Partition Doctor features and abilities

I have recovered my files with SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor but my hard drive still won't boots. What should I do? Is there any chance this hard drive will boot again? Will I need install MS Windows after I'm done?

Thanks to SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor I have recovered my data.Can you advise me something to keep my data secure?

I have an error if SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor tries to recover files from my memory card(USB hard drive, etc). What should I do?

What are *.dsk files?

I have my NTFS disk corrupted during installation of additional OS.Is there any possibility to recover my data?

Question: Does SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor work with Vista?

Answer: Our Partition Doctor fully supports Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Also we welcome you to download and try how good it in recovery process.

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Question: I am looking for a program that will among other things correct partition table errors. Is SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor competent in such a things?

Answer: SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor is not for fixing disk structures. We hate the idea to writing on the disk, since it will 100% erase a recoverable data. If you have an error, the best you can do is to recover and back up all the possible data from this device and then format and double check it using MS ScanDisk or something similar.

Please note that we doubt that fixing disk structure on the fly may solve such a problem correctly enough. It is a possible leak to more data loss. Even if you have fixed these errors, first thing you should do immediately is to back up all the data on this device.

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Question: SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor has found 27000+ directories and 200000+ files.How many of these are real?

Answer: It is hard to say. All depends on how long you are using your hard disk and how frequently you are writing new data on it. We have run some tests on a couple of office systems, and found some files and many folders that were deleted several years ago.

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Question: The demo shows numbers in place of directory names. How many of the real files and real directories will I be able to recover?

Answer: If a file or directory was deleted, their names will be wiped from file table. We mean wiped forever, so we can locate it and name by the number only. Try to use search option if you remember a name or type of files you need to recover, it could save your time. Usually a folder with number has normal directory structure, and you can recognize your folders that way.

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Question: My computer is unable to start, can SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor help me?

Answer: Yes it can but you need to install it on the working computer and plug to it your HDD drive. Then just search and recover.

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Question: I have recovered my files with SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor but my hard drive still won't boots. What should I do? Is there any chance this hard drive will boot again -- or will I need to fresh install MS Windows after I'm done?

Answer: We do not fix any system data. All we do is just reading corrupted data and writing it to the undamaged disk.

If your Windows operating system was corrupted, you surely need a new install. If time is short and you need your PC within couple of hours, try installing Windows over old one, it clears most of the problems and does not require to reinstalling all the software. But fresh install is more preferable.

About HDD damage: theoretically, if zero (or also known as boot sector) is undamaged the hard drive is undamaged too. You need to run MS ScanDisk on it with "Check bad blocks" option to fix smaller errors. Or you can use another program for this purpose. Corrupted boot sector means that you can not boot from it, but often you are able to use this disk such as secondary HDD in your system. Sure we would not recommend you to store important data on it.

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Question: Thanks to SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor I have recovered my data. Can you advise me something to keep my data secure?

We recommend you to do the same as you install a new computer:

Check your HDD for bad sectors, and if you have at least one, fix it and check again. It should be clean off bad sectors.
Format your HDD in NTFS filesystem, it is much more reliable and robust then FAT. If you use any modern HDD you will not experience any performance troubles.
Create two partitions: one for Windows and software you need and second for your data. If you use software that does not require fresh install after OS is reinstalled setup it onto data partition. Such a structure saves you time andafter reinstalling MS Windows.
If you like windows functionality such as "My documents", "My music", "My pictures" and so on, change them to point on the folders you create on your data partition.
Make Back Ups of valuable data every 1-3 months.

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Question: I have an error if SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor tries to recover files from my memory card (USB hard drive, etc). What should I do?

Answer: Please create an image of your external device.

Image is a file that stores all the information contained on the disk. Also it could be called full digital copy of the device. MS Windows sometimes does not allow to read directly memory of a device, this is measure of protection. The more complex Windows version you have the harder to get direct access to the disk. In 99.9% of all cases this problem passes unnoticed, but sometimes somebody needs a solution. That is one of the reasons why we have implemented this feature. So creating the image raises the chances of successful recovery from external devices such as memory cards, USB hard driver, mp3 players, USB flash memory, digital cameras and so on.

Plug your external device in, and create image file using SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor. To do this select the disk or external device and click on the "Create image" option on the left panel or go to the main menu "Drives"->"Create Image". Type the name of the file and select folder you want to save your image file to.

To load this snapshot, click "Mount Image" on the left panel or go to the main menu "Drives"->"Mount Image". A new disk will be added to the disk list.

To scan image select this mounted disk and click "Open" on the left panel or just double click on it. Everything else is just like with a simple disk.

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Question: What are *.dsk files?

Answer: These files are disk images. It is also fully compatible with *.img file format. So you can load them into variety of different applications that support it.

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Question: I have my NTFS disk corrupted during installation of additional OS. Is there any possibility to recover my data?

Answer: Yes, you can. Start SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor, select your physical drive then go to the main menu "Drives"->"Map Virtual Partition". Set the "First sector of volume" 64 sector and click "Max" to scan until the end or if you know the size of partition you require, set your own numbers. Click "Ok" after done and scan this virtual partition as usual.

If SoftAmbulance Partition Doctor is unable to define your partitions, you can try to set them by yourself. To do this you need to know following: number of partitions on your HDD and their sizes in bytes. First partition starts from 1-st sector and ends on the sector number that equals size of the partition in bytes divided on the size of the sector. Second partition starts right after first, so it will be "end of first partition"+1, and it's end calculates just like in the sample with first partition.

When you are done with mapping partitions. Scan them just like simple disks, and recover your data.

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