Contents > Procedures

Chapter 2. PROCEDURES.

2.2. Starting Active@ Partition Recovery.

Start the program and display drive information using the following steps:

1. With power off, insert the prepared floppy disk into drive A:. Turn power on and boot from the floppy disk. The DOS screen with Command Prompt will appear.

    

2. Run Active@ Partition Recovery by typing this command, along with [Enter]:

PR.EXE

The Partition Recovery program window is displayed.

Figure 2-3 Program start and information display

1. On the left side of the window all detected Hard Disk Drives (HDD) are listed. HDD Partitions and Logical Drives are displayed underneath in a tree formation, as shown in the figure above. Deleted partitions and HDD space not occupied by partitions are listed as "Unallocated".
   
   
2. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor over items on the list of drives. Positioning the cursor on a named drive, displays its information on the right side of the program window.

2.2.1. Locating Deleted Data.

Search for files using one of two methods: Scanning for Data or Scanning Damaged Areas.

Scanning for Data

If you do not know names of deleted files or folders, scan drive or folder locations using these steps:

1. Run Active@ Partition Recovery.
2. Position the cursor on the word Unallocated under the drive containing a deleted partition and press [Enter]. Active@ Partition Recovery will start to scan the disk.
3. This method will detect the partitions recently deleted.

Figure 2-4 Disk Scan is in Progress

If the deleted partition is found - it is displayed and Active@ Partition Recovery will suggest that you add it to the list of found partitions:

Figure 2-5 Logical Drive Detected

3. Press [Y] to add it. After adding the partition, files in the partition can be previewed.
4. Position the cursor on the newly-added partition and press [Enter]. A drive contents preview screen will appear.

Figure 2-6 Detected Drive Preview

6. If you are satisfied with the information found you can save the partition table while exiting the program (see Partition Recovery (Commercial version only), below).
   
   Note: If the newly-recovered partition is an "Extended" partition with logical drives, scan each of the logical drives after the "Extended" drive is visible.



7. If a new Unallocated section appears, as a result of scanning, scan this space as well. The program will suggest that this partition be recovered as Extended.
   
   Scan the Unallocated space beneath the Extended partition. The program will detect and add logical drives.

Scanning Damaged Areas.

 When a partition is damaged, it will appear as type Unknown. Active@ Partition Recovery cannot process it, nor preview files or folders in an Unknown type of partition.

Assuming a partition does exist, there may be a way to recognize the data. The task is to change the Unknown area into Unallocated, so that we can scan it for detection of other partition information.

Start the program using parameter -ignoreMBR. Here is the DOS command syntax:

A:\> PR.EXE -ignoreMBR=80h

This parameter tells Active@ Partition Recovery to ignore what is stored in the default Main Boot Record partition information, making it possible to scan the drive as though all partitions are deleted.

After the program starts, the type Unallocated will be displayed beneath the damaged drive location. Scan it by pressing [Enter] to see if any data can be detected. If so, it might be possible to recover partitions as described earlier in this chapter.

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