Recovery Softwares: Photorec & Recuva

2013-04-04T15:50:00.000+05:30

My cam’s memory card got damaged, which was having photos that I did not transfer to my Ext hard Disk. To my bad luck, I was not able to open my Ext HD also. I was left with only one option – “Format Disk” – for both the devices. Google results had lead me to some recovery software (most of them are not free) and I started recovering my files…

and

Ext HDD:

I started with my Seagate Ext HD, it was in RAW format, and so, I had to change the Drive to NTFS format from RAW without damaging the files.

I already had "Recuva" installed on my system, this was very much useful to recover lost data on my formatted Pen Drives. But, it was not able to recognise the RAW disk. So, I went to the Official site and downloaded “Seagate File Recovery for Windows” application and tried to recover the files, result was same as Recuva…

After some search, I came across a blog mentioning “PartedMagic”. And it is awesome, my hard disk is back and it has all the files.

PartedMagic (Linux based) comes as an iso file that can be flashed on a CD with “InfraRecorder" or a USB Drive with “UNetBootIn”. This can be used as Live BootCD. PartedMagic includes TestDisk, PhotoRec and some other useful applications for Disk management. TesDisk and PhotoRec (as a single zip file) can be downloaded separately from here.

This tutorial will help you how to recover your Hard Disk with PatedMagic.

SD card:

After using PartedMagic, I thought of recovering SD card files with it. But, I was not able to save the identified files to hard disk by using LiveCD,

I had to use TestDisk and PhotoRec 6.14 on windows for saving the recovered files to hard disk. (I have to tell one thing about the time it takes to recover files. Running PhotoRec from LiveCD will identify files very fast, than running it from Windows)

Although PhotoRec has a command-line interface it is pretty simple to use. On screen options will help you how to recover files…

PhotoRec is a powerful tool. It has detected all the files from my SD card and recovered them. After using PhotoRec, I just wanted to check same thing with Recuva. There is a much difference between both of them. Recuva identified only jpg files, whereas PhotoRec identified jpg, exe, m2ts, lnk and txt files of the SD card. Moreover only 52 images were identified by Recuva, but all of 92 images were identified by PhotoRec.

Triple Booting with Mac OS X (iATKOS L2), Windows 7 & Ubuntu 12.04 on Samsung SF511 Laptop

2012-05-13T21:20:00.000+05:30

Image Source

Well, I'm not a Computer Geek. But, I hope this will help for those who want to multi-boot on Samsung Laptops. I struggled by installing and uninstalling these 3 OSs at least 15 times & after 3 days of working on my SF511, I’m finally able to triple boot 3 OSs. However, OS X needs some modifications to get its best. I followed most of the guides from different sites to boot OS X, without any success. Finally, a small modification to a triple boot tutorial made the thing. I’m very much thankful to the author of the original guide (Eric Terpstra. http://ericterpstra.com/2012/03/triple-booting-my-pc-with-osx-lion-windows-7-and-lubuntu-12-04/)

I followed these steps to Triple Boot:.

Specifications of the Laptop:

Samsung SF511-03IN

Intel i3-2310M CPU @ 2.10GHz

SandyBridge

4 GB RAM, 500 GB HD

Nvidia GeForce GT 520M – Optimus

This Procedure needs empty Hard Disk. All the Data will be removed during Partitioning. So, BACKUP all the data on the Hard Disk...

Preparing the Booting Media:

DVD for iATKOS L2 – Used TransMac (trial version) on Windows7 to burn iATKOS_L2.dmg on a DVD

Downloaded latest MultiBeast (from tonymacx86) and copied on a Thumb Drive

smbios.plist was also downloaded from Insanelymac (Thanks to the File Owner) and copied to the same Thumb Drive

Windows 7 Premium on a DVD

Ubuntu 12.04 on a Thumb Drive – Used YUMI for flashing Ubuntu 12.04.iso on a Thumb Drive

Modifying the BIOS setup:

Enter BIOS on system start-up by pressing F2 when prompted

Go to ADVANCED tab

Change

AHCI mode control – MANUAL

Set AHCI mode – ENABLED

USB S3 Wake up – ENABLED

Go to BOOT tab

Set

PXE OPROM – ENABLED (This option will allow to set the Boot device Priority)

Boot Device Priority >

SATA CD as the first priority

Press F10 & save the configuration by pressing Enter

Partitioning HDD of the laptop:

Insert iATKOS DVD. Press any key to directly open DVD or press F8 and select iATKOS CD from the Menu
After the Installer opens (took 10 min for me), select Utilities > Disk Utility
Select the Hard disk, go to Partition tab and separate the HD into 3 or 4 partitions (3 for each OS and 1 for your personal files storage – this partition is optional). I made 4
Click options, choose Master Boot Record & click OK (This is the main modification required, the original guide says “choose GUID Partition Table”. Actually Distros are to be installed in MBR partition table format)
Click on 1^st partition, name it as Lion and format as Mac Extended (Journalised), give required memory (I gave 75 GB)
Click on 2^nd partition, name it as Win 7 and format as MS-DOS (FAT), give required memory (I gave 150 GB)
Optional Partition - Click on 3^rd partition, name it as My Stuff and format as MS-DOS (FAT), give required memory (I gave 200 GB)
Click on the last partition (~66 GB), do not name it, but, give the format as Free Space. This will be used as Linux partition
Click Apply & Close the Disk Utility after Patitioning
Do not Install Mac now, Just Shut Down…

Windows 7 Installation:

Insert the Win 7 DVD and install it in the Win 7 Partition

Note: Windows will not show “Next” option after the selection of Win 7 partition, as it cannot install in the MS-DOS (FAT) format, so, Reformat the partition and continue installation.

Shut down

Ubuntu 12.04 Installation:

Insert the Ubuntu flashed Thumb Drive. Select boot from USB in BIOS (press F2, go to EXIT tab, select the Thumb Drive – name of the Thumb Drive manufacturer will be shown)
Select Install Ubuntu
At the “Allocate Drive Space” stage, select Something Else
Under /dev/sda, select the Free Space
Click Add
Type of new partition: Logical
New partition size in Mb: set it as 4096 (Size of the RAM)
Location of Partition: End
Use as: Swap area – OK
Now Select the Free Space again
Click Add
Type of new partition: Logical
New partition size in Mb: all remaining memory
Location of Partition: End
Use as: Ext4
Mount Point: choose the forward slash " / " – OK
Device for Boot Loader installation: Choose the large partition just now made (sda6 on mine)
Install now – Complete
Shut Down

At this stage, both the OSes would be installed, but, u will be able to boot only Windows 7 as the GRUB is installed in Linux partition...

OS X installation:

Insert iATKOS DVD and boot from DVD
After the Installer appears, Click continue, Select the Lion Drive for Installation. Note: During installation it may hang, the progress bar may not proceed further and cursor arrow may not be visible, at that time just press the Power button once.
After installation, it will prompt for restart, and automatically restarts (Do not take out the DVD)
Now move cursor to the Lion Drive (not the DVD & do not press enter), type –s and press enter (otherwise it will hang)
This will load in single user mode. Wait till the loading has stopped. Last word should be *root*:
Now type the commands that were shown on the screen

/sbin/fsck –fy

7. Wait for the process to finish, till the “root:” shows up again. Now type

/sbin/mount –uw /

8. Again wait till “root:” appears. Now you have to remove AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext and AppleIntelSNBVA.bundle. To do this, type the following commands:

sudo rm –R /System/Library/Extensions/AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB.kext

sudo rm –R /System/Library/Extensions/AppleIntelSNBVA.bundle

exit

9. Now Mac should load automatically showing World map for selecting Country. Personalize by filling up the country, time date language, User name, etc. etc.

10. After the Mac Desktop has loaded, insert Thumb drive with MultiBeast and smbios.plist. Copy both of them to the desktop.

11. Replace the smbios.plist file in the /System/Extras/ folder with the one on the desktop.

12. Open MutiBeast and run it. Options that are to be marked in the MultiBeast are:

+ EasyBeast (required)

+ System utilities (required)

- Drivers & bootloader

- Kexts & Enablers

- Network

- Lnx2Mac’s Realtek RTL81xx Ethernet (required)

13. Restart (Do not remove the DVD)

14. Again select Lion drive and press enter (-s mode not required). Now Mac should load without any hanging problem.

15. Eject the DVD from disk drive. And Restart.

This time you should be seeing Chimera Boot Loader. Wait if you want to load Mac or else Press any key to get the OS menu and Enjoy…

Download smbios.plist

29/5/12

Download latest FakeSMC
This FakeSMC recognizes Intel HD3000 and resolves the artifacts on screen (But, no luck for me).
Ref: New FakeSMC resolves Screen Artifacts...

Thanks to TheRacerMaster from OSx86.net

16/6/12

Working VooDooHDA without kernal panics...
See the STEP 3 of the following guide (by srsr333)...
Link to VooDooHDA kext installation guide
Credits to srsr333 from tonymacx86

Download VooDooHDA

Laptop related (Samsung SF511)...

Recovery Softwares: Photorec & Recuva

Triple Booting with Mac OS X (iATKOS L2), Windows 7 & Ubuntu 12.04 on Samsung SF511 Laptop