[crisoco33]

My problem.
Today when doing a file recovery scan of my hard drive with O&O Disk Recovery 4.1 I discovered that it had a FAT32 partition which I was not aware of. Even more alarmingly I discovered that it had a FoxPro file installed on it. I had never even heard of FoxPro until now. You can imagine my surprise.
Can anyone enlighten me what all this is about because I have never partitioned my hard drive.
Some suggestions!
a) I recently installed / uninstalled a photo recovery program from SysInternals which apparently used a virtual partition. I was wondering if this might have any bearing on this issue as I am still of the opinion that this virtual partition was never removed at the time. The files seem nothing to do with that though.
b) Is it likely that the supplier of my new computer could have installed a second-hand hard drive? How would I know?
c) Are these files something to do with my Windows XP Home installation on the 'C' Drive?
d) Could this be to do with PC Angel Non Destructive System Recovery that was installed with my new computer?

This is what the drive setup looks like.



This screen shot shows the contents of the FAT Partition.

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Well my first guess would be a recovery partition but a look at those files it doesn't quite look like a recovery partition....
Maybe it's a damaged or incomplete recovery partition though..... Was this computer new when you bought it? or was it referbished?

[shard92]

Well my first guess would be a recovery partition but a look at those files it doesn't quite look like a recovery partition....
Maybe it's a damaged or incomplete recovery partition though..... Was this computer new when you bought it? or was it referbished?

[crisoco33]

Thank you for your interest. It is a real mystery. The computer was a brand new computer from Evesham Technology, but I am still of the opinion that the hard disc may have been previously installed on another computer and had the this data removed.

Like you say the files bear no resemblance to what would be expected from a recovery. FoxPro is a database system from Microsoft from what I can understand.

If the 'virtual' partition was anything to do with Sysinternals I would have expected to see around 9,000 jpg files.
The other point to bear in mind is that this partition only shows up on a very few Software Recovery programs.

I opened up all of the text files but they look to be in Hungarian? Földalatti is Budapest. Even more of a mystery.

Here are a few that make any sense

[shard92]

Yeah best guess I can give you.... The hard drive was used before... either with or without that companies knowledge ( I don't know their source of hardware obviously ) and it wasn't properly cleaned up afterwareds.... Carefull may have virus or other some such..... may want to get rid of it as soon as possible...

[crisoco33]

How can I wipe data that does not show up on any file system? If I could determine its location I could use Directory Snoop NTFS to wipe the record. Bear in mind this data has been there quite a few years and I have done several Free Space / MFT / File Slack wipes since then.
This is the crucial question.....
How do I delete data that is on a virtual partition and does not have an MFT record any longer. If I knew the source / path or cluster would be a help but that is not available.
I have a similar problem with another 9,000 jpg files with no MFT record which I unable to get rid of either.
Surely there has got to be answer to all of this?
Again, it is only certain recovery programs that can access 'lost' files that can produce this information.
eImage Recovery, Photo Reviver and File Scavenger are examples of programs that can access lost data but O&O Disc Recovery is one of only a couple that I have reviewed which shows this extra partition information.
Thanks for your opinion Shard.
Does anyone else have any thoughts.

[shard92]

well how are you seeing it in the first place?
Are you sure it's virtual and not just a hidden partition like some recovery partitions?

[crisoco33]

I can only view the partition by running a deep scan of my hard drive with O&O Disk Recovery.
I am not sure what the partition is. All I know is that I did not put it there and I have never actually recovered anything with any recovery software. We have established that the data does not look like it came from that sort of process anyway.

[shard92]

I don't know what to tell you then.... Could be just gosts of stuff that use to be there... who knows... short of backing up your data and using a data destruction program on the drive and then reinstalling everything there may not be anything you can do... I've never used the program you mention so I can tell you if it would be able to do anything...