TIRAMISU - SOPHISTICATED DATA RECOVERY (c) 1996 by Plug'n Play, Uwe Gissemann INTRODUCTION TIRAMISU is a software for reconstructing data from a crashed hard drive. It helps when the drive is - hit by a virus - scratched by a head crash - formatted - 'fdisk'ed - zapped by a power failure - damaged by applications TIRAMISU scans the drive even when there are physical damages. The found data are analyzed and reconstructed. TIRAMISU can handle drives without readable boot sector, readable Fat or readable directories. It can handle drives that are not recognized by DOS anymore. TIRAMISU automatically creates a VIRTUAL DRIVE in memory. This virtual drive looks like a usual file manager. You can see the lost directories and files of your crashed drive. Now files and directories can be viewed and copied to a safe medium. The extensive use of our sophisticated pattern recognition technology enables TIRAMISU to put the right pieces of data together again. Even disks with very few administrative informations left can reach a high recovery quality. TIRAMISU recovers much more data than any other 'disk doctor'. TIRAMISU is NON DESTRUCTIVE and READ ONLY. It does not put any data onto your crashed drive. Recovered data are restored to another destination (disk, diskette, network, interlink). TIRAMISU works on DOS and Windows platforms. Versions for NOVELL and HPFS are under development. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS - 286 processor and up - 4 MB RAM and up Depending on the size of the drive to be recovered we recommend a 386 with 4 MB RAM. Installing 3 MB of EMS (Version 4) is recommended. GETTING STARTED 1) Boot diskette Create a boot diskette with a CONFIG.SYS similar to this: files=25 device=himem.sys device=emm386.exe Make sure you have specified the correct drive parameters in BIOS setup. Boot the computer and start the program TIRAMISU.EXE. 2) Specify swap area By default TIRAMISU uses EMS as swap area. If for some reason there is no or not enough EMS you can specify a swap area on disk. Select OPTION -> DATA RECOVERY, tag 'DISK ALLOWED', specify path. CAUTION: Do not swap to the drive you intend to recover. 3) Hit TIRAMISU! for the drive you want to recover. TIRAMISU starts processing. Depending on your system's speed and the size of your drive this can take 5 minutes or even up to 1 hour. 4) Copy some or all files to a safe medium using F7 Now you see the virtual drive and you can view and copy (registered version only) the files to any DOS-available destination. THAT'S IT! ISN'T IT EASY? RESTRICTIONS TIRAMISU handles only drives with 16-Bit Fats, which applies to most systems. Only old (10 MB) drives have another Fat (12-Bit). If you have more than one partition, you can only recover the first one. (This problem will be solved with a later version). However, there is a workaround: physically copy the partition you want to recover to another drive. And feel free to contact us if you need assistance. Since TIRAMISU is very memory hungry, your PC might run out of memory. If you face this problem, install a memory manager with as much RAM and EMS as possible. Watch the available memory displayed at the bottom line. The value displayed at the far right shows the free RAM. The E:XXX shows the free EMS and the F:XXX shows the fragmentation. The RAM should not go below 50000. TROUBLE SHOOTING If you get only scrambled results this could be due to the TIRAMISU drive structure recognition routine. Try this: Select OPTION -> DATA RECOVERY, tag 'AUTOMATIC IDENTIFICATION' off. Press TIRAMISU!. After a while you get a window that proposes a certain drive structure. If you are not satisfied with what you see you can press 'Search Again'. TIRAMISU tries to retrieve another structure. Finally press 'Ok'. You should not use any other 'disk doctor' before running TIRAMISU. If you did so, please 'undo'. if you cannot 'undo' you can tell TIRAMISU to ignore the file entries the 'disk doctor' created (something like FILE0000.CHK...). Select OPTION -> DATA RECOVERY, modify the field 'Exclude Main Directory Entries'. Upload a new version from our Internet site (address below). If you find any bugs, please send a description to one of the addresses below. REGISTRATION TIRAMISU IS DISTRIBUTED AS SHAREWARE. FEEL FREE TO COPY, DISTRIBUTE OR UPLOAD IT TO ANY MEDIUM. The unregistered version has all functions for recovering you crashed hard drive. But only the registered version of TIRAMISU allows you to COPY files from your recovered drive. The registration fee is DM 145. (Equal to US $99) The registration allows you to COPY recovered files from a SPECIFIED SET OF ONE OR TWO DRIVES. The procedure is this: - Run TIRAMISU and check if it can restore your data (VIEW your files) - Select HELP -> REGISTRATION. You see an 8-digit code. This is the ID of your current drive configuration. - Submit this code to the TIRAMISU registration service: Tel. 49-30-782 95 06 (Germany) Fax 49-30-788 52 31 Email 101457.1447@compuserve.com http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/data_recovery Address: Plug 'n Play Uwe Gissemann Crellestr. 6 D-10827 Berlin Germany - Send DM 145 (or US $99) or credit card information (VISA or DINERS). - After receiving the registration key, enter it in the registration screen. Insert a diskette in drive A:. This diskette will be your license diskette for future use. - Now you can use COPY to save your data. IMPORTANT: The registration allows you to recover data only from your computer with its configuration. It is not valid for other drives than specified. This is a copy protection. DISCLAIMER PLUG'N PLAY DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SOFTWARE IS ERROR FREE. PLUG'N PLAY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE SOFTWARE, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. NO LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. IN NO EVENT SHALL PLUG'N PLAY BE LIABLE FOR CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL OR INDIRECT DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING OUT OF THE DELIVERY, PERFORMANCE OR USE OF THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF PLUG'N PLAY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN NO EVENT WILL PLUG'N PLAY'S LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT OR ANY OTHER THEORY OF LIABILITY, EXCEED THE LICENSE FEE PAID BY THE BUYER.