Features in File Scavenger® version 7

New features in Version 7.1

• Multiple languages in the same installation.
• NTFS volumes with deduplication on Windows Server®.
• Significantly improved recovery for ext4 and XFS file systems with the Long scan.
• ReFS up to version 3.7 (Windows 11 and Server 2022).
• VMFS up to version 6.
• Faster (10x) tree-view navigation.
• Hex viewer with annotation for common file system structures.
• Early basic features of remote drive support.
• Display total data size under each folder.
• Directly scan a disk image, VHD or VMDK file found on an ext4, NTFS or VMFS volume.
• Show data extents in file Property page.
• Automatic check for software updates.
• Many usability enhancements including auto-complete folder paths, recently used entries and display persistence.

New features in Version 5.3

• Supports nested RAID, spanned volume and virtual drive (VMDK/VHD/VHDX) in many combinations.
• Supports the new Btrfs file system.
• Organizes trivial volumes under one subtree. Trivial volumes contain no or little user data. They may clutter up the screen.
• Shows deleted data in a separate subtree.
• Supports VMFS long scan.
• Saves the recovered data from multiple volumes in one operation.
• Fixes bugs in Version 5.2.

New features in Version 5.0

• The 64-bit version removes the limit on the number of files the program can scan, provided that sufficient physical memory is available. The 32-bit version can scan no more than about ten million files.
• Handling disk number changes when loading a session file. Windows assigns a disk number to a physical drive, such as "Disk 1", "Disk 2", etc. Older versions of File Scavenger cannot load a session file if the disk numbers have changed.
• New option to create a log for a long scan. The log can be used in a subsequent rescan to significantly reduce scan time.
• Improved recovery of PDF documents in raw mode. In previous versions raw PDF documents are sequentially numbered and saved in a flat folder. In version 5 they are arranged by author and date with the document title as the filename.
• Improved ZFS and RAIDZ recovery. ZFS is a new file system used primarily by FreeNAS devices.
• Improved recovery of the 64-bit ext4 file system.

Added features in Version 4.3

• Support for the ZFS file system and RAID-Z (single and double parity). ZFS is an open-source file system and logical volume manager used in NAS devices (e.g. FreeNAS) and high-performance servers.
• Support for the ReFS file systems. ReFS or Resilient File System is Microsoft's next generation file system for the Windows platforms.
• Support for RAID 6.
• Implementing custom RAID. Custom RAID is used when special algorithms are needed to reconstruct data.
• Raw recovery for Canon RAW Image (.CR2) and Material Exchange Format (.MXF) files.
• Improved raw recovery for Office documents.
• Streamlining the Advanced Volumes dialogs.

Added features in Version 4.2

• Improved support for the Ext3/4 file systems, both 32- and 64-bit.
• Improved support for the XFS file system.
• Support for the exFAT file system.
• Support for the VMware VMFS file system.
• Support for the VMware VMDK (flat, hosted sparse, and ESXi host sparse).
• Support for the Microsoft VHD and VHDX (fixed, dynamic and differencing types).
• Using 5 to 10% less virtual memory than version 4.1.

Added features in Version 4.1

• Significantly improved recovery for the following file systems: Ext3/4 (both 32- and 64-bit), UFS1 and UFS2, HFS+ and XFS.
• New view filters to show only files meeting certain conditions. For example you can tell File Scavenger ® to show only filenames containing a certain string, files larger than a certain size, files created after a certain date, etc. When the filters change the display is updated accordingly without having to rescan the drive.
• A new dockable status panel with more details about the current session status. During recovery log messages displayed in this panel are also saved on a disk file.
• The significantly improved Quick scan mode can now quickly locate volumes for scanning. When it works, Quick scan yields uncluttered results. The Long scan can find more files but in many cases those include irrelevant files that need cleaning up later.
• Availability of the Chinese version.
• In raw scan mode (where files are found without a name or folder path) group TIFF and JPEG photos into folders by the date the photos were taken.
• Support for UTF8 filenames in various file systems.
• Windows 8 compatibility certification.
• Improved support for hard drives with 4K sector size.

Added features in Version 4.0

• Significantly improved recovery of corrupted FAT and FAT32 volumes. The FAT and FAT32 file systems are commonly used on flash memory cards.
• Improved recovery of the folder structure of NTFS volumes.
• Reduced virtual memory requirement which allows File Scavenger to scan volumes with several millions files.
• Support for the latest generation of hard drives with 4KB sector size (3 TB and up).
• Support for very long filenames (over 260 characters).
• Simplified licensing.
• Reconstruction of NAS devices.
• Reconstruction of spanned volumes over RAID volumes and RAID 50.
• Limited support for Ext2, Ext3, HFS, HFS+, HFSX and UFS1. These functions will be incrementally improved with each revision within version 4 with no additional upgrade fees.

Features in Version 3.2

• Recovers the original filename and folder path.
• Recovers files deleted from a network share. (File Scavenger must be run on the computer where the share is defined.)
• Recovers files deleted in a DOS command window.
• Recovers files removed from the Recycle Bin.
• Recovers files deleted from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down.
• Recovers data from reformatted volumes.
• Recovers files from deleted volumes.
• Is especially effective in recovering digital images in JPEG format.
• Recovers files from broken striped volumes (RAID 0 or RAID 5) or volume sets (spanned volumes).
• Supports NTFS compression.
• Supports both basic and dynamic disks.
• Transparently handles bad sectors when possible. Otherwise allows the user to skip ranges of bad sectors.
• Scans badly damaged partitions.
• Supports alternate data streams and sparse files.
• Can search for file patterns or file types.
• Recovers multiple files in one click.
• Can sort files by date, size, name, type, path, etc.
• Restores the original Create and Modified dates.
• Supports Unicode filenames.
• Scans very large volumes (hundreds of gigabytes) holding up to several million files or more on a computer with sufficient RAM.
• Detects certain file types based on their data patterns, thus allowing recovery even when the file system structure is totally lost.
• Saves a search session to a disk file for reloading later so that a drive need not be scanned again.
• Scans disk image files.
• Supports FAT and FAT32, but in a limited manner due to the inherent weakness in those file systems.