A professional Mac data recovery software tailored for Mac with HFS+, FAT16/32 and NTFS file systems. 
Mac Data Recovery Software
- Introduction
- Recovering Lost Data
Online Help
Glossary of Terms
HDD
Short for "Hard Disk Drive", an HDD helps manage the transfer of data to and from your computer's hard disk. Because these two items always come as a single unit, "hard disk drive" and "hard disk" are usually used to refer to the same thing.
Partition
A portion of a physical disk that functions as though it were a physically separate disk. After you create a partition, you must format it and assign it a drive letter before you can store data on it.
On basic disks, partitions are known as basic volumes, which include primary partitions and logical drives. On dynamic disks, partitions are known as dynamic volumes, which include simple, striped, spanned, mirrored, and RAID-5 volumes.
Basic Disk
A physical disk that can be accessed by MS-DOS and all Windows-based operating systems. Basic disks can contain up to four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and an extended partition with multiple logical drives.
Dynamic Disk
A physical disk that provides features that basic disks do not, such as support for volumes that span multiple disks. Dynamic disks use a hidden database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and other dynamic disks in the computer. When you convert a basic disk to dynamic, all existing basic volumes become dynamic volumes.
Basic Volume
A primary partition or logical drive that resides on a basic disk.
Dynamic Volume
A volume that resides on a dynamic disk. Windows supports five types of dynamic volumes: simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, and RAID-5. A dynamic volume is formatted by using a file system, such as file allocation table (FAT) or NTFS, and has a drive letter assigned to it.
Bad Device
This is the storage device that contains the data you want to recover. A Bad Device can be any disk-like storage media, such as your computer's hard drive, an external HDD, Flash card or any other form of removable media.
Good Device
This is a storage device that is in perfect working order onto which you want Mac Data Recovery to save the data recovered from the Bad Device. The Good Device may be located on the computer on which you've installed Mac Data Recovery (the "host" computer). The Good Device can be any of the storage media listed for the Bad Device. The Good Device is used to save recovered data from the Bad Device.
Host Computer
This is the computer on which you have installed Mac Data Recovery. The Host Computer is used to recover the lost data from the Bad Device, which should be connected to the Host Computer as an additional drive (second, third or fourth - in addition to the existing drive(s) on the Host Computer).
The Bad Device set as an additional drive.
If you are using removable media such as a Zip disk or Flash card, you should insert the device prior to launching Mac Data Recovery.
FAT
Short for "File Allocation Table", a FAT is a table stored on your storage device that tells the computer where to look over when it needs to find a file stored on this device. When you save data, it is stored in chunks of information called "clusters". The clusters for a single file may actually be located in several different areas on your storage media. The FAT is your computer's way of recording the locations of those clusters for each file you save. The term FAT is often used to refer the file systems, which use File Allocation Tables - FAT12, FAT16, FAT32.
NTFS
Short for "NT file system," this is basically the Windows NT equivalent of the FAT described above.
Short for "Hard Disk Drive", an HDD helps manage the transfer of data to and from your computer's hard disk. Because these two items always come as a single unit, "hard disk drive" and "hard disk" are usually used to refer to the same thing.
Partition
A portion of a physical disk that functions as though it were a physically separate disk. After you create a partition, you must format it and assign it a drive letter before you can store data on it.
On basic disks, partitions are known as basic volumes, which include primary partitions and logical drives. On dynamic disks, partitions are known as dynamic volumes, which include simple, striped, spanned, mirrored, and RAID-5 volumes.
Basic Disk
A physical disk that can be accessed by MS-DOS and all Windows-based operating systems. Basic disks can contain up to four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and an extended partition with multiple logical drives.
Dynamic Disk
A physical disk that provides features that basic disks do not, such as support for volumes that span multiple disks. Dynamic disks use a hidden database to track information about dynamic volumes on the disk and other dynamic disks in the computer. When you convert a basic disk to dynamic, all existing basic volumes become dynamic volumes.
Basic Volume
A primary partition or logical drive that resides on a basic disk.
Dynamic Volume
A volume that resides on a dynamic disk. Windows supports five types of dynamic volumes: simple, spanned, striped, mirrored, and RAID-5. A dynamic volume is formatted by using a file system, such as file allocation table (FAT) or NTFS, and has a drive letter assigned to it.
Bad Device
This is the storage device that contains the data you want to recover. A Bad Device can be any disk-like storage media, such as your computer's hard drive, an external HDD, Flash card or any other form of removable media.
Good Device
This is a storage device that is in perfect working order onto which you want Mac Data Recovery to save the data recovered from the Bad Device. The Good Device may be located on the computer on which you've installed Mac Data Recovery (the "host" computer). The Good Device can be any of the storage media listed for the Bad Device. The Good Device is used to save recovered data from the Bad Device.
Host Computer
This is the computer on which you have installed Mac Data Recovery. The Host Computer is used to recover the lost data from the Bad Device, which should be connected to the Host Computer as an additional drive (second, third or fourth - in addition to the existing drive(s) on the Host Computer).
The Bad Device set as an additional drive.
If you are using removable media such as a Zip disk or Flash card, you should insert the device prior to launching Mac Data Recovery.
FAT
Short for "File Allocation Table", a FAT is a table stored on your storage device that tells the computer where to look over when it needs to find a file stored on this device. When you save data, it is stored in chunks of information called "clusters". The clusters for a single file may actually be located in several different areas on your storage media. The FAT is your computer's way of recording the locations of those clusters for each file you save. The term FAT is often used to refer the file systems, which use File Allocation Tables - FAT12, FAT16, FAT32.
NTFS
Short for "NT file system," this is basically the Windows NT equivalent of the FAT described above.