DiskInternals: salvation for lost files from a deduplicated volume
When you use deduplication on your server computer, you may end up losing data in certain cases. It may be deleted by accident or intentionally, or it may be inaccessible due to a server crash.
Can DiskInternals software or services be helpful for you in this situation?
Yes.
What can DiskInternals do for you?
DiskInternals can provide services and software — VMFS Recovery or RAID Recovery (with a Pro or Ultimate license) to restore files from a server with a deduplicated volume.
DiskInternals software tools have:
- A 100% native reader and parser.
- The ability to read NTFS (2012-2019) or ReFS (2019) with deduplication.
- The ability to read data if files are written on different versions of Windows (e.g., if one section was used in Windows 2012, then for 2016, then for 2019, etc.).
- The ability to read disks from the server on regular systems, without deduplication support (for example, if the server broke down and the disk was moved to a regular system for copying).
- The ability to read compressed and non-compressed data. That’s really important for deduplicated data, since deduplication can compress pieces of files.
About deleted files from deduplicated volume
Before you start recovery of deleted files from a deduplicated volume, you need to know some important points.
During deduplication, files are split into chunks, which are stored in the folder titled “System Volume Information”. When you delete a file, only data links are deleted. The chunks themselves remain on disk until garbage collection is performed (by default every Saturday at 3:35 AM).
So what’s the point? The point is that from the moment of removal to garbage collection, files can be restored, and DiskInternals software can do it!
DiskInternals’ methods
So, how can you restore deduplicated files? As mentioned above, you can use DiskInternals software with a Pro or Unlimited license (VMFS Recovery or RAID Recovery).
What if you are not sure that you can do it on your own? DiskInternals services can help you.
DiskInternals specialists can modify their native parser for your needs and help analyze chunks in especially difficult cases.
If the chunks are damaged or you only have the chunks (and the file system is badly damaged), DiskInternals can help to save everything that is useful.
Interested? Contact our service! You pay only after successful results.
DiskInternals software can help even in the worst cases
Since you already know when you can restore deleted deduplicated files, now you need to find out what to do if everything goes wrong. It happens very rarely but just in case:
- 1. Search files in the "Dedup lost chunks" folder.
- 2. The files will not have names, but the preview function will be able to determine their type and show their contents.
- 3. Normally you can read files up to 1 GB in size.
- 4. Files larger than 1 GB will be split into chunks up to 1 GB in size. You can view and save them, but it is impossible to restore their sequence automatically. An experienced user can do this manually.