I need a help with DMDE

Shawnabob

I deleted important files from my desktop on my laptop. After reading most topics and comments from professionals on Reddit about data recovery, I concluded that the best choice among the freemium programs would be DMDE, as it effectively finds files and importantly allows their free recovery, which is crucial for me. All these conclusions are solely based on comments from Reddit, so please correct me if I am mistaken.

After downloading DMDE and starting the scan, I was immediately shocked. It showed about 233 NTFS entries. Reading up on what NTFS is, I understood that it is the file system of my disk. But I only have one disk - the C drive. Nothing more. Yet, the program shows 233 entries, and this is just 10 percent of the scan. What will happen next? How do I navigate this? I can't figure out what and where to press to find my files and save them. Please help.

oleksandr-medvediev

Shawnabob
Hello,

You selected software that is not the easiest to begin with. DMDE is mainly designed for professionals to provide flexible recovery options.
Generally speaking, your lost files should be in the 'Main Results' (the top tab on your screenshot), as this is where the largest number of consecutive file system blocks are located, so the chances of finding the files are higher.

Additional Results contain small parts of the found file system, which does not mean that you had several file systems on the disk, but due to the properties of the scanner's algorithms and possible disk fragmentation (as a possibility), the program assigns them to 'Additional Results' tab. Also, the Additional Results may show parts of the file system that are already in the Main Results, so check the main section first and then the Additional Results, although I would advise you to check the RAW results as well if you know what file formats you have lost.

Also, if you have a laptop with an SSD drive, it's possible that you won't be able to recover files because the TRIM command (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing)) on your SSD may have already wiped deleted files from the memory blocks.