File Recovery

Under the hood, file recovery works one of two ways, and which one applies decides what you get back. When the file system is intact, the directory still knows where each file starts and ends, so a Quick Scan reads those records and returns files with their original names and folder structure. This is the case after a simple deletion on a drive that otherwise works.

When the file system is damaged or gone, after a format, a RAW error, or serious corruption, recovery switches to signature scanning, also called carving. A Deep Scan reads the raw drive for the header bytes that mark the start of each file type, a JPEG, an MP4, a PDF, and rebuilds the file from there. It reaches data the directory can no longer point to, but it usually can't recover the original filenames, so you identify files by previewing their contents.

Not every file type recovers equally well. Small, self-contained files like photos and documents usually sit in one continuous run on the drive, so they carve back cleanly even with no directory entry. Large files are the harder case. A long video or a big archive can be split across many separate areas of the disk, and if any one piece was overwritten, the file can come back incomplete, opening but missing part of its content.

That's why the preview matters more than the file list. A name in the results doesn't prove the file is whole. Open the important ones, especially large videos and multi-page documents, and confirm they render or play before you count on them. If a recovered file is short of its expected size, that's usually a sign part of it is gone.