Active@ File Recovery 26.0.3.0

Active@ File Recovery is a Windows application for finding deleted files and recovering data from damaged, formatted or missing volumes. It reads surviving disk information and copies selected files or folders to another location.

Scanning storage for deleted files

Recovery sources include hard drives, SSDs, external USB storage, memory cards and disk images. Active@ File Recovery reads NTFS, ReFS, FAT/exFAT, Apple HFS+/APFS and Linux or Unix formats including Ext, BtrFS, XFS and UFS.

Disk images and virtual RAID

A disk image copies a volume or physical device into files on separate storage. The program creates raw or compressed images, with chunk-splitting and error-handling controls. Its DIM images, raw images, VMware VMDK and VirtualPC VHD files become scannable recovery devices.

Professional and Ultimate also assemble former RAID members into a temporary virtual source. RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-5 and Span are supported. Member order, stripe size, offsets and parity-layout settings reconstruct the recovery view without rebuilding a working array on the original disks.

QuickScan and file search

QuickScan examines an existing volume and displays a browsable file tree. Deleted entries are distinguished from existing files. A Lost & Found folder collects items whose parent folder is missing.

Search narrows the results by filename, wildcard, file type, date, size or deleted status. These filters work with the surviving file information, so the user can find selected items without inspecting every directory.

SuperScan

SuperScan examines disk sectors when a volume is missing, quick-formatted or unhelpful in QuickScan. Surviving boot sectors and file-system structures supply candidate volumes. The user selects file systems and scans the whole device or specified areas.

Candidates may reflect earlier layouts or different interpretations of damaged structures. Their contents can be browsed during scanning and filtered by file system, volume size or recovery status. SuperScan can pause and save results for later resumption.

Saved results retain the findings rather than the file contents. Recovering those files still requires the original disk or image. Opening a candidate volume exposes its contents for extraction rather than restoring its partition entry on the source disk.

Signature recognition and Last Chance

Signature recognition searches patterns within file data when directory records cannot supply usable names or locations. SuperScan can search selected types; Last Chance concentrates on signatures across chosen drives. Results are grouped by extension, with generated names replacing unavailable original names and paths.

These signature methods reconstruct files stored as continuous data. Fragmented files cannot be reconstructed this way, and surviving directory records cannot replace overwritten contents. A found entry can therefore lead to incomplete recovered content.

Professional and Ultimate accept custom signatures loaded from a text file. Header and footer patterns, including regular expressions, describe the format to detect. They extend the built-in selection to formats whose byte patterns the user can define.

Previewing and recovering selected files

Preview opens a found item before final recovery. Supported images use the built-in viewer; documents use an available associated application or Hex/Text inspection. Encrypted files and files larger than 10 MB cannot be previewed.

Recovery copies individual files, groups or folders to a local or network drive. Naming options preserve original names or generate unique ones. Conflict settings control matching filenames already present at the destination.

NTFS named streams can hold additional document or media properties. Active@ File Recovery retains these streams when the output destination also uses NTFS. Copying to another file system does not preserve them as attached streams.

File Organizer

Professional and Ultimate include a File Organizer for signature-recovered files. It uses embedded information to rebuild meaningful names and folders. Music can be grouped by artist and album, while photo metadata supplies camera or capture information.

The user controls attribute order and folder depth. Files lacking the necessary metadata remain unnamed or go to a designated folder. This organization makes generated-name results easier to browse without recreating missing original directory records.

The destination should be a different physical drive from the source. Writing recovered files back onto affected storage can overwrite data still awaiting recovery. Active@ File Recovery warns when the same drive is selected.

Recovery editions

Ultimate provides access when the installed operating system will not start. Windows PE-based Boot Disk Lite and Linux-based LiveCD run outside that system. They allow accessible storage to be inspected and recovered files copied to another destination.