Data Centers

Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR) screenshots

By // July 11, 2006, 12:00 AM PST // billdetwiler

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  • Choosing Disk Access Type

    Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR) allows you to recover deleted data from within Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. In this The Right Tool for the Job? blog post, Joshua Hoskins explains how ZAR can recover data from disks that are (or were) formatted FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS, ext2 partitions and even digital camera memory cards.

    From ZAR's advanced setting window, you can choose to view your volumes as the logical drives (drive letters), or using the raw physical devices. The physical devices option is very useful if Windows cannot mount your drive without reformatting.

    Submitted by Joshua Hoskins

  • Selecting Devices by Drive Letter

    In this screen you can view your drives by logical device names such as drive letters. This is useful for recovering data from a lost partition instead of a full drive.

  • Selecting Physical Devices

    From this windows you can view your physical devices. The easiest way to identify your drives is by size, but if you have multiple drives of the same size, you will need to know the ID of the devices, or the manufacturer's model number.

  • ZAR Settings

    This screencapture shows the Common file system analysis tab of the ZAR settings menu. The recover erased files is one of the common uses of this application, but you must enable this option for it to work.

  • ZAR Tasks

    From this window, you choose the type of volume you wish to recover data from. ZAR can handle standard volumes (single disks and working RAID arrays), failed RAID arrays, and images from digital camera memory cards.

  • ZAR Running

    ZAR has a similar appearance to the GUI version of Windows Defrag.

  • Selecting Files to Recover

    From this screen you select the files and folders you wish to recover. If you are using the trial version of ZAR you are limited to 4 files.

  • Selecting the recovery location

    You can place the recovered files on any available volume.

Choosing Disk Access Type

Zero Assumption Recovery (ZAR) allows you to recover deleted data from within Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. In this The Right Tool for the Job? blog post, Joshua Hoskins explains how ZAR can recover data from disks that are (or were) formatted FAT16, FAT32, or NTFS, ext2 partitions and even digital camera memory cards.

From ZAR's advanced setting window, you can choose to view your volumes as the logical drives (drive letters), or using the raw physical devices. The physical devices option is very useful if Windows cannot mount your drive without reformatting.

Submitted by Joshua Hoskins

Related Topics:

Data Centers Hardware Virtualization Networking Storage Cloud

About Bill Detwiler

Bill Detwiler is Managing Editor of TechRepublic and Tech Pro Research and the host of Cracking Open, CNET and TechRepublic's popular online show. Prior to joining TechRepublic in 2000, Bill was an IT manager, database administrator, and desktop supp...