Hard Drive Mechanic

All the versions of Windows operating system are usually formatted that allows creating one or more file systems on a partition. Most of the versions of Windows support FAT (FAT16, FAT32, ExtFAT) and NTFS (NTFS4, NTFS5) file system. Any version of Windows is not capable of supporting more than four file systems on a partition. The files are stored on sectors of the hard drive. Each sector stores can hold up to 512 bytes of data. If the file is less than 512 bytes, then the remaining sector is empty. Almost every file stores more than 512 bytes of data. If a file is more than 512 bytes, the operating system searches for other or unused sector to store that file completely. After storing, OS is responsible to keep track of the sectors that hold file. MS-DOS version 2.1 supports the structure called FAT to maintain details of the stored data on the hard disk. FAT file system normally allocates the file allocation table at the starting of the partition. This location is specified in FAT boot sector’s BIOS Parameter Block (BPB). FAT16 is preferred on small disks that have simple folder structure where as FAT32 works accurately on large disks that has complex folder structure. FAT file system stores two copies of the file allocation table. When the first copy is corrupted, second copy is used.

The files stored on hard disk can be lost from Windows OS due to file system corruption, hard disk crash, accidental deletion, bad sectors etc. Best undelete software is used to recover deleted or lost data.

The FAT (File Allocation Table) file system divides the sectors of the hard disk into clusters. FAT maintains entry for each cluster. These entries may contain either the pointer to the next cluster or an end of file marker. The size and created date of the file are stored in the directory with a single byte of file attributes. FAT directories supports filenames of eight characters that has three character file extension. The left column in the file allocation table allocates each sector a number that contains 16 bits with FAT16 file system. The right hand side of the table provides information on the status of the sectors.

If backup is not maintained properly, you have to rely on third party utilities to recover data. So, take backup regularly from where the data can be restored back easily.

Remo Recover (Windows) Media edition helps to recover deleted or lost files, folders from hard disk, digital cameras, USB flash drives etc. This undelete software recovers deleted files even after emptying Windows Recycle Bin. This tool recovers those media files that bypass Windows Recycle Bin when they exceed in size compared to recycle bin. This utility supports recovery of deleted files from FAT16, FAT32, NTFS5, NTFS, ExtFAT drives. You are able to preview recovered data before saving it, when you download demo version of the software. This tool allows saving recovered data to any accessible drive, CD, or DVD and can be compressed in a zip archive to save disk space.