Great idea! Thank you! (Danke Dir!)
I've now finished all the tests using a 4 GB USB flash drive, first formatted as NTFS, during later tests as FAT32.
My steps were always to first copy the Database.key and for testing purposes a jpg file to the drive, then running PhotoRec, secondly to quick format the drive and then running PhotoRec again. The results were always the same, no matter if NTFS or FAT32, before formatting or after:
The original files that I copied to the drive were: "Database.key" and "Mountains.jpg". After file recovery in PhotoRec I always got both files back, but as "f0018528.xml" and "f0018536.jpg". No files were corrupted, the picture files opened and the key file and the recovered xml files look identical.
I am not sure if the signature file worked because the key file has always been restored as xml file, but maybe the xml file is dominant in the recovery process of PhotoRec so that it won't ever recover it as key file?
That's my signature file I used during my tests:
photorec.sig
And that's the key file I used for testing:
Database.key
Code: Select all
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<KeyFile>
<Meta>
<Version>1.00</Version>
</Meta>
<Key>
<Data>RAvYjYrAr0HQSLfl5ZIWWnQya8OGGKDBZipbJVkeYMQ=</Data>
</Key>
</KeyFile>
Theoretically, it would be enough if the data between <Data> and </Data> would be recovered as the key can be found between these two operators. Don't know if there is any way to recover my key file now. I had saved it several times on the drive, and I was able to recover my database with ease. I'm a bit afraid that the key file is recovered as a file other than xml so that I would have to search thousands of files manually using a hex editor. Do you have any idea what I should try next?
Thank you very much again and have a great weekend!
--
Device running PhotoRec: Asus Zenbook UM425 (Windows 10 64-bit)
Formatted drive: Samsung Portable SSD T5 (1 Terabyte, external drive)
Reason for formatting: Windows MediaCreationTool20H2.exe deleted whole drive instead of a separate partition only
Software: PhotoRec 7.2-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, February 2021