recover MS-DOS Command

Type: External (2.0 to 5.0)

Syntax:

RECOVER [d:][path]filename

RECOVER d:

Purpose: Resolves sector problems on a file or a disk. (Beginning with DOS Version 6, this program is no longer available; in DOS Version 6 and later, use the ScanDisk utility.)

Discussion

If a disk develops problems, you can use this command to attempt to fix sector problems. You can recover either the file containing that sector (but without the bad sector) or the entire disk (if there were sector problems in the disk directory area).

Examples

To recover the file NEWFILES.TXT, enter

recover newfiles.txt

The program will read the file, sector by sector, skipping the bad sectors. When a bad sector is found, the sector is marked and DOS will no longer allocate your data to that sector.

To recover the disk in drive A, enter recover a: Each recovered file will be listed in the directory in the form FILEnnnn.REC, where nnnn is a sequential number starting with 0001.

If there is not enough room in the root directory, a message will be printed and the program will store information about the extra files in the file allocation table. You can run RECOVER later to regain these files (after you have removed files to make more room in the root directory).