Navigating Your Recovered Data

When data is recovered from a drive, depending on the amount of damage to the file system, your files may be in a variety of locations. This article will help you navigate the recovered data and find your critical files.

Ideally, when data is recovered, we're able to recover the folder structure and the file names. But sometimes that's not possible so file have random names, or aren't in folders like they were.

Your recovered data should be stored in a folder called 'Old Data', 'Recovery', 'Recovered Data' or a folder with your name located on an external drive or your Desktop.

Inside the folder may be typical folder structures, often a user folder (often your name) and then a series of folders that look like this:

You may not have all of these - or some not listed. That's normal. Browse into the folders to make sure there aren't a bunch of duplicates, etc and the data fits with the folder it's in. The easiest thing to do is to open your User folder (sometimes an icon on your Desktop, otherwise open File Explorer via the folder icon at bottom of screen) and browse to This PC > C: > Users > YourUserID. Then open the recovered data folder where your user folders are and copy them in. 

If you get warnings about duplicate files, be sure to review them to make sure you don't overwrite a newer file with an older one.

Your recovery may also have folders that look like this: [038756] with random numbers. These are lost folders that contained files. These are usually filled with system files you don't need, but they could be files you want. It can be tedious to search them one by one though.

The last folder you may see is 'Lost Files'. These are files that were found but the recovery software could not determine a file name or folder for them. Many may not even open (this is normal as the recovery software looks for common 'headers' signifying a type of file, then it grabs all the data underneath. But this data could be partially overwritten, etc so an intact file isn't possible)

So how can you retrieve the files you need from these types of recovered folders/files? Here are some hints:

Pictures

• If you use a photo album application, have it scan the recovery folder for pictures, then move them somewhere into your pictures folder.
• When viewing a folder of files, click the tiny picture icon in the bottom right corner of the File Explorer window to enable thumbnails. Look for pictures you recognize. Files that don't generate a thumbnail likely are corrupt.
• Use the File Explorer search box (upper right corner) and search for file types '*.jpg' or '*.jpeg' or '*.png' or '*.gif'

Music

• Use a music application like iTunes or Windows Media Player to search the recovery folder for music files. If the files pull into meta data like name, title, etc. the file is probably intact.
• Use the File Explorer search box (upper right corner) and search for file types '*.mp3', '*.wav', '*.aac', and '*.aiff'

Videos

• Use the File Explorer search box (upper right corner) and search for file types '*.avi', '*.mp4', or '*.mov'

Office Documents

• Use the File Explorer search box (upper right corner) and search for file types '*.doc', '*.docx', '*.xls', '*.xlsx', '*.ppt', and '*.pptx'

Expect many files to not open. In raw file recoveries where there was significant damage to the file system, the software looks for every recognizable file type header and tried to pull all the pieces together. But many deleted files have parts overwritten over time. So many recovered files are old fragments (and the latest version of the file may very well have been recovered elsewhere). 

If you have questions about how to find a specific file or type of file from a recovery, let us know!