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UNERASER

FAQ

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How to force LBA mode to access larger drives (more than 8GB size)?

Problem:

I use Windows NT installed under VMWare. I'm trying to scan partition having size 10GB or greater and get an error message saying "Error reading physical sector". Is it a drive's problem or your software does not support drives more than 8GB?

Reason

It could be bad clusters on the drive as well as BIOS/OS that does not support LBA mode problem.

MS-DOS versions prior to 6.0 does not support LBA mode. Some versions of BIOS could report that LBA mode is not supported for larger drives, however actually it does. VMWare v.3.0 is an example. Active@ UNERASER tries read the drive 100 times. In case of read failure it reports this problem.

Solution

Make sure that you boot your system using the proper version of DOS. If it is MS-DOS then version must be 6.0+. In most cases you do NOT need to tell Active@ UNERASER to force LBA mode, because if BIOS supports it, Active@ UNERASER does it automatically, giving you access to larger sized hard drives.

If BIOS reports that LBA mode is not supported, Active@ UNERASER uses standard Int13h to access the drive. You could try to force LBA mode by starting Active@ UNERASER with a parameter -LBA, for example:

A:\>UNERASER.EXE -LBA

However it will not help if BIOS actually does not support LBA mode. It usually happens with old versions of BIOS. In this case you can try to take out HDD and plug it to another machine having newer version of BIOS.

In case of your drive has lots of bad clusters, its advisable to save your data onto another physical drive and to get rid of the damaged hard drive.

 

User's Guide content

  1. PRODUCT OVERVIEW
    1. Restoring Deleted Data
    2. Files Erased
    3. Partition Damage
    4. Steps to unerase Files and Folders
  2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
  3. USING Active@ UNERASER CONSOLE
    1. Starting Active@ UNERASER DOS console
    2. Starting Active@ UNERASER Windows console
    3. Command Bar Menu
    4. Performing a Drive Scan
    5. Performing a Device Scan
    6. Searching for Deleted Files and Folders
    7. Searching for Files by Name
    8. Using Hex/Text Viewer
    9. Unerasing a Deleted File
    10. Unerasing a Deleted Folder
    11. Creating a Disk Image
    12. Steps to create a Disk Image
    13. Checking Disk Image
    14. Working with Disk Image
    15. Long File Names Support
    16. Recovering Files with Long Names
  4. DATA RECOVERY TIPS
    1. Treat Recovery Area With Care
    2. Save Recovered Files Onto a Different Drive
    3. Load UNERASER to a Floppy
  5. PREPARING TO USE THE UTILITY
    1. Preparing a DOS-Bootable Floppy Disk
    2. Preparing a Bootable ISO CD-ROM Image
  6. USING COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS
    1. Overview of Command Line Parameters
  7. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
  8. HOW TO...

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