RAR Recovery Kit - Online help

1. Selecting a damaged RAR archive
2. Scanning, analyzing and recovering information from the damaged RAR archive
3. Viewing information recovered from the damaged RAR archive
4. Selecting a folder where the recovered information will be saved
5. Saving the recovered information
6. Viewing the results of saving the recovered information

1. Selecting a damaged RAR archive

RAR Recovery Kit can process RAR files of different formats with different compression level created with different versions of the archive. It can be regular archives (the ones with .rar extension) or self-unpacking archives (that have .exe extension). Enter the file location in the Source file name box. There are three ways to do it:

• Typing a file name in the box. You should also type the full path to the source file
• Select a file name from the list that appears when you click the button. The list contains all files that have been scanned with RAR Recovery Kit
• Browse for the necessary file using Windows Explorer (click to open the Explorer)

Click Next to continue.

2. Scanning, analyzing and recovering information from the damaged RAR archive

When you proceed to this step, you'll see a message box saying Do you wish to start recovery process?. Click Yes to start the recovery process. The program will start scanning the damaged file, analyzing it and recovering information from the file. The recovery process will be displayed on a progress bar.

3. Viewing information recovered from the damaged RAR archive

After scanning the damaged archive, the program will show all data it could recover. To display this information, it uses a window that looks like a Windows Explorer window. The left pane contains a folder tree showing folders found in the archive, and the right pane displays the contents of the selected folder. The contents are shown as a table that has the following columns: Name, Size compressed, Size uncompressed, Header offset, File offset, Error hints, CRC32.

To make the work more convenient, the program marks all files in the table with exclamation marks of different color that show if recovery is possible:

• A blue exclamation (!) mark means that the file will be recovered.
• A yellow exclamation mark (!) means that the file can be recovered only partially.
• A red exclamation mark (!) shows that the file can't be recovered.

It's possible to choose certain files and folders to be recovered. To do it, you should select the checkboxes near them. There are three ways to perform the selection:

• Select all the necessary files and folders one by one
• Click Check All. All files and folders will be selected.
• Click Check Good. The program will select files and folders it can recover correctly.

You can clear the selected checkboxes manually or use the Uncheck All button. Click it to clear all checkboxes.

When viewing information recovered from a damaged RAR archive, the user can make sure the program has recovered the necessary data. It's also a test of RAR Recovery Kit capability that proves that the program can recover the possible maximum amount of data.

Click Next to continue.

4. Selecting a folder where the recovered information will be saved

Specify a folder where the information recovered on the previous step will be saved. By default the program suggests a new folder with a full name consisting of the source folder path and source file name with an ending _rar_repaired. You can select another folder, though. There are three ways to do it:

• Type folder name manually. Specify the full path to the folder.
• Select a folder from the list that appears when you click the button. The list contains all folders RAR Recovery Kit ever used to save information.
• Browse for the folder using a standard Windows dialog box that opens when you click the button.

In the window you will also see how much space you need to save the information and the amount of free space on the selected disk.

Click Next to continue.

5. Saving the recovered information

On this step, the process of saving information is launched. The progress of saving is shown on an indicator that displays the current state of the process. If there is already a file or folder with such name in the specified folder, the program will ask you whether the object should be replaced or skipped.

6. Viewing the results of saving the recovered information

After the recovered information is saved, RAR Recovery Kit will show a report describing the result of this process.