Back2Life

FEATURES:

• Operating systems: MS Windows 95/98/Me and NT/2000/XP
• Disk types: FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32 (including Floppies, ZIP, JAZZ and other removable disks)
• Scanning entire disks and Searching for specific erased files
• Restoring stand-alone files and entire folders with erased files (including subfolders)
• Standard and Alternative restoration algorithms

Click one of those buttons (or select the Disk menu, or push the corresponding key on the keyboard) to scan the entire disk. After the scan operation is complete, choose any folder in the directory tree at the left, and the file window at the right will show the list of files erased from this directory. A gray folder image indicates that the folder itself has been erased.

If the path of erased file is known, the search time can be reduced by using Find file feature. Other available search criteria are: file name (or name mask, like *.txt), file contents, file size and last modification date.

The program shows only erased files. Files in the file list can be sorted by name, size, last modification date or damage. To do this click on appropriate column header.

Damage shows how much erased file has been overwritten since its deletion. Files with one-hundred percent damage can't be restored. To see restorable files only, choose corresponding menu item under View.

Select file(s) or folder with files to restore and click Restore button or the popup menu. Then specify the destination path where to save them to (it is highly recommended not to save files on the same disk they are restored from - look at Technical information for details). That's all!

If the program was not able to find out the first letter of deleted file of folder name, it will be saved on disk with an "xxx" prefix.

• The unregistered version restores files less than 10K only.
• FAT Disks are organized in such a way that even having a file with zero percent Damage doesn't guarantee that restoration will be fully successful. The smaller the file is and the less ago it was deleted - the more chances you have (look at Technical information for details) for a successful restore. For files with a Damage rate grater than zero, the Alternative restoration method may give better results. Access it at the popup menu.
• Disk defragmentation destroys information about all deleted files and increases your chances for successful restoration of files, erased after it.
• Using "Search by file contents" may slow the process down.
• One folder may contain several files with the same names. These are different files, though, possibly deleted at different times.

This software is provided "as is" and is without warranty of any kind. The author of this software does not warrant, guarantee or make any representations regarding the use or results of use of this software in terms of reliability, accuracy or fitness for purpose. You assume the entire risk of direct or indirect, consequential or inconsequential results from the correct or incorrect usage of this software even if the author has been informed of the possibilities of such damage. Neither the author nor anybody connected to this software in any way can assume any responsibility.

You may install a copy of the Software on a computer and freely move the Software from one computer to another, provided that you are the only individual using the Software. You may use a copy of the Software for files less than 10K without registration for as long as you want.

You may not transfer, rent, lease, lend, copy, modify, translate, sublicense, time-share or electronically transmit or receive the Software, media or documentation except permanent basis provided you retain no copies and the recipient agrees to the terms of the License Agreement. You acknowledge that the Software in source code form remains a confidential trade secret of author and therefore you agree not to modify the Software or attempt to reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software.

Available payment options:

• Credit card - Visa, MasterCard/Eurocard, American Express, and Diner's Club
• Switch/Solo - debit cards from Switch and Solo (UK)
• Bank/wire transfer - transferring to an account in Germany, France, or the UK
• Check - bank transfers from US banks and checks drawn on US banks. From customers outside of the USA only guaranteed bank checks such as Money Orders or Cashier's Checks accepted
• Cash - send cash by mail

The Software will be registered with your full name. As soon as payment is received you will be e-mailed the registration key to unlock all of the features.

The base unit for storing information on FAT disks is the cluster. Cluster sizes depend on disk configurations and are usually equal to between and the several tens of kilobytes. If a file doesn't fit to a single cluster, system reserves several clusters to store it. When file clusters don't go as daisy chain but separated in fragments at different locations, we call this a fragmented file. FAT structure (File Allocation Table) holds information of all clusters on the disk. The clusters in FAT are specifically marked. The first file cluster (if file takes more than one) holds the ordinal number of the following cluster, the following cluster holds the ordinal numbers of its following cluster and so on. The last file cluster holds special value that indicates that it is the end of file. By reading cluster marks and contents, the system aggregates the entire file for future use (such as copying, editing etc.).

When you delete a file it is not physically erased from the disk. To reduce the operation time, the system only deletes the first character of the file name so other regular programs can no longer "see" it (that's why sometimes it is impossible to find out the first filename character. But, files created under Windows usually have doubled records). Also the system clears all the clusters' marks, so they appear empty (unused). During the course of further disk use, these clusters can be reused to store other files. The Damage rates displayed by Back2Life indicate the ratio of reused clusters which had been earlier used by now-erased file.

Because of the loss of cluster marks, at restoration ATTEMPT we may only assume that file was not fragmented and all its clusters are in a proverbial daisy chain. Starting at the first file cluster (this value is not lost when file is erased), the program reads the ASSUMED file content from the corresponding number of sequential clusters. It is a little wonder that this assumption is not always correct.

That's why sometimes, even with a Damage ratio of zero percent, the file can't be successfully restored. Usually in such cases the file's integrity has been broken - the restored file begins correctly, but at its end it holds the content of another file... It is also possible that file clusters have been reused and erased again - they still look untouched but the content has been changed. All this is quite sad, BUT: FAT disks were not designed for file undeleting so the possibility to even try to restore at least something is Grace by itself! But in most cases the files can be restored completely.

The following three things are important for restoration considerations:
(1) The less ago disk has been defragmented, (2) the sooner you make a restoration attempt, and (3) the smaller the size of the file - the more chances for success we have. <Your conclusions here>

The Alternative algorithm saves not the daisy cluster chain, but the sequence of unused clusters (this means that reused clusters are skipped). If file damage is zero percent, the Alternative method makes the same result as Standard.

When program saves restored file it reads its content and writes it to a new file with the same name. It is recommended that you save files on another disk because of risk of overwriting other erased files with the new saved one. If you still choose to save files on the same disk they were restored from, all files will be read from disk to to memory and only after that will be written to disk. Then to check the condition of other erased files on disk, it will be re-scanned.

GOD
Geir Wikran
Alexei Rudenko
Vladimir Kladov
Alexander Glazkov