reading files in RECUVA

Can anyone tell me how to read the files in Recuva? I lost some files ,address book,check scans,copies of 1040s,but i can't make any sense of the recovery.For instance aoo34248.rbf Please help. Thanks.

 

I'm not familiar with Recuva but I think you can search for certain file types.

The help documentation is here: http://docs.piriform.com/recuva

 

Thanks innerpeace.that was no help Can't make sense out of any recovery programs.

 

I am familiar with Recuva but I have never used it.

If you have deleted files that you want to recover on the System Partition of your hard drive and you do not have Recuva already installed, it is highly recommended that you do not install Recuva to recover the deleted files. You should download (using another PC) to a USB Stick the "portable" version of Recuva and run Recuva from the USB Stick on the PC with the deleted files you want to recover. This will prevent overwriting the deleted files when you install Recuva.

Here is a video tutorial for using Recuva:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeEnpCnALE8

 

Were most of your important files in My Documents? If should be able to specify the location. http://docs.piriform.com/recuva/using-recuva/wizard-mode/specifying-file-locations

You'll also need to specify the file types of the documents your looking for. You can see that in the video.

Do any of the files or extensions look familiar? Are you familiar with the extensions your looking for?

.rbf file info is here: http://filext.com/file-extension/rbf

You can search extensions here: http://filext.com/

 

Innerpeace, none of my files in my doc.were lost only those i had in folders on my desk top.my problem is I don't know what the file exts. would be.I will follow your advice,and let you know how I make out .Thanks for your help.

 

I'm completely lost like my files .Thanks anyway.

 

when you recover files, it is typical that the file names will be scrambled. This is because the file reference is deleted from the MFT or FAT (for NTFS and FAT partitions respectively) and the space occupied by the file is marked to be reused again. But the contents of the file are actually still there (unless you already overwritten them by writing anything on the disk). You just need to give them a new name, extension should be recognized and restored by an undelete app.

Recover everything you can (follow the advice from TheKid7 to use a portable version from a thumb drive), and most important - do not save recovered files to the same partition you're recovering from. So you don't overwrite other deleted files with the restored ones.

 

Thanks for your input Seer.But my problem is I have no idea what I'm looking at on the scan.I'm looking for scanned checks,don't know anything about exts.All I see is a bunch of nos.Have no idea how to pick out my checks.Everything is in excellent condition.

 

Frank,

I've just done a test with recuva, and on my system it shows the file type as well as the original name (these are just some images I've dealt with some time ago) -



Are you saying that you just see the numbers (scrambled filenames), without the extension? For all files?

 

You look'in @ a partial window there Frank?

 

Saw your post on Piriform site as well, an noted that you hadn't gotten a reply there as of yet.
As you can see by the link provided by innerpeace, the rbf file extension can refer to an rBase data file, a rollback file (created/used by Microsoft), raw binary file, or an Oracle Database backup file. If these are personal files, it's unlikely that you're using an rBase or Oracle application, and it's equally unlikely that you'd have a roll-back file in the file you're trying to access. Since I have no idea what application you typically use to create and access these files, I can't tell you if THAT application also uses an rbf extension.

Since you scanned your checks/docs (i.e., created pictures of them, which are typically binary files), it's possible that Recuva might default to rbf to signify that a binary file was recovered if it's unclear just what type of binary file it is.

Do you recall what type of images you were creating when you scanned your docs? A common default option is the "jpg" format (though there are a lot of possibles here; bmp, png, tiff, gif...).

If you restored the files into the same location, copy the files to a new location - such as a USB Flash drive, as mentioned above. Then, open the application that created the files and see if you can read any of the files using THAT program. This is the point Seer was making above. Open that program and then point to the recovered folder and see if you can open the files with the "strange" names.

If not, and since you're working with scanned images, you can try changing the extension of one file from rbf to jpg, and see if you can view it in any image viewer software that you have. BUT first copy the files to a new location if you haven't done this already.

Snakedust

 

I thank you all.but i give up.

 

What program are you using to scan? MS Office one, or something else?
Possible extensions: TIFF, MDI.

Very important, i usually forget to warn about this, but i never forgot it when i tried to recover files myself. heh

 

Don't feel too bad Frank - I can sympathize after accidentally deleting two g's worth of personal data! Hey, we're still alive ....

 

LOL. GF, what a coincidence. Couple of hours ago, I also accidentaly deleted (damn that shift-del habit) approximately the same amount.
However, Recuva got me out of that mishap in a minute.

 

Thanks guys.I just feel so stupid.

 

Me thinks fdisk may be a'lil less forgiving. Not so much stupidity as a mental lapse - and not the end of the world either ....

 

Your right,but I have a terrible habit of not giving up.But with computers I better start.

 

You image your drive Frank?

 

Go ahead, ask ....

 

I had all my docs. backed up,some of my stuff in folders on desktop on a scandisk.but not the ones I lost. This happened once before while downloading something all my docs. were wiped out plus everything in folders on desktop,including address book.I think I learned a lesson now .Everything will go to scandisk.Thanks Global Force.It just frustrates me when I have 4 Recovery programs and can't make sense out of them. Thanks Global.

 

Refresh my mem Frank - XP with FOUR recovery softs? I ask 'cause I'd like to see you in a position to recover from such a shortcoming.

 

Yo Frank - XP and which four? Stick with it and you'll find there is nirvana @ the end of the tunnel.

 

Thanks Global I moved on.Just for info. the four are Recuva,undelete plus pc recovery,and restoration.