Disks and partitions

After about twenty years, I felt ZAR can no longer be updated to match the modern requirements, and I decided to retire it.

ZAR is replaced by Klennet Recovery, my new general-purpose DIY data recovery software.

If you are looking specifically for recovery of image files (like JPEG, CR2, and NEF), take a look at Klennet Carver, a separate video and photo recovery software.

If enabled, ZAR data recovery software attempts to read and analyze partition table layout on removable drives. Some removable devices (like ZIP disks) do not store this information, so analysis attempt gives bogus if any results. For such devices, double click a physical device to scan the entire space.

If enabled, ZAR will add all the logical drives available in the system to the list of devices. It is useful if you need to recover data from a volume that does not have a corresponding physical backing storage. Examples include encrypted volumes (most notably TrueCrypt), where data on the physical storage is encrypted and certain card readers and digital cameras using custom drivers to provide access to data. By default, this option is disabled.

This set of four options applies to four different partitioning schemes used in Windows and Linux. You may want to disable processing for the schemes you do not need if there are bad sectors on the disk. Disabling all four options leaves you with physical devices only, no partitions.

MBR (Master Boot Record) is the most widely used partitioning method, allowing primary and extended partitions, bootable or not, on disks up to 2TB in size. In Windows Disk Management, disks using MBR are called "Basic Disk". One cannot make a RAID or spanned volume on a disk using MBR.

LDM (Logical Disk Manager) is a Windows 2000/XP and higher component which implements Dynamic Disks features, including striped, spanned, and fault-tolerant volumes.

GPT (GUID Partition Table) is the successor to the MBR. It does not have a 2TB restriction and does not support spanned volumes or RAIDs.

md-raid is the Linux software RAID. If this option is active, ZAR can work with RAID0 and RAID5 arrays created by md-raid. Because the search for md-raid superblocks can be very time-consuming, this option is disabled by default.