The wizard is automatically displayed on program startup. For straight forward restore operations, this is the easiest way to proceed. For more complex restores, one should exit the wizard and run the main program

The wizard displays all possible media types that CnW Data Recovery program handlers. Starting from the top, the physical drives are are

• CD ROM, including all variations on RW
• DVD ROM, including all variations of +R, -R +RW, -RW and Mini DVD
• Hard disk drives. These can be IDE, USB, S-ATA, Firewire
• Memory chips - these are determined as FAT32 devices less than 4GB in size - older small hard disk drives may be included in this as well.
• Zip and Jaz drives of any size, 100MB, 250MB 750MB for Zip, 1GB and 2GB for Jaz
• Floppy disk - normal 1.4MB disks
• Image file - this is a file that has been produced a raw image of a disk

 The logical formats that map to these physical drives can be quite varied, click here for details of Logical Formats

The Recovery Wizard display scans for all logical drives from A to Z, with the exception of Drive C: which is locked out for recovery purposes. As valid drives are found, the icon is enabled, and the drive details added to the associated combo box. In the example shown above, no DVDs, Jaz, or flopppy media was detected. On some configurations, the drive may be marked with ‘Option not purchased’. The scan time can take 10-20 seconds, but sometimes much longer for a media that is not responding correctly. (CnW are working on keeping this time down to a minimum).

Once an icon has been enabled, and drive selected, the icon should be clicked on to start the next start of recovery. The possible Icons are as below

• CD-ROM
• DVD
• Hard disk drive
• Camera Memory
• Zip and Jaz
• Disk image file

As soon a drive has been selected, a series of physical tests are carried out to determine if the drive is functioning correctly. If the drive is OK, this is then followed by a series of logical tests. This will detect if critical sectors, such as boot sector, and BIOS boot sector are valid. Where possible the program will try and determine if the logical structure of teh disk can be determined.

If new drives are added to the PC, the Refresh drive list will allow the drives to be seen

If the computer uses Subst drives, sometimes there can be a problem when a new USB drive is added. The problem is that the USB and Subst drive try and share the same drive letter. The solution is either to not use Subst drives, or via the control panel, allocate the USB drive to a new drive letter. Fortunately, with the later, the new drive letter will be remembered on the next boot up, so this change will only be required for each new USB drive.

There are 2 buttons at the bottom of the screen. ‘Go to main program’ exits the Wizard and takes the user to the main CnW Data Recovery program. This is the mode for more advanced recovery, and to access other functions within the program.  ‘Exit CnW’ closes the whole program

For an example of how it runs, look at the demo video

Click for Free demo download