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Data Rescue 3 Frequently Asked Questions

• Can I recover files that I accidentally deleted, or from a reformatted hard drive?
  In OS X, when a file is deleted, for example by dragging it to the trash and emptying the trash, the file's name and folder information is usually erased by the system, and is therefore irretrievably lost. However in most cases, the most important part of the file - its contents - are still present on the disk.
  
  If a drive is reformatted, usually the original file catalog is permanently lost and thus recovering files by their original name and directory location is not possible and thus files are recovered by content.
  
  Finding the file by its contents alone is in general a difficult task, requiring algorithms to recognize those contents among all the billions of bytes of data on the disk. This task requires algorithms that are tailored to each specific file type. Data Rescue x made a start at this by providing support for about ten important file types that can be recovered by content. Data Rescue II increased this content scan capability by an order of magnitude, supporting more than one hundred separate file types. And Data Rescue 3 once again increases this content scan capability. (See the following questions.) If the file types you are looking for are among the supported types, there is a good chance that Data Rescue 3 will be able to find it.
  
  Beyond the ten-fold increase in number of content scan file types supported, Data Rescue 3 enhances your ability to find deleted files in another way: the Deleted Files Scan scans only the free space portion of your drive, greatly reducing the number of files that you must look for to find particular ones.
  
  In addition to all of this is FileIQ. FileIQ allows you to add your own file type to Data Rescue 3 to further increase it's capacity to recover your important files. FileIQ works by analyzing your file samples and adding the file patterns so that your User Defined file type can now be located. This vastly increases Data Rescue 3's capabilities to find your deleted files.
  

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