Beginning with version 5.03, Directory Snoop will run under Windows Vista but with limited functionality. Unlike XP and previous versions of Windows, Vista does not allow "user-mode" programs like Directory Snoop to write to raw disk sectors unless the drive volume is locked. Drives can only be locked if there are no open files on them so this excludes the boot drive. It may also exclude other partitions if Windows or some other program has any files open there also. If Directory Snoop is unable to lock a volume, you will see this message: "Unable to lock volume. Windows Vista does not allow direct cluster writes on drives with open files". This limitation affects the File|Purge, Cluster|Wipe, and Attribute|Wipe_deleted commands. All other functions, including File|Undelete should work normally under Vista.

With the FAT file system, Directory Snoop has to make a best guess as to which clusters to copy to the recovered file. Only the first cluster number is saved when a file is deleted and the rest of the list is cleared by Windows from the file allocation table. A partial recovery means that either some of the clusters have already been overwritten by newer files (making a full recovery impossible) or the file was fragmented and the original cluster chain was not sequential. In that case, the only hope of recovery is to do it manually by trial and error. Use the Cluster/Copy function to manually select clusters from the drive and copy them to the end of your target file. File fragmentation is not an issue with the NTFS file system because the Master File Table retains the entire list of clusters numbers when a file is deleted, not just the first one.

No, only noncompressed FAT and NTFS-formatted (floppy, hard, Zip, etc.) disks are supported. CDs use a different file system.

That's a special directory that Windows Explorer plays tricks with in conjunction with the Internet Explorer browser. Directory Snoop shows the true contents of the directory but IE has stored bookmarks and cached files into index files. Windows Explorer pulls that data and displays them on separate lines as if they were separate files. You can empty that data from the menu inside IE.

The two most commons reasons are: (1) You are running Directory Snoop in Win 9x compatibility mode on Win XP or (2) You have an anti-virus program or some other low level utility running that is blocking direct disk access. To fix the compatibility mode, right-click on the shortcut icon for Directory Snoop, select properties, and uncheck the compatibility option. To stop the disk access interference, simply shut down the offending program before starting Directory Snoop.

No, Directory Snoop is not a drive/partition recovery utility. It can only access valid drive volumes that have been assigned a drive letter by Windows.