How-to-Guides

Step-by-Step Solutions for Common Problems.

How to Choose the Right Product  

Product Task User OS you want to recover from
GetDataBack for FAT Recovery of whole FAT drive/partition or deleted files due to lost or corrupted partition table, boot record, FAT, root directory or after format, fdisk, virus attack, power failure Novice & Experienced Windows 95, 98, ME, Floppies
GetDataBack for NTFS Recovery of whole NTFS drive/partition or deleted files due to lost or corrupted partition table, boot record, Master File Table, root directory, or after format, virus attack, power failure Novice & Experienced Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7
DiskExplorer for FAT Investigation of a FAT drive, disk editing, recovering single deleted files, drive cloning Experienced Windows 95, 98, ME
DiskExplorer for NTFS Investigation of a NTFS drive, disk editing, recovering single deleted files & whole directories, drive cloning Experienced Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7
DiskExplorer for Linux Investigation of a Linux EXT2FS/EXT3FS drive, disk editing, recovering single deleted files, drive cloning Experienced Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7
Disk Digger Script-based file system browsing for customized data recovery and forensic purposes. Experienced & Developer Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7
RAID Reconstructor Recovery of broken RAID arrays Experienced Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7
Captain Nemo Mounting of drives and images if the file system is undamaged, e.g. after the use of RAID Reconstructor. Supports NTFS, Novell, Linux EXT2FS/EXT3FS, and XFS Novice & Experienced Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7
NAS Data Recovery Fully automated recovery of broken XFS- or EXT2FS-formatted NAS devices from manufacturers such as Buffalo, Iomega, DLink, Western Digital, or Seagate. Supports single-disk, RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-5 configurations Novice & Experienced Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7
RAID Recovery for Windows Fully automated recovery of broken Windows RAIDs. Hardware and software RAIDs. Supports RAID-0 and RAID-5 configurations Novice & Experienced Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Windows 7

 

The use of our software is not recommended if data was lost due to a physical problem of the drive, e.g. when your drive makes strange noises, doesn't spin anymore, is no longer recognized by the BIOS.  

If your drive has a physical problem we strongly recommend not to handle the drive anymore, but to take the drive to a data recovery service or - at least to make an image of the drive - and run any further recovery attempts on this image.  

To recover your data with GetDataBack we strongly recommend the following procedure: 

Do not install GetDataBack on the drive you want to recover the data from!

Install the program to another computer, which doesn't have any problems. If you have a choice, choose the computer which has the most RAM and is the fastest. Attach the drive you want to recover as a slave to this machine. Make sure the drive is jumpered correctly and is recognized by the BIOS.  

After downloading GetDataBack run the setup.exe. The setup wizard will guide you through the installation process.

More Information & Hints

How to get help with your data recovery...
How to check the quality of the recovery before purchasing...
RAID recovery...