Partial Search

This command limits the number of files to search for when there is insufficient computer memory (RAM) to search for all files at once. Do not use this command unless you observe obvious symptoms of memory shortage such as explicit error messages.

Memory usage status can be monitored in the Windows Task Manager. Each group of 5,000 files requires about 1 MB of memory. For example, if you expect 2,000,000 files to be found, the computer should have about 400 MB of memory in addition to the base amount that Windows® itself requires.

When memory is lacking, the computer may enter a “thrashing” state. Performance can become severely degraded, causing unusually long search times. In the most severe cases, File Scavenger® may even abort with “Out of memory” errors. In the example just mentioned, if your computer has only 256 MB of RAM, you should limit the search to 1,000,000 files at a time. That means searching the disk twice as follows:

• Search for 1,000,000 files. Recover those files.
• Search for the remaining files after skipping the first 1,000,000 files. Then recover them.
• The end results should be identical to searching for all files at once with sufficient memory.