Using a network disk to save your recovered files

Data recovery ends with saving found files to a safe target storage. This can be another disk partition of a hard drive of your local computer or an external data storage medium. At the same time, an external storage may not have enough disk space, and the local computer may not serve as a target storage because it is already the source of the lost data. Thus, a user might choose a hard drive of another computer or NAS attached via the local network.

As network data transmitting protocols differ from a simple SATA cord or a USB adapter, the device may not be included into the list of target devices available for data saving from Recovery Explorer.

Additional actions may be required to enable saving files to a network storage.

Windows OS without UAC

To make the storage directly available among the target storages, map the network location to the local logical disk.

Windows OS with UAC

To make the network storage available under the privileged user account context, map the network storage with Reconnect at log-on:

Setting in Windows:

1. Go to This computer context menu;
2. Select Map network drive;
3. Select the drive and tick Reconnect at the log-on checkbox;
4. Copy the full drive path using the address bar;

Settings in Recovery Explorer:

1. Press Other locations (advanced) in the target selection dialog;
2. Select an “offline” network storage for target location.

After the first access, the network location turns to the “online” status and becomes available in the target locations. As an alternative, a direct path can be used:

Navigate to the destination network folder using the Network location in File Explorer;

1. Copy the network location path in the address bar of File Explorer;
2. In Recovery Explorer, press Other locations (in the advanced mode) in the target selection dialog;
3. Insert the storage path into the program address box;
4. Press Select.

Now the network target storage is available for saving recovered files.

macOS

To save the recovered files to the network location, first, connect to it using the Finder application:

1. In the Finder main menu, press Go and Connect to Server (Cmd+K);
2. Type the shared folder path. Typically, it is smb://server_name/share_name;
3. As an alternative, go to Network, then Servers, then choose the location;
4. If requested, type your user name and password to connect to the shared folder.
5. In the save dialog of Recovery Explorer:
6. Click Places, then the name of the attached file system;
7. In case when it is not in the list, click File system, then Volumes, then either the attached file system name or your user name and then the attached file system name;

After the file system is opened, select folder on it to save your data.

Linux OS

Depending on your system configuration, there are different ways of accessing network shared folders. The most common way is mounting CIFS location. To save the recovered files, do the following:

1. Start the Terminal application;
2. Create a mount point folder or use a standard /mnt folder;
3. Type the mount.cifs //server_name/share_name /mnt -o rw command to mount the shared folder share_name of server server_name to location /mnt in read-write mode. You may also specify the user name and the domain (workgroup) within arguments of this command (e.g. mount.cifs //server_name/share_name /mnt -o rw,username=jonny,domain=domain_name).
Then, in Recovery Explorer:
4. Open the mount point location (e.g. Places->File system->mnt);
5. Select the target location to save your data.