free imaging program, DriveImageXML, that allows users to create and restore images of their disk drives.
It is particularly valuable because it allows you restore an image of the drive containing Windows even if your Windows system is not booting. For this to work, though, you must have created an image before your system failed. That's a topic I covered in this month's editorial.
You can even setup UBCD4Win to boot from a flash drive, providing of course that your computer's BIOS supports USB drive booting. Personally I think you are better off with a CD. CD booting is supported by all but the most ancient PCs and a CD is only marginally less convenient to carry than a flash drive.
By far the easiest way to create a bootable UBCD4Win rescue CD is to order the preparation CD from the UBCD4Win website [3]. It contains everything you need except the Windows installation CD that came with your PC. Note that the preparation CD is not a complete ready-to-go boot CD but rather the components you need to build one. However, full instructions are included. At $5.95 for US customers and $7.95 International it's a bargain. Hey, you even get a free CD burner program thrown in!
If you are too impatient to wait for the CD to arrive by snail-mail or too stingy to pay the $5.95 then you can download the various files from the UBCD4Win website [2]. The instructions on the website are excellent. Be aware, though, that the download is around 230 MB and the boot CD building requires around 2.5 GB of free disk space.
If files that big sound too daunting then try one of the many Linux based rescue disks [4]. Many are smaller and simpler to set up; just download the ISO file and burn it to a CD. The popular Ultimate Boot CD [5] for example is an 87 MB download. Usage though can be a little daunting for those not used to the Linux environment but there's an excellent Linux rescue disk guide for Windows users here [6].
Whatever option you choose, do take the trouble to set up a bootable rescue CD. One day you will need it. This, I can assure you.
[1] http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/[2] http://www.ubcd4win.com/
[3] http://www.ubcd4win.com/ordering.htm
[4] http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
[5] http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/
[6] http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/
Free suite of portable data recovery tools
ADRC Data Recovery Tools is comprised of a set of five tools operated from a common user interface. The tools are: a file undelete utility, an error tolerant file copier, a binary file image copier along the lines of Ghost, a drive imaging creation and restore program and, finally, a drive boot record builder/manager. When I first saw that the download file was only 44KB I thought, "That's way too small, this has got to be a trojan." This impression was reinforced when I first ran the program and it tried to launch my browser. But it isn't a trojan; it's just an efficiently written program that packs a lot of functionality into a small space. And the browser launch was simply to bring up a help file. As ever, first impressions can be very wrong. Anyway, I tried out all five functions available in the program and they all worked well, with the exception of the drive image restore which, on my XP SP2 test PC, corrupted several Windows files. In the end I had to recover these files using an Acronis True Image backup, so I'd stay away from imaging feature. Given that this program is small and portable, it's a great candidate for your USB toolkit. Freeware 95 -> XP, 44KB
http://www.adrc.com/software/data_recovery_tools/
Recover deleted files from digital cameras and MP3 players
There are several free utilities that can recover files accidentally deleted from hard drives but I've long been seeking one that works with files accidentally deleted from flash memory in digital cameras, MP3 players or USB drives.
Thanks to a suggestion from subscriber Adam Smithee that search is now over. Recuva is a free utility from the makers of the highly regarded CCleaner. Not only does it recover files deleted from flash memory it also works for hard drives as well.
Recuva of course cannot undelete files that have been written over or are stored in physically damaged sectors. However its ideal for recovering those precious holiday photos immediately after you accidentally erased them. Free beta, Windows 98-Vista, 211KB.
http://www.recuva.com/
Downloadable boot disks
If your Windows installation is corrupted and the PC won't start up properly, a bootable CD or floppy disk will allow you to start trying to find out why. If you don't have any boot disks handy, bootdisk.com has dozens, going right back to DOS 3.3 and Windows 95.
http://www.bootdisk.com
Recover deleted files from digital cameras and MP3 players
There are several free utilities that can recover files accidentally deleted from hard drives but I've long been seeking one that works with files accidentally deleted from flash memory in digital cameras, MP3 players or USB drives.
Thanks to a suggestion from subscriber Adam Smithee that search is now over. Recuva is a free utility from the makers of the highly regarded CCleaner. Not only does it recover files deleted from flash memory it also works for hard drives as well.
Recuva of course cannot undelete files that have been written over or are stored in physically damaged sectors. However its ideal for recovering those precious holiday photos immediately after you accidentally erased them. Free beta, Windows 98-Vista, 211KB.
http://www.recuva.com/
Superb collection of free hard drive diagnostic utilities
This site has some of best technical utilities for hard disk diagnosis that I've seen and they are all free. From low level formatting to hard drive diagnostics everything you could want is there. As these are advanced tools designed for use by techies I'm not going to explain more. And don't expect the documentation to help - it's mostly in Russian :>) Seriously folks, if you don't know exactly what the tools on this do then please don't download them as there is a serious chance you will harm your PC. For experienced users though these tools are invaluable. Do check out the rest of the site; it's a wonderful resource for everything related to hard drives.
http://hddguru.com
Recovering data from a corrupted hard drive
Data recovery is a very complex issue with many different kinds of problems and many possible solutions. However I was impressed by this detailed guide that shows you how you can use a Knoppix live CD to recover data from a Windows disk. It's not the only solution of its kind but the excellent instructions make it worth bookmarking.
http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/