UFS Explorer Professional Recovery

Immense support of modern storage technologies

This expert-level utility offers effective techniques for work with a wide range of storage technologies utilized in modern devices. Among the supported configurations are Windows Dynamic Disks and Storage Spaces, Apple Software RAID, Core Storage and Time Machine, Linux mdadm, LVM with Thin Provisioning, Btrfs-RAID, ZFS RAID-Z, Drobo BeyondRAID, Synology Hybrid RAID and other particular technologies. The program also handles Microsoft data deduplication (Windows Server), allowing users to process deduplicated NTFS and ReFS volumes.

Extensive list of supported file systems

UFS Explorer Professional Recovery provides direct access to the intact content and allows recovering the missing data from a wide set of file systems implemented in Windows (FAT/FAT32/exFAT, NTFS and ReFS/ReFS3), macOS (HFS+, APFS), Linux (Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, SGI XFS, JFS, ReiserFS, Sun ZFS, Btrfs, F2FS), BSD/Solaris (ZFS) and VMware (VMFS, VMFS6). Moreover, the program is capable of reading volumes with the legacy Apple HFS file system, HPFS of IBM/Microsoft, Novell NetWare (NWFS) and Novell Storage Services (NWFS, NSS, NSS 64) file systems.

Data recovery from RAID of various complexity

The application is able to reconstruct different RAID patterns, including standard setups, like JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 1E, RAID 3, RAID 4, RAID 5 and RAID 6 and hybrid RAID levels. A special syntax permits the definition of custom RAIDs with various data distribution algorithms. The software can also perform adaptive recovery of defective RAID units with the help of parity (for RAID 5 and RAID 6) or a copy of data (for RAID 1). A RAID set can be also reconstructed using disk images and bad sector maps that imitate defective blocks.

Work with encrypted devices

The utility supports diverse disk encryption technologies, like BitLocker, LUKS (1, 2), TrueCrypt, VeraCrypt, FileVault 2, APFS encryption and eCryptFS, providing access to the available files and performing recovery of lost and deleted data from encrypted digital media (provided that the correct password or encryption key is known). One doesn’t have to run the operating system to unlock the storage – the password/key can be is inserted in the application and is used to decrypt the device for further work.

Support of virtual storages

The software makes it easy to process virtual disks of popular virtual machines, like VMware, Hyper-V, VirtualBox, QEMU, XEN etc., and handles them as though they were conventional storage devices. Furthermore, the user can access and work with a virtual disk even when it is stored on RAID or within another virtual system. For instance, it is possible to assemble RAID holding a VMware ESX virtual machine (VMFS file system), access a virtual disk directly from VMFS and recover data straight from the virtual machine without the necessity to retrieve the virtual disk first.

Advanced disk reading mechanism

With UFS Explorer Professional Recovery, it is possible to choose the method for access to the disk and specify a timeout that will be used in case reading fails because of an I/O device error. A “read-once” option prevents extra read requests to the same location on the disk by means of saving the processed data to a sparse disk image file, allowing to minimize the pressure on unstable storages and avoid their further damage. Besides, an in-built S.M.A.R.T. monitor provides the opportunity to keep track of their “health” condition.

Versatile disk imaging procedure

With the help of the disk imager embedded into the utility one create a full clone of a storage or customize the imaged area by defining ranges on the disk or by choosing a group of files to be copied. The instrument also provides modifiable imaging parameters, like read timeout, block size, direction, protocol and settings for the omission of damaged blocks after failed reading attempts. The spotted bad sectors get indicated in a map file which can be helpful in other data recovery operations.

Defining defective sectors

UFS Explorer Professional Recovery creates maps of defects in the process of disk imaging and works with ones produced by compatible utilities. The software can employ such a file for the virtual definition of damaged sectors on the storage or identify bad blocks dynamically by recognizing a given content template. Moreover, it is possible to create a mask with emulation of defects from the used or free file system space and utilize it for various tasks. The program can also fill in the masked areas with a specified content pattern.

Configurable scanning

The software presents multiple scanning options, among which is a quick scan for chosen file system types, a longer profound search for lost data by known content with the possibility to define custom IntelliRAW rules, scanning of the space occupied by the file system or just the “free space” areas. The scanning process can be paused anytime for viewing the intermediate result while its results can be saved for future references.

Sector size mutation

Though a standard sector size of a hard disk drive is 512 bytes, apparently, some high-end storage systems, like those of NetApp, EMC and HP, may come set up with atypical block sizes – 520 bytes, 524 bytes, 528 bytes, etc. which renders them absolutely unreadable without specialized hardware. UFS Explorer Professional Recovery supports SCSI and SAS drives with non-standard sector sizes and is capable of truncating their metadata automatically in order to convert the blocks into the traditional 512-bytes size for further data recovery or access to files.

Support of DeepSpar Disk Imager

The software enables direct access via network and makes it possible to recover data from defective disks connected to a DeepSpar Disk Imager device. The user can adjust the read timeout, block size and other parameters directly in the program. The imaging can also be performed by DDI on a basis of a bitmap loaded into UFS Explorer Professional Recovery.

Interaction with MRT data recovery tools

The program is compatible with MRT Data Explorer, supports task files created by this utility along with the related defects maps. One can utilize UFS Explorer Professional Recovery for control over disk imaging carried out by an MRT system: to image by a bitmap, choose specific ranges, files/folders, etc. Also, the software allows loading file image chunks from an MRT task, sorts them and automatically fills them with the necessary spacers.

Expansive toolkit for in-depth data analysis

UFS Explorer Professional Recovery incorporates all the tools required for effective work with the binary data of storages, partitions, files or their fragments in a hexadecimal mode. A convenient hexadecimal viewer with a raw data inspector, position bookmarks, structure templates, reverse data address translation, parallel search, data comparison and other features makes it easy to perform the analysis of raw content whereas a hexadecimal editor with multiple auxiliary instruments facilitates its manual correction.