What it is
Every drive and card keeps an index: a table of contents saying where each file lives. Deleting a file, formatting a card or corrupting the file system usually damages the index, not the files themselves. The data stays where it was until something new is written over it.
Logical problems can happen on anything: hard drives, SSDs, USB sticks, memory cards, RAID arrays and security recorders.
What you might notice
- Files or folders deleted, or the recycle bin emptied.
- A card or drive formatted by mistake.
- "You need to format the disk before you can use it."
- A disk showing as RAW, or a partition that has disappeared.
- Files that are listed but won't open.
What not to do
Stop using it. Every new file, photo or recording can land on top of what you want back. Don't install recovery software onto the same drive, and don't save recovered files back to it.
Don't let the computer, camera or a repair tool 'fix' it either. Click Cancel on format prompts, and don't run CHKDSK, Disk Utility First Aid or similar repair tools. They write to the drive, and they can overwrite exactly the records a recovery needs.
What we do about it
We copy the whole device first and work only from the copy. Where the index can be rebuilt, your files come back with their names and folders. Where it can't, files are found by recognizing the files themselves: they come back complete, but with numbered names.
Arrays and video need extra steps. For RAID, the layout of the array is worked out from the disks before anything is rebuilt. For camera and security recorder footage, clips are rebuilt from the recording format itself. Every recovered file is checked, and every video clip is played back, before it's returned.
What's possible, and what isn't
When the device was left alone, a logical recovery often goes well. Three things are final: data that has been overwritten, deleted data an SSD has already cleared on its own, and encrypted data without the password or key.
If you'd like to try first, our free tools are an option for video. Run them on a copy, and save what they find to a different drive.