Due to the inherent structure of the FAT and FAT32 file systems, recovery is limited under many conditions. To the best of our knowledge, all data recovery tools face this issue. Please consult the table below before making a purchase.

	Contiguous files	Fragmented files
Deleted or corrupted partition	Usually recoverable	Usually recoverable
Accidentally deleted files	Usually recoverable	Not recoverable
Reformatted partition	Usually recoverable	Not recoverable

A contiguous file is stored on disk as a series of contiguous physical sectors. A fragmented file, conversely, is stored in two or more disjoint disk segments.

A file is usually contiguous when first copied to a partition. Subsequent changes to the file that increase its size will require Windows® to allocate additional disk sectors, causing the file to become fragmented.

Certain types of files such as pictures and music files are almost never changed and, therefore, are usually contiguous and recoverable in all cases. On the other hand, Microsoft Office® documents and email storage files (for example, Microsoft Outlook® folders) can be routinely edited and quickly become fragmented.