Illegal filename character mapping?

A forum on data recovery using the professional data recovery software R-STUDIO.
cgallery
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 5:15 pm

Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by cgallery » Thu Jan 17, 2013 5:21 pm

Okay, I have RStudio 4.0 (not the network version). Love it. Use it all the time.

From time to time, I recover data from a Mac machine (mostly HFS+). But my target (where I store the files) is typically NTFS.

Sometimes I run into a problem where people have been using characters in filenames that are legal on HFS+ (especially the "/") but illegal on NTFS.

If I upgrade to a newer version of R-Studio, would there be a feature where I can remap characters in the filename to make sure they are legal? I'd happily buy a new version, just don't want to do so if it won't help.

If the answer is NO, would the developers be interested in adding that feature?

Alt
Site Moderator
Posts: 3129
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:13 pm
Contact:

Re: Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by Alt » Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:27 am

I thing the best way is to try it. You may install the new version in the Demo mode, create a small file (less than 64 k) with those characters and try to save it to an NTFS disk.

cgallery
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 5:15 pm

Re: Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by cgallery » Fri Jan 18, 2013 9:32 am

Alt wrote:I thing the best way is to try it. You may install the new version in the Demo mode, create a small file (less than 64 k) with those characters and try to save it to an NTFS disk.
Wow, I had thought a support person would know. If I have to test it, I have to install a demo version, attach a Mac drive w/ illegal filenames, find the illegal filenames, and do the restore.

All a support person would have to do is say "no" or "yes." Either the code is there (like a MakeFilenameSafe() function or something) or not.

Alt
Site Moderator
Posts: 3129
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:13 pm
Contact:

Re: Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by Alt » Fri Jan 18, 2013 1:20 pm

When recovering files with illegal file names, R-Studio shows you a Broken File Name dialog box where you can specify a character to which all invalid characters will be changed. You may specify it for each individual filename, or for all next ones. As I remember, R-Studio 4.0 already had this feature.
If you want to select the character in advance, you may do it on the Recovery -> Advanced dialog box, Broken File Name.
See RStudio's on-line help Basic File Recovery.
Also the Data Recovery on HFS/HFS+ File System help page may be also of interest when recovering data from HFS disks.

cgallery
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 5:15 pm

Re: Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by cgallery » Fri Jan 18, 2013 3:35 pm

The 4.0 didn't have an advanced tab. I did try downloading the latest version, and it DOES substitute "$" but seems to ignore whatever I tell it in the advanced tab (that is, I cannot sub "!" or anything else), and it still generates errors for each file. Then there is a copy of the file like __27.gif that also exists, in addition to the one I really want.

I'm pretty sure if a programmer looked at it, maybe created some files with "/" in the filename on an HFS+ drive, and then tried to recover that to an NTFS drive, they would be able to see what I'm talking about. I just think the solution could be a little more elegant than it is.

cgallery
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 5:15 pm

Re: Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by cgallery » Fri Jan 18, 2013 4:59 pm

cgallery wrote:The 4.0 didn't have an advanced tab. I did try downloading the latest version, and it DOES substitute "$" but seems to ignore whatever I tell it in the advanced tab (that is, I cannot sub "!" or anything else), and it still generates errors for each file. Then there is a copy of the file like __27.gif that also exists, in addition to the one I really want.

I'm pretty sure if a programmer looked at it, maybe created some files with "/" in the filename on an HFS+ drive, and then tried to recover that to an NTFS drive, they would be able to see what I'm talking about. I just think the solution could be a little more elegant than it is.
Oh, and I think the problem may be partly that the "/" I'm running into is in a DIRECTORY name, not a FILE name.

Alt
Site Moderator
Posts: 3129
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:13 pm
Contact:

Re: Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by Alt » Sat Jan 19, 2013 9:34 am

cgallery wrote:The 4.0 didn't have an advanced tab. I did try downloading the latest version, and it DOES substitute "$" but seems to ignore whatever I tell it in the advanced tab .
Yea, we found this bug, too.
cgallery wrote:Then there is a copy of the file like __27.gif that also exists, in addition to the one I really want.
This link Data Recovery on HFS/HFS+ File System explains what this file is about and what to do with it.

Alt
Site Moderator
Posts: 3129
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:13 pm
Contact:

Re: Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by Alt » Sat Jan 19, 2013 9:59 am

cgallery wrote:Oh, and I think the problem may be partly that the "/" I'm running into is in a DIRECTORY name, not a FILE name.
When saving directories or folders with "/", Windows splits such names into folders and sub-folders. That is, if the file is stored in the folder "one/two", it will appear in the sub-folder "two" of the folder "one" on a Windows disk.

cgallery
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 5:15 pm

Re: Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by cgallery » Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:20 pm

Alt wrote:
cgallery wrote:Oh, and I think the problem may be partly that the "/" I'm running into is in a DIRECTORY name, not a FILE name.
When saving directories or folders with "/", Windows splits such names into folders and sub-folders. That is, if the file is stored in the folder "one/two", it will appear in the sub-folder "two" of the folder "one" on a Windows disk.
Right, I think there should be a way in the R-Studio, though, to tell it to replace the "/" in folder names with something else like "!" or "$" or something. I think that would be a smart option.

Alt
Site Moderator
Posts: 3129
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2008 2:13 pm
Contact:

Re: Illegal filename character mapping?

Post by Alt » Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:31 am

The problem is, though, how to recognize that "/" is a part of a folder name rather than a separator between a folder and sub-folder. This is not a trivial task to implement. A file system processor in R-Studio should specifically warn other modules that they should substitute "/" with something else.

Post Reply