RaceRecover is a simple and effective tool to recover erased or lost media files from your digital camera
memory cards, thumb drives, and many other removable storage devices. It bypasses the file system and directly
scans the drive to extract JPEG pictures or certain popular video types. Advanced users can also configure it for
use with other file types, and with disk images.
This download includes a free trial, as well as the full product.
- The free trial is functional, but is limited to recovering files from only the first 64 MB of the disk.
- An activation code for the full product can be purchased here for only $9.99
Technical Details
- System Requirements: Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.
- Device Requirements: The memory card or other storage device must appear in Windows as its own drive,
with its own drive letter, which can be directly accessed by this software application. This may also require
administrator access on your system. If using a memory card, it is strongly recommended that you remove the
card from the camera and use a memory card reader, as this tends to be faster and more successful than
attempting to access it through the camera.
- Recovery Method: When a file is erased or lost, it is often only removed from the filesystem index,
while the actual file data remains hidden on the disk until that area of storage space is used for something else.
RaceRecover bypasses the filesystem and directly searches for that file data, then attempts to recover it onto
another drive. The main advantages of this approach is that it can work with many different filesystems, and even
when the filesystem data has been corrupted, not properly updated, or quick formatted. This has the potential to
recover files beyond what a simple undelete would do. However, this approach may add extraneous data to the end of
recovered files, and it does not account for file fragmentation. Those are not significant issues with typical
digital camera memory cards, but can be a problem when recovering data from computer hard drives and other storage
devices.
As with any recovery method, some files may not be recoverable and/or may require additional repair. Data overwriting,
data corruption, file fragmentation, and other issues, can all have significant impacts on recovery success. The more
that a storage device is used after files are erased or lost, the less likely it is that they can be recovered. You
should not use it until after you recover your files from it. If that is not practical, taking a disk image for later
recovery may be a good option.
- Usage Tip: Although damaged video recordings may not work in many applications without additional repair,
you may have more success playing them using
VLC Media Player.
- Windows Vista & Windows 7: These versions of Windows usually do not allow direct access to hard drives,
unless you use the "Run as administrator" option to start this program. However, due to the increased probability
of file fragmentation on hard drives, the success rate of this recovery method may be limited.
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