Comments on: Using the Bitmap to Make Data Recovery More Efficient https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/ Professional Data Recovery Services Thu, 21 May 2020 21:39:23 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.7 By: Dell Error Code 0142 Data Recovery Case | Gillware Data Recovery https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-4711 Tue, 19 Jun 2018 12:50:17 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-4711 […] about all of the files on the disk the client needed recovering. We took advantage of the drive’s bitmap file so that we wouldn’t have to image the entire drive. By only imaging the used areas on the […]

]]> By: Deleted ThawSpace Data Recovery Study: Faronics Deep Freeze https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-2173 Thu, 12 Oct 2017 11:49:30 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-2173 […] in use and which are not. In a hard drive formatted NTFS for Windows, this record is known as the bitmap. When a file is deleted, or the Recycle Bin is emptied, the bitmap marks the clusters containing […]

]]> By: A Look at Logical Data Recovery | Gillware Data Recovery https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-1255 Fri, 22 Sep 2017 18:33:02 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-1255 […] noticed paths to get to your files. The first step of this path is the root directory. Thirdly, the bitmap tells your hard drive where data has been written and where there’s available space. It […]

]]> By: Windows 10 Reset File Recovery Case Study: Hitachi Deskstar | Gillware https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-564 Fri, 18 Aug 2017 15:33:29 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-564 […] the NTFS filesystem, which records which parts of the hard drive are being used in the bitmap. The bitmap keeps a record of all of the clusters on the disk. When a cluster is in use, the bitmap flags it as […]

]]> By: Seagate Drive Repair Case Study: Hard Drive Beeping | Gillware Inc. https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-563 Fri, 18 Aug 2017 13:21:31 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-563 […] our engineers can use filesystem metadata to read data from only the used portions of a hard drive’s platters. By reading metadata such as […]

]]> By: Hard Disk Failure Recovery Case Study: Deleted and Dropped | Gillware https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-562 Thu, 17 Aug 2017 18:46:46 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-562 […] For drives with NTFS partitions, the bitmap keeps a record of used and unused clusters of data. We normally use the bitmap to make data recovery more efficient—but it helps us find deleted files, too. Instead of automatically erasing your data, the […]

]]> By: File Recovery Case Study: Recovering Deleted Files | Gillware Inc. https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-561 Thu, 17 Aug 2017 13:17:30 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-561 […] you format a hard drive with an NTFS filesystem, each partition has a special file called the bitmap. The bitmap keeps a record of every block of space comprising the partition volume to plot out how […]

]]> By: Dell Error Code 0142 Data Recovery Case Study: Samsung ST1000DL004 https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-560 Thu, 17 Aug 2017 12:56:11 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-560 […] about all of the files on the disk the client needed recovered. We took advantage of the drive’s bitmap file so that we wouldn’t have to image the entire drive. By only imaging the used areas on the […]

]]> By: When it Does Not Compute: A Look at Logical Data Recovery - Gillware Data Recovery https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-559 Wed, 29 Jul 2015 19:38:03 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-559 […] noticed paths to get to your files. The first step of this path is the root directory. Thirdly, the bitmap tells your hard drive where data has been written and where there’s available space. It […]

]]> By: Sundeep Saini https://www.gillware.com/data-recovery-lab/using-the-bitmap-to-make-data-recovery-more-efficient/#comment-558 Sat, 23 Mar 2013 18:08:31 +0000 http://blog.www.gillware.com/?p=1135#comment-558 Hi Lee,
Its a nice article regarding the bitmaps. Almost all file systems keeps the cluster or blocks(used in Linux/Unix based file systems)bitmaps. Clusters/blocks are the minimum allocation unit of any file system. Whenever we create any file in our system, the file system allocates a minimum space and when it grows simultaneously number of clusters grows for that file data. That cluster area could be in sserial order or could be fragmented. As you already explains that it keeps the account of used and unused space in drive. Almost all good Undelete data recovery software reads the $bitmap file.

They read that file and gather all unused allocation units information.From that area they do the recovery that may be formatted case or deleted case.
I agree for mechanical failure case, the data recovery engineers tries to take image of all drives starting from sector zero(0) instead of reading the bitmap area( but that all depends of hard drive situation or knowledge of engineers regarding the file system). But it is possible in a single drive cases. In case of Raids, we need to take images for all drives that are part of Raid. In that case we never know the position of bitmaps.

Regards
Sundeep

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