View Single Post
Old 03-18-2007, 06:34 PM  
rowan
Too lazy to set a custom title
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Australia
Posts: 17,393
Quote:
Originally Posted by StuBradley View Post
Yes, but when a hard drive writes a file it does not write it all in one sector. He has lost 25% of his sectors. Granted most of his files (pictures) will have 75% of their data untouched, but you need 100% of the file for it to be recoverable. I would guess that 90-95% of the files had at least SOME PART of their data in one of the sectors that are now gone. Like you said before, he can recover the sectors lost in the full format, but not with a simple windows program...he's gonna have to send it somewhere and pay big $$$.
A file system may not store files in a linear fashion, but the formatting process itself is linear. Formatting 25% will have erased 25% of the sectors from the start. Also, most file systems still prefer writing as close to the start of the drive as possible. What do you think defrag does? Moves everything back that way...
rowan is offline   Share thread on Digg Share thread on Twitter Share thread on Reddit Share thread on Facebook Reply With Quote