What is required to use FilesLost.com?

You need a Java enabled web browser under the Windows operating system. Java 5 or later is required. You can download the Java plugin from Sun.

You will also need administrative privilege. See Do I need special privileges to successfully use FilesLost.com?

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Do I need special privileges to successfully use FilesLost.com?

Under Windows XP or Windows 2000, the user opening the browser needs to have administrative privileges. This is usually done by adding the user to the Administrators group.

Under Windows Vista, if needed, the user will be prompted to enter an administrative user name and password.

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Which filesystem systems are supported?

FilesLost.com supports FAT and NTFS. We plan to support more filesystems in the future.

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Which operating systems are supported?

FilesLost.com supports Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Vista. We plan to support more operating systems in the future.

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Can FilesLost.com recover files that were stored on an external media?

Yes, FilesLost.com can recover files that were stored on:

  • an USB hard drive
  • an USB thumb drive
  • a storage card such as these used in cameras and phones

Just plug your device (or insert the card in your card reader), make sure that windows can access it before visiting FilesLost.com

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Can FilesLost.com recover files that are stored on a network share?

FilesLost.com can not recover files that are stored on a network share. This is because FilesLost.com needs to access the media at a level below the one exposed by network shares. In order to recover files, open FilesLost.com from the computer offering the network share. If you can not physically access the computer offering the network share, you may consider using something like Remote Desktop.

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FilesLost.com can not recover my files. Can you help?

If FilesLost.com failed to recover your files, you may look at carving tools. We recommend you:

These tools were written for the Linux operating system, but you can run them under windows using cygwin.

If you are willing to send us your media (hard drive, thumb drive, card), you also consider contacting us.

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How are you able to run native programs with administrative privilege under the Windows Vista operating system using a Java applet?

We have devised a custom launcher using the idea described here. If you are encountering the same problem in your application, we will be glad to help you. Feel free to contact us but remember that our time is limited.

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Going to a website to recover files is weird: viewing the site implies more writes on the hard drive that it will in turn prevent file recovery. What do you think?

It is true that going to a web site will imply more write on the hard drive and that this may in turn prevent file recovery. By visiting FilesLost.com, you will download at most about 1 MB. This has to be compared to the amount of free space on your system drive. If you have 100 MB free on your system drive, going to the web site roughly decreases your chance of file recovery by 1%. If now, your system drive has 1 GB of free space, going to the web site decreases your chance of file recovery by 0.1%.

Some people will recomend you to turn off your computer and let a specialist analyzes your media. This may not be the best approach. Using a tool like FileMon, you may discover that a huge amount of files are constantly being updated in a modern operating system. You may consider reading a windows system programming book such as this one and learn about the file system activity at shutdown. At FilesLost.com, we believe that the best approach is to use a file recovery tool as quickly as possible.

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Why are you asking for donations?

There are several reasons for this:

  • we borrowed a lot of work from open source projects; it is natural to look for funds to support such projects.
  • we need money for the hosting
  • currently we can not afford to pay for the official certificates that could smooth the interaction with the users. These certificates are required to sign the code.

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Are there commercial alternatives to FilesLost.com?

You can use your favorite search engine but below are a few results:

Note that FilesLost.com is not affiliated with the software mentioned above. FilesLost.com does not grant their efficiency.

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