Data recovery takes many forms and depends a lot on the O/S and applications in use. However a generic tool for recovering data files and operating system contents is a must have. A colleague introduced me to this particular tool when we were working on a data recovery issue with a Buffalo Terastation. Ultimately the product was unable to recovery the data but nor was the countrie’s leading data recovery specialists due to the way the data had been destroyed. I have however used if for a range of recovery processes – especially when the other tools fail !!
The normal method I use for data recovery is an external caddy – sata-usb or plain ide-usb when working on these types of disk. Its a quick and easy way of assessing whether or not the disk contains data or partitions of interest.
You can find the product here I’d suggest the professional version if you are going to be doing this regularly and there is a trial version – wth limitations tht you can you to see if the product is likely to be able to help you in your restoration attempts.
From the suppliers blurb
UFS Explorer Professional Recovery product is specially designed for lost and deleted files recovery from most popular file systems and storages. Supported file systems include Microsoft Windows FAT and NTFS, Apple MacOS HFS+/HFSX as well as old HFS; pupular Linux Ext2, Ext3, Reiser and XFS; set of UFS variants, including Big and Little Endian UFS1/UFS2 as well as custom Adaptec UFS, traditional Novell NWFS volumes and CD/DVD file systems.
Software supports hard disks, removable storages, disk images, virtual disks of virtual machines, created with virtualization software of major vendors. Embedded RAID tool allows to recover data from failed software or hardware RAID and supports virtual reconstruction of RAID0, RAID3, RAID5, RAID6 and JBOD with flexible RAID configuration that includes RAID reconstruction. It allows virtually to rebuild RAID from real disks, disk images. Besides, it helps to make virtual reconstruction of RAID-on-RAID configuration as well.
The key product features include:
Host OS: Supported Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, 2003 Server, Vista, 2008 Server. UFS Explorer works with Windows 7.
Multiple file systems: Supported FAT and NTFS (Windows); HFS+/HFSX and old HFS (Apple Mac OS); Ext2, Ext3, Reiser and XFS (Linux); UFS and UFS2 (Unix, BSD, Sun Solaris; both Sparc/Power and x86/x64 editions); traditional NWFS (Novell Netware); vendor customizations to XFS and UFS file systems.
Multiple styles of disk partitions layout: Supports all major styles of disk partitions layout used with supported file systems.
RAID recovery: Supported virtual reconstruction of RAID0, RAID3, RAID5, RAID6 and JBOD from disks and disk images. Supported RAID-on-RAID configurations.
Recovery: lost file systems recovery, deleted files recovery (undelete), damaged file systems reconstruction.
Localization: UFS Explorer identifies localized file names even on non-unicode file systems and recognizes UTF-16, UTF-8 and ASCII with local code pages.
Additional features: Save/restore scan results and RAID configurations. Supported import of Runtime Software virtual image files.
The product targets:
Data recovery from even complex RAID system after controller or disk failure, file system damage etc.
Data recovery from most popular Network Attached Storages (NAS) of major vendors such as Buffalo Terastation, Iomega, Synology, Promise, Intel, LaCie, Adaptec etc. This includes data recovery after NAS failure, NAS re-configuration, file system damage etc.
Replacement of Runtime Software products for data recovery from non-Windows files systems on Runtime Software Virtual Image files.