| Salvage those NTFS files with NTFS Reader for
DOS Page 2 of 2 |
The program supports long filenames; though they aren't shown in Figure B. Pressing [Tab] toggles between the long and short names. When viewing the long names, you don't get all the detail columns shown in Figure B; you get only the filename and size. To preview the content of a file, select it and press [Enter]. By default, it appears in hexadecimal code, as in Figure C, but you can switch between this and normal text mode by pressing [Tab]. Pressing [Esc] takes you back to the file listing.
| Figure C |
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| View the contents of a selected file. |
Searching for a file
One of the main drawbacks of this program is that every time you change directories, there's a delay—around 10 seconds—so browsing through dozens of folders could be tedious. However, the Search feature lets you locate files using the exact filename or standard command-prompt wildcards.
To use the Search feature, press [Ctrl]F. A box will prompt you to enter your file specification. Enter an exact name or a wildcard. For example, to retrieve all the .doc files from the disk, search for*.docand press [Enter]. The program locates the first file that matches your specification, as shown in Figure D. From here, you can press [Enter] to jump to that file's directory or press [Ctrl]F again to keep searching.
| Figure D |
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| Searching for a file can be quicker than browsing for it. |
Copying a file to another disk
Of course, the main purpose of this utility is not to poke around on a drive but instead to salvage something from it. You do this by copying the file to a FAT drive. To copy a file, select it and press [Ctrl]C. A Save In DOS Real Mode dialog box opens, as shown in Figure E. Select the drive you want to copy to. The drive letters available in this box will be different from the ones you've been working with so far because they exclude all non-FAT drives and include all FAT-based floppies. You can use the navigation keys listed in the dialog box to move around, and you can select OK when you're ready to make the copy.
| Figure E |
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| You can copy a file onto a FAT drive. |
Listing recoverable deleted files
One final note about NTFS Reader for DOS: This utility won't recover deleted files, but it will show them. Deleted files appear in the file listing with a white block to their left. However, you can't copy them to another disk. NTFS.com, the company that makes this free utility, also offers commercial utilities for recovering deleted files. Active UNERASER, a text-mode utility similar to NTFS Reader for DOS, unerases. There's also a Windows-based version called Active UNDELETE for FAT and NTFS.
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Excellent utility. It saved me a lot of headaches.
Posted by anonymous on Wednesday, September 17 2003 10:14 PM