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Once an image file has been created with CnW Recovery software, it is normally possible to recovery files from it.  The reasons for creating an image can include the following

• An exact copy of the disk, as original disk to be returned
• An exact copy of disk, so that original disk is not changed or corrupted in anyway.
• A copy of good sections of a damaged or failing disk

For good copies, then recovery will proceed in the normal way, once the image file has been selected as the input drive.  This will include redefining partitions etc.

To recover files from a damaged disk can require extra stages, or operations.

Logical recovery

Logical recovery will try and recover the file files by reading in the conventional way, either with a full recovery, or in a mode such as From Directory Stubs. If the image is very corrupted, then this recovery mode may fail or hang before all the files are recovered.  If using NTFS, then it is worthwhile using the mode of Recover from MFTs, and select the MFT range.  It may then be possible to extract the file in several attempts, missing out sections where recovery fails.

Raw recovery

Raw recovery is performed by using the Image  mode, and selecting Split on files. This should be considered a last resort mode, as typically file names are not recovered, but only file types.  However, if the main reason for recovery is to extract photographs, this can be a very successful mode.  Many photographs do not actually have a meaningful file name, and so there is nothing to loose. At times, the recovered file name will include the date the photo was taken, but this information is not always contained within the JPEG file.

As in logical recovery, it can be useful to select the range of the disk to be scanned.

Raw recovery does have a major limitation in that it will join together fragmented files. For photos, they are normally fairly small, and so do not get fragmented.  For a multi GB file, the chances are extremely high that there will be some fragmentation, and this will result in a corrupted file.

The types of file that are recovered are described in the Raw files page. The number of files does increase on a regular basis.

Shadow disk

When an image files is selected, there is also an option to enable a shadow disk.  The reason for this is when an image file has been created, but has missing sections. An image file should have as complete a directory area as possible, but then only the areas where files are stored need to be added.  By using the shadow disk, areas of the disk that have not been imaged, will be read from the shadow disk. The shadow disk will only be accessed once for each required sector, so a failed sector will not be read many times. This will mean that although recovery will not be complete, it will not be exceptionally slow.