Active@ Partition Recovery v 1.0 Copyright © 2002 Active@ Data Recovery Software USERS MANUAL Contents 1. PRODUCT OVERVIEW 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 3. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DEMO AND COMMERCIAL VERSION 4. OPERATING PROCEDURES 4.1. Bootable floppy disk (startup disk) preparation 4.2. Program start and information display 4.3. Scan for deleted partitions and drives 4.4. Scan existing or damaged partitions and drives 4.5. Partition recovery (Professional version only) 4.6. Backup MBR, Partition Tables(s), Volume Boot Sectors 4.7. Restoring MBR, Partition Table and Boot Sectors from backup 4.8. Disk Image creation 4.9. Long file names display 4.10. Command line parameters 5. COMMON QUESTIONS 5.1 Partition is damaged after a virus attack and cannot be neither recognized nor scanned. What to do? 5.2 How to prevent the Master Boot Record (MBR) corruption? 5.3 How to force LBA mode to access larger drives (more than 8GB size)? 5.4 Situations which Active@ Partition Recovery is unable to restore partitions or Logical Drives in. 5.5 Why cannot FDISK and Windows 98 see a detected and recovered partition? 5.6 Why do I receive an error message while trying to save the partition information back to the Hard disk Drive? 1. PRODUCT OVERVIEW Active@ Partition Recovery is a very small, easy to use DOS Program (only 150k in size) using which you can: - Recover deleted partitions (FAT and NTFS) - Restore deleted FAT and NTFS Logical Drives - Scan hard drives and detect deleted FAT and NTFS partitions and/or Logical Drives - Preview files and folders on deleted partition or drive, to recover proper data - Backup MBR (Master Boot Record), Partition Table, Volume Boot Sectors - Restore MBR, Partition Table and Volume Boot Sectors from backup if damaged - Create Drive Image It will help you when: - Drives or partitions inadvertently deleted (using fdisk or other programs) - Hard Disk Logical Structure has been corrupted - Boot sector is damaged by virus 2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Active@ Partition Recovery requires: - AT compatible CPU with 286 or greater processor - 640Kb of RAM - 1.44 Mb floppy diskette drive - EGA 640x480 or better screen resolution - Bootable Floppy disk containing MS-DOS 6.0+, or startup disk for Windows 95/98 - HDD of type IDE/ATA/SCSI attached to be recovered. 3. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DEMO AND PROFESSIONAL VERSIONS Active@ Partition Recovery version DEMO COMMERCIAL Can be placed to and run from bootable floppy Yes Yes Displays complete physical and logical drive information Yes Yes Supports IDE / ATA / SCSI drives Yes Yes Supports large (more than 8GB) size drives Yes Yes Supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 file systems Yes Yes Supports MS-DOS, Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP partitions Yes Yes Detects deleted primary/extended partitions and drives Yes Yes Scans partitions damaged by virus or with damaged MBR Yes Yes Ability to preview partition data before recovery Yes Yes Displays long file names Yes Yes Ability to create Disk Image as set of 1GB files Yes Yes Creates backup for MBR, Partion Table, Boot Sectors Yes Yes Restores MBR, Partion Table and Boot Sectors from backup - Yes Saves detected partition information back to HDD - Yes 4. OPERATING PROCEDURES 4.1. Bootable floppy disk (startup disk) preparation If you do not have bootable floppy, you can prepare such disk from MS-DOS, Windows 95/98 the following ways: - If you boot in MS-DOS or in Command Prompt mode of Windows 95/98, insert blank floppy and type: FORMAT A: /S and follow the instructions on a screen. - If you boot in Windows 95/98/ME, go to the "Control Panel" then "Add/Remove Programs", then switch to tab "Startup Disk" and click button "Startup Disk..." and follow the instructions - If you boot in Windows XP, insert blank floppy, right-click A: drive, choose "Format...", check "Create an MS-DOS startup disk" option and click "Start" button Copy Active@ Partition Recovery (PR.EXE) to the bootable floppy disk 4.2. Program start and information display - Boot from the floppy in DOS mode, or in Command Prompt mode in Windows 95/98 - Run Active@ Partition Recovery by typing: A:\> PR.EXE At the left side you will see the list of detected Hard Disk Drives (HDD). If HDD has partitions and logical drives, they are displayed beneath. If partitions were deleted, or HDD has space that is not occupied by partitions, you'll see "Unallocated" space. Use arrows to move cursor between HDD and logical drives. When you position cursor to the particular drive, its information is displayed at the right side. 4.3. Scan for deleted partitions and drives - Run Active@ Partition Recovery - Locate the HDD on the left pane that contains deleted partition - Position the cursor on "Unallocated" under HDD containing deleted partition and press [ENTER]. Active@ Partition will start to scan the disk - If the deleted partition is found - it is displayed and Active@ Partition will suggest to add it to the list of found partitions - After adding the partition, files in the partition can be previewed. Just position the cursor on the partition and press the [ENTER] key - If you are satisfied with the information found you can save the partition table while exiting the program (see paragraph 4.5) Note: If "Extended" partition with logical drives was deleted, you'll have to scan two times: - Scan "Unallocated" space and you will be suggested to add partition of type "Extended" - Then scan "Unallocated" space beneath "Extended" partition, and you'll detect and add logical drives located in the "Extended" partition 4.4. Scan existing or damaged partitions and drives When a partition is damaged, i.e. of type "Unknown", Active@ Partition Recovery cannot handle it properly. Preview of files and folders is not possible in that partition. However partition exists and there is no "Unallocated" space on the screen, so we cannot scan it for detection of other partition information. Start the program using parameter -ignoreMBR that explicitly tells to Active@ Partition Recovery to ignore default MBR and partition information, and to scan drive like the one having all partitions deleted. For example: A:\> PR.EXE -ignoreMBR=80h After program start, the "Unallocated" space will be displayed beneath HDD 80h. Scan it by pressing [ENTER] to try to detect and recover the partitions as it was described in paragraph 4.3. 4.5. Partition recovery (Professional version only) - Run Active@ Partition Recovery - Scan for deleted partitions and drives as it was described in paragraph 4.3 or - Scan damaged partitions and drives as it was described in paragraph 4.4 - If you are satisfied with the information found you can save the partition table while exiting the program by pressing [ESC] key. - Press [Y] to confirm saving partition information, or [N] if you want to leave program without saving. - If there is no partition with "Active" status exists, you'll be asked to select one of partitions to be active. Select one and press [ENTER] - You will be prompted to create MBR backup for the current configuration before found parition information is saved to HDD. It can be helpful if later on you'll decide to go back to the configuration that was before partition recovery. - Press [Y] to backup current MBR, Partition Table and Volume Boot Sectors - Press [N] to cancel backup of the current configuration. After partition information is saved, machine re-boot is required. 4.6. Backup MBR, Partition Tables(s), Volume Boot Sectors In some situations such as a virus attack, power surge, etc, Master Boot Record can get damaged. Due to this damage the computer becomes un-responsive and unbootable. To prevent this you can backup your partition information: - Run Active@ Partition Recovery - Select HDD you want to backup - Insert floppy disk and press [Ctrl]+[B] - Information will be saved to A:\HDD80h.MBR if you backup HDD 80h Using this floppy disk Master Boot Record can be restored (see paragraph 4.7) IT IS STRONGLY ADVISED TO MAKE MBR AND PARTITIONS BACKUP EVERY TIME THE COMPUTER CONFIGURATION IS CHANGED (SUCH AS ADDING/REMOVING HDDs, PARTITIONS, LOGICAL DRIVES) 4.7. Restoring Master Boot Record, Partition Table and Boot Sectors from backup To restore partition information from backup follow the steps: - Insert the floppy disk containing the Master Boot Record backup file - Run Active@ Partition Recovery with parameter -restoreMBR : A:\> PR.EXE -restoreMBR=80h This command will restore the Master Boot Record, Partition Table(s) and Boot Sectors. You can view paritions, logical drives and preview files. - While exiting the program, save this information back to Hard Disk Drive if you want to. See paragraph 4.5 for details. Note: DEMO version of the program allows you to load partition information from the backup and preview partition structure and files, but does not allow you to save it when you exit the program. Professional version of Active@ Partition Recovery allows you to save parition information from the backup back to the HDD. 4.8. Disk Image creation A "Disk Image" is a copy of the drive saved in file. Disk...
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