The Friendliest Computer Club in Ventura County Since 1986
BAD COPY PRO
This is a reprint from the March 2006 issue of TOE (The Outer Edge)
By Jim Thornton
As a long-time floppy diskette user, ever since the early days of the original IBM personal computer, I have occasionally encountered a diskette that wasn't readable. Typically, the diskette would contain irreplaceable data, for example - financial spreadsheets, backed up data, overseas vacation photographs, etc. Common early attempts to recover the data were to take the diskette to several other computers, hoping that different and/or newer floppy drives could read the diskette. Later, I would use Norton Utilities' Disk Doctor to solve certain of the bad diskette problems. Recently, the diskette problems seem to becoming more difficult and the data less likely to be recovered.
Earlier this year, I discovered a little program that solves these problems. The shareware program is BadCopy Pro byJufsolt . The program recovers lost data caused by bad or corrupted sectors; damaged, unreadable, or defective boot, root, file allocation tables (FAT); etc., and will even recover erased files provided that the files haven't been written over.
With floppy diskettes being slated to become obsolete as many of the newer computers no longer come with floppy drives, BadCopy Pro provides the computer user other advantages besides recovering damaged and/or lost data from floppies. It is a valuable tool in recovering files from ZIP and JAZ disks as well as from hard drives and even digital camera memory or storage cards and the newer USB flash drives. And more interesting, BadCopy Pro can recover files from scratched and/or inaccessible CDs and DVDs.
What BadCopy Pro does is copy the "bad" data from the diskette into memory without modifying the original data in any way. The type of recoverable data includes text documents, photographs, spreadsheets, images, etc. BadCopy Pro works outside the limitations of Windows and uses numerous methods to recover and restore the lost files. Its operation is automatic and displays a Windows-like wizard. BadCopy Pro has three methods of recovering lost data - Rescue Corrupted Files; Rescue Lost Files, Mode 1; and Rescue Lost Files, Mode 2. Always start with Rescue Corrupted Files, and, should it not recover the data, use Mode 1 and then Mode 2 if Mode 1 fails. The difference between the modes is the type of recovery algorithm and disk access method used. You can either recover all of the files or only the ones that you select. The only disadvantage that I have encountered is that, when using Mode 2, the original file names and dates will be changed to File1, File2, etc., and the to the current date and time. One of the tests I gave it was to do a quick reformat of a USB flash drive, and then ask BadCopy Pro to recover the lost files. It did the job very well and will even fix any damaged zipped files that it finds so that they are easy to unzip. The current version is 3.80, and it works with Windows versions 95, 98, Me, XP, 2000, and version 4 of NT.
Companies specializing in data recovery typically charge $250 with a seven-day turn-around time. The BadCopy Pro program is downloadable and usable to locate (view) your lost file names, but its recovery feature is not available until you purchase the program. The purchase price is $39.50, which provides the registration code that fully activates its recovery features. Payment may be over the Internet, telephone, fax, PayPal, purchase order, etc. Smart Computing magazine recently reviewed several similar programs ranging in price from $30 to $100, and some of the lower-priced programs would handle only the FAT file format (Windows 95/98/Me series) while other would handle only the NT format (Windows NT/2000/XP series). BadCopy Pro handles both formats.
Should BadCopy Pro be unable to recover your lost data, the technical support staff will help you with the recovery of the data or will refund your payment.
