Dear Sirs,

I would like to ask a newbie question, so please be tolerant to my first post.

I have the drive used for capturing off the TV tuner card in MPEG-2 format (MPEG-2 program stream, extension MPG, 1 hour approx. 4 GB). The files captured are usually several GB big. The drive is not a system drive and there is not a page file allowed on it. Windows XP SP2, System Restore disabled, nothing else is being written to the drive, single NTFS partition. However, when I delete the file (simple CTRL+Delete in Windows Explorer) then I have not found any software able to recover the file I've just deleted (nothing else written yet). All the software tried (by me and my friends having access to R-Studio, OnTrack Easy Recovery, Recover My Files etc.) just shows the file size equal to zero. The drive is getting fragmented easily (320 GB = 80 hours of the recordings 'only'). Is this normal? File immediately truncated to zero? Is there anything you can advise to successfully get the file back immediately after the deletion in such a situation?

Thank you very much in advance for any suggestions.

Since there was no reply, I highlighted the details of the question, does somebody know the answer?
Thank you.

most likely the file was heavily fragmented and had attribute 0x20.

How important is that file to you. I have seen this more than once in my work here. External drives not running an OS is a pain to try and retrieve data from. Do yoiu know anyone who has a DC or PC3000 normally these devices will be able to retrieve the lost or deleted files on a drive like this. In my experience I have done lots of tests with different software trying to recover this type of work for people. You can do it but it takes a long time to find it and get it back. Go find a shop that has the correct matreial and will be easy to find the lost files with. Otherwise say bye bye to that file.

I have set up test beds to put data on a ext drive only formatted in NTSF and can read the data. Then delete it and try to find it and bring it back. Depening on the structure and normal software recovery lost file programs it is more difficult to retrieve these deleted files from. If there is other equipment available it will make the process less painful but it might cost you to get it back.

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Iorana Haraharaini