Ultimately there will be some occasions where the recovery of a single file will be sufficient to complete a recovery. A situation along the lines of a single Quick Books file, an Outlook PST file, or something as extensive as a single database file that houses an entire client base. In addition, the hard drive itself may be on a slippery slope to where reading from it will become an impossibility. For these situations the ‘Search Files’ function [Figure 1] offers a solution to precisely carve out a particular file with a minimum amount of access to the hard drive.

Button Bar
The button bar offers the set of functions used to search for and copy the required data. ‘Begin File Search’, ‘Mark All Found Files’, ‘Exit File Search’ are all very self-explanatory. It is ‘Copy All Marked Files’ and ‘Terminate Search’ that need explanation.

‘Terminate Search’ allows the user to stop a search before it is completed. This might be used in the case of the client seeing their file immediately or the search parameters may be too wide and need to be narrowed a bit. In these cases the user just clicks on the ‘Terminate Search’ button, they will be presented with a Message Box asking them if in fact that is what they wish to do and the current search process will be terminated.
‘Copy All Marked Files’ is exactly as stated but some explanation is necessary as to the processing of the files. Upon clicking the button the user will be presented with a destination folder choose dialog box. Simply click on the folder for the files to be copied too and begin the copy. Each file will then be copied and unmarked from the list of found files.

File Extension Filter
In order to hone in on a particular file type this function allows for the entry of file extensions to bring the list size to something manageable. The format is simply the file extender as exhibited in Figure 4 the red rectangle. For multiple extensions a separator of a semi-colon is used between each extender. No spaces are necessary just the semi-colon. In Figure 4 files with the extender ‘pdf’ and ‘exe’ are to be included in the search.

Filtering Manager
In order to tell the search function which filters to use a check box is located next to the filter type. The manager can be found bounded by the blue rectangle. In Figure 4 we can see that the Date and Size filter have been indicated for usage.

Date Filter
Outlined by the green rectangle the date filter offers the user the ability to screen the search by a spread of dates. The top date is the date to use for the beginning of the search, the bottom date of course is the last date of the file. The date used is the ‘Modified’ date of the file. It is to be noted that the dates are inclusive not exclusive of the start and end parameters. In the example in Figure 4 all files from January 1, 2011, to January 1, 2013 will be included in the filter.

Size Filter
Presented with the dark gray outline the file size filter allows the user to make sure that a certain file of a certain size is presented in the search. There are many times that the file size is known in general terms, especially database files, and this filter allows for the masking of any files outside those parameters. For many programs there are example files that have the same extender and may clutter the search, using the size function allows the user to filter those out.

Data Recount
Simply stated this is the total files found and the size of those files in bytes. This is represented by the purple rectangle.

Duplicate File Names
There will be many occasions where there is more than one file with the same name. This can occur for many reasons. Primarily files that have been deleted and then recreated will show in the file system as duplicate. There will be times where the same file has been saved in several different folders and will cause duplicate file names. RIA Now handles this by saving the duplicate file with a number appended to the end of the file name, not the extender. As an example, in Figure 4 in the light gray rectangle we see the file ‘Message Report.pdf’ listed twice. When copied to the folder the files will be shown as ‘Message Report.pdf’ and ‘Message Report[1].pdf’. The extender remains intact only the file name itself is updated.