ICare Data Recovery Software 3.8.2 serial key or number

Restore files lost from disk, external disk, usb drive, memory card, flash stick

Bookmark iCare Data Recovery Software Enterprise

#12: "it found documents and pictures and a whole lot of other stuff that was erased with a 35 pass Gutmann protocol eraser program, which is seriously not cool"

Assuming the files were in fact erased, then it would be the partition data that wasn't, & you were reading what's left of the table of contents. Files themselves would have still been gone, though knowing they once existed could be enough to cause problems depending on file names etc. [Powerdesk's Finder can often give you names of deleted files in the browser cache, which was enough to nail my son BTW ;-) -- "Honest Dad, I don't know how I got the virus because I *Never* download *Anything* from *Those* sites" ;-)] At any rate, old partition data & even NTFS data can be hard to get rid of -- you *might* look at running erase apps from boot on a bare drive, or maybe *copy* your partition to another one, back it up, then restore that backup in place of the original... when you copy that writes new partition & ntfs tables. I've done it to get rid of old ntfs tables, & it works, but you may also need to restore a copy of the MBR from backup separately.

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#16: "The tutorials at icare recommend to install on an external or USB , wil it only be registered for the computer it installs on, and deep scan recovery- system crashes and bad MBR.Can it be used as a recovery disc from an external HD ? Would I have to set it to boot from an external for a system recovery or would the icare wizard do this ? Can anyone clear this up for us beginners please.thanks GAOTD."

Ideally when you have lost files, & by necessity when your PC/laptop won't boot, you need to boot into another OS besides the one on the problem disk. [Note that you can have more than one OS on more than one disk/partition, & if the boot info on the 1st hdd is damaged/bad, you can't boot into any of them] How or what you choose to boot from is up to you -- you can plug the problem drive into another PC/laptop either directly or using a USB or eSATA dock -- there are dozens of choices -- but it is something IMHO you need to explore & setup, learning how to do it before disaster strikes... or beg or pay someone else to do it for you. ;-)

iCare Data Recovery does not include any of that -- to use it you have to boot into Windows. To use it registered, you need to have it registered in that copy of Windows you plan on using -- i.e. if you've got 2 PCs, install it on both. If you want to run it registered off a USB stick, check out something like the portableapps.com format.

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#27: "Also, I installed this on my laptop, Vista 32 Home, with no problems, AND then installed it on a USB stick – and it showed on that as already activated, so I didn’t need to register it twice"

The key is stored in the registry. Running the *exact* same files from the same folder etc, iCare Data Recovery was not registered/licensed in 7 or in 7's XP vm on the same PC. If you want to run the app from USB stick on machines where it hasn't been registered, then I suggest looking at something like the portableapps.com setup, or use free/trial features, or hope that key will work in the future [since the app phones home on activation, it may not].

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#37: "Anyone have input on how this nice offering compares to Recuva?"

If I lose something I *need*, I'll try one, & if that didn't do it, I'll try another -- it's not much different than if I can't find my keys, I'll ask another family member to help me look. Recuva takes up less than 4MB, iCare Data Recovery, less than 6MB -- I can't see 10MB being that valuable not to keep both. ;-)

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#41: "I did not understand the results of a scan on my SATA partition that is 256 GB – it reported 563,000 sectors it took 70 minutes to scan it, it found 814,000 files, ID’d 360,000, then reported on 111 partitions (?what??) with files match and folders match categories along with other data fields, it then built a RAW file tree that showed the entire partition plus 3 new directories, Lost File 1, lost files2, and MSIe12d1.tmp, which was empty. The files 1 folder had only 1 file with zero bytes in it; the files2 contained 413,000 files totalling 300GB, 50 GB bigger than the entire partition!!"

FWIW, recovery software looks for/at the bits & pieces of data on your hard drive [or whatever storage device]. At one time you might have had file "x", that took up "y" amount of space, then that file was deleted, meaning it was removed from the drive's table of contents, but the pieces of data remained (potentially scattered across the drive). Over time/use some of those pieces have been over-written, but the drive still holds traces that say basically file "x" was here, here, & here etc, & took up "y" amount of space. iCare Data Recovery doesn't *know* which pieces of data you want it to try and reassemble into files, so it tells you what it finds. You pick out which ones you'd like to try & save, save them to another drive/storage device, then see if you can use the results at all, bearing in mind that sometimes a partial file is better than nothing, so iCare Data Recovery doesn't filter out files that it more or less knows it can't rebuild completely. Partition tables/data are like everything else on your storage device -- they change as you add/remove files/folders.

iCare Data Recovery has been on GOTD before -- my records show installing it in the end of January this year -- & as noted in a another post, if you installed it back then, today's version [3.8.1] might not show you the Activate button. Otherwise it's a small app that's almost portable [license info stored in registry] taking up just less than 6MB with 16 files in the program's folder.

Firing up iCare Data Recover you get a non-resizable window with 6 buttons -- 4 are for different recovery modes, while the 2 on the bottom [Home & Help] take you to the iCare web site in Internet Explorer. The web site provides several different examples, matching one of the modules to the storage device & how you lost your data, but it's not always written/explained clearly -- the home page for example says you might use iCare Data Recovery when: "external drive, memory card, cf card cannot be detected or recognized...", yet if you've had a USB stick go bad, it probably showed up as "Device not recognized", & using *any* recovery software when Windows can't recognize the device to read it is/was a futile waste of time. [in that case try the USB stick/device on another PC/laptop (2 or 3 if you have access to them), & if nothing can recognize it as a storage device, you've got dead hardware.] FWIW my impression was that language issues were to blame rather than trying to deliberately mislead.

The type of recovery you select [the button you click] determines if iCare Recovery looks primarily first at partition data, or scans the actual bits of data on your hard drive, trying to piece chunks of data together into actual files. When data's stored it's divided up into smaller pieces, and tables at the beginning of the drive keep track of which pieces fit together to form which files, what those file names are, if they're located [organized] inside folders & and so on. These pieces can be scattered all over -- anywhere on or in the storage device -- so the more data a device holds, the longer it will take since there's simply more places to look. It's faster & more foolproof using one of the modules / modes that looks for those tables I mentioned [the ones listing where everything is], but it doesn't always work -- it depends on that table data still being there.

Clicking the Format Recover button brings up a drive/device list, where check the device or drive/partition to scan, & click Recover. iCare Data Recovery then shows a progress bar as it scans. When done it shows a file/folder tree like you see in Windows Explorer, with check boxes where you select files to attempt saving. Buttons are provided to Find File By Name, Filter, & File Preview, but I don't see anything saying files are [probably] good or bad, recoverable or not -- that's a feature many people want, & there's usually several comments saying so when it's missing. When it comes to file recovery software I personally don't like to judge one app better than another as long as there are no serious problems running it -- if there's a file [or files] I desperately need, if the 1st app I try doesn't get it, I'll keep trying using a 2nd & 3rd etc before I give up... I don't think anyone can say for certain if iCare Data Recovery will or won't be the only app on hand that gives me back the file I need -- there are just too many variables involved in how/why it got *lost* -- so I'll keep it around in case, all the while doing my best to make sure I'll never need to find out how well it works.

The easiest, & often fastest way to deal with data loss is to backup 1st & restore when/if you need to, whether that means using something like the Paragon apps frequently on GOTD, or mirroring/syncing/storing critical data in more than one place. *Sometimes* you can get away with just recovering/restoring the partition tables -- when you can that's faster than restoring a disk image. If/when you don't have an easy alternative & need to recover lost data [files], stop writing to the storage devices *immediately*, even when/if that means hitting the power button or unplugging the PC... if files are lost, that means there's nothing to stop your PC/laptop from overwriting the data you want back. If you think the device might be failing, or you want to be extra careful, make a complete [all clusters/sectors] backup image or clone of the device using another PC/laptop, booting from USB/CD/DVD etc, then working with an exact copy of the drive rather than the drive itself [BTW this is how you'd do a forensic PC/laptop hard drive exam, if/when you needed the original evidence untouched]. If you're working with a PC/laptop & plugging the hard drive into another machine is difficult, or you just don't want to bother, check out the various tools to put a mini-OS on a USB stick or CD/DVD [www.boot-land.net] -- while it's initially a bit confusing because of the many choices, once you pick out a method like LiveXP, it's all laid out with the tools you'll need & surprisingly simple to get something working. Or you can burn a LiveCD from an iso you download at/from clonezilla, boot from that & make your clone on an external drive, or drive plugged into an SATA dock etc. If/when I boot from a USB stick with LiveXP, I can run most any portable app (off a 2nd USB stick) that runs in Windows, & while the PC/laptop drives are accessible, they aren't used or written to unless I choose to write to them... I can run portable recovery apps that way, writing found files to a separate disk or USB device, & when I'm done, write those found files back to the original drive.