Project Recovery Toolbox Manual

Project Recovery Toolbox (download) is a special tool developed for recovering information and data from corrupted Microsoft Project files (*.mpp files). The program has an easy-to-use interface in the form of a step-by-step wizard and allows users with minimum experience to successfully recover data stored in Microsoft Project within several minutes. All the user has to do is follow instructions displayed in the wizard windows. The program will automatically find and recover your data.

In case the program fails to recover data automatically, you can use the Send source file command from the main menu. The current file will be attached to a new e-mail message (the default mail client will be used) and sent to the developers of the program. After the company's employees receive your message, they will try to recover your data and use this possibility to improve the recovery algorithms the program is based on. Soon they will contact you and let you know the recovery results.

To save the recovered data, you need to have Microsoft Project installed on the computer. The data recovery process consists of several simple steps described below.

Step 1. Selecting the corrupted file

The corrupted source file is selected in the first step of the recovery wizard. One of the following ways can be used to achieve it:

1. enter the name of the file and its path into the input field located in the center of the program;
2. use the standard dialog box opened with a click on the icon to the right from the input field;
3. select one of the previously used files from the drop-down list. It can be opened with a click on the button marked with a triangle in the right part of the input field.

After the file is selected, you can click the Next button to proceed to the next recovery step.

Step 2. Analyzing the source file and recovering data

The program runs completely in the automatic mode in this step. Project Recovery Toolbox analyzes the structure of the file and searches it for objects that can be recovered. The time this process takes depends on the complexity of the source file, the type of damage and the performance of your computer. After the program finds such objects, it will show them in a table. The table will contain the names of the located tasks, their durations, start and end dates, the names of the previous tasks and the names of assigned resources. After you look through the table, you can get down to the last step of the recovery by clicking the Start recovery button at the bottom of the window.

Step 3. Viewing and saving the recovered data

The last step in the recovery process is extracting data from the corrupted file and exporting it to the Microsoft Project for you to be able to edit and save it later. You can click the Finish button to exit the program. If you want to recover data from another file, use the Back button to return to the first step where you can select the file.