TOC · Installation and Run

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System Requirements

Windows   Linux   MacOS   DOS

Common Requirements

• Drives: without significant hardware/firmware problems
  Attention! If a device has physical problems (disk is not accessible, input-ouput errors, extraneous sounds, slow performance, there was a hit, etc.) it is recommended to address to specialists - see the section Working with Failing Devices
• See the section installation and Run for recommended OS environment
• CPU: Intel compatible (i486 and higher)
• To save/use results, reports, and settings a valid partition is required which is supported by the operating system (in particular, FAT partition is required to work in DOS/Win9x/ME)
• See also Issues and Limitations

Wrong Device Size

Do not work with a disk which size is detected incorrectly. It is possible to resolve some size related issues by yourself - see then guide from an external source.

• Capacity Limitation Jumper is misplaced (device size is limited to 32GB)
• HPA is erroneously applyed. Device size usually becomes 1TB less or similar (typical to some GIGABYTE motherboards). Try software: HDD Capacity Restore Tool (Windows), hdparm (Linux), HDAT2, MHDD, Victoria (DOS)
• No large drive support in OS - see below
• Incorrect drivers for SATA/USB controller (no correct 3TB+ support). Device is displayed tipically 2.2TB less. Update drivers
• USB enclosure / another adapter has no correct 3TB+ support. Change adapter or attach device directly
• Zero size: the device is not accessible, you should address to specialists

Windows 2K+ (2K/XP/Vista/7/higher)

• Recommended: Windows XP + SP2 and higher
• 32-bit versions work in both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows
• Administrator privileges
• Drives: supported by OS
• For drives larger than 2TB, Windows Vista/7/higher is required with the most recent versions of controller drivers installed
• For drives larger than 128GB in Windows 2K/XP certain ServicePacks must be installed (Windows 2K SP4 and Windows XP SP2) and LBA48 support must be switched on in the system registry of Windows 2K. Windows 2K/XP does not support drives larger than 2TB with the exception of special XP-compatible USB-boxes

Windows 98/ME

• Drives: supported by OS
  Attention! Windows 9x/ME handles 128GB and larger drives incorrectly unless special patches are installed. You may reload computer in MS-DOS mode and use DOS version to access drives via BIOS or ATA-interface

Linux

• OS: Latest Linux distributions with libc library
• 32-bit shared libraries to run 32-bit versions on 64-bit Linux (e.g. libc6-i386 package)
• Drives: supported by OS
• Superuser rights
• Root terminal or emulator (xterm, Konsole, Gnome-Terminal, etc.) for console version, or gtk2.0 library for GUI version
• utf-8 locale support

MacOS

• OS: macOS 10.12+
• Administrator privileges
• Drives: supported by OS, see Installation and Run

DOS

• OS: MS-DOS 5.0+ compatible
• Drives: supported by BIOS or supported by DOS (using ASPI drivers) or supporting ATA-interface (IDE or SATA). SATA disks must be switched to IDE-compatible mode in BIOS for direct ATA-access
• DOS Extender (file CWSDPMI.EXE © 2000 CW Sandmann in the software directory is enough)
• At least 200 KB of low memory free
• At least 64 MB of extended memory
• For extended name duplicates handling during data recovery long name driver is required (e.g., DOSLFN.COM © Haftman software)
• If you wish to use a mouse then mouse driver for DOS is required