Afyer several years of steady development, CnW Recovery Version 3 has been released in August 2010. It will remain fully compatible with the current version, but the Wizard structure is being changed. To assist with testing, the 30 day licence will now last 60 days until September 2010.

The previous Wizard was very successful for many applications, but for complex situations it could be argued that ‘one size’ does not fit all. For this reason, the wizard has been replaced by about a dozen typical situations that need recovery. Over the years we have helped many users through fairly complex procedures to recover their data. This knowledge is now being added to the program so that the program will automatically select and configure the relevant tools for any recovery job. The intention is to ensure that users of any ability can recover their, and at the same time, forensic investigation is secure, sound and well documented. All the basic tools currently exist, with examples in the manual, but it is a recognised fact that unfortunately, many users do not read the manual.

In the new wizard the first page shown above there are 10 possible functions that can be selected. The top 3 functions 4 relate to the current tools and disk imaging and data carving. The bottom 8 functions are typical situations are are required. Each one is tailored to match the actual failure mode of the device and recommend stages to be followed. All the main tools exist within CnW, but these new wizard functions will assist in getting the most complete recovery with only limited user knowledge.

As before, it will always be possible to select the tools manually. Every feature of the existing version still works, but new wizard fy]unctions are being added. The functions below are easy to use shells of the basic tools

Current functions implemented

• Go to main menu
• Data carving
• Create drive image file
• Memory chip photo recovery, ie cameras. Recovers all good and deleted files, then scans for lost files. Optionally process fragmented files
• Mini DVD video recovery. It examines the disk and carves out the MPEG sections of video. After this, new index files (.IFO) are created, and a video disk image produced. Video thumbnails are displayed on recovery
• Failing hard drive - will image the drive and then recover files
• Deleted file recovery - will search for deleted files
• Repartitions - will attempt to find previous partitions
• Formatted disk - will recover remaining files, even when disk partially formatted, or has a new file system loaded

These wizard functions will continue to be developed in response to new recovery problems, and customer feed back.