Futaba Campac - accidental model deletion

Sorry, John...

Unlike a computer hard drive, where info can be recovered if the track has not actually been written over, the Campac is based on a IC chip known as an eprom. Initializing it will wipe the slate clean.. The original saved info is irrecoverable...............

Unless you happened to write down your settings, it's gone. Like an IT instructor told me, "There are two kinds of computer users -- those who have lost data and those who will." Sorry.

Morris

I really don't know much about this problem, but just want to mention that I seen software advertised that (claims) can recover erased data from solid state devices such as thumb drives, ipods etc. You would probably need a fair degree of expertise tho to recover the data from your radios memory

David

Morris Lee wrote:

Well...Maybe.

The thumb drives, ipods, etc, use a "file system", driven by linked lists, referenced within a directory table. Under normal circumstances, deleting a file on such devices (as well as diskettes and hard drives) simply clears the corresponding entries in the table - but the file itself is completely untouched. By scanning the data region of such devices an intelligent program can reconstruct the directory table, restoring access to the files.

You'd be hoping the Brand F host creates a similar file system on the Campac module and similarly just clears the "directory" when it initializes.

I suspect that this is not the case...and an initialization wipes any user data.

There was someone hawking "ClonePac" knock-offs here that might be able to provide a definitive answer to that question. If this thread lasts long enough perhaps he'll ring in...

cheers

/daytripper

| I really don't know much about this problem, but just want to mention | that I seen software advertised that (claims) can recover erased data | from solid state devices such as thumb drives, ipods etc.

iPods have hard disks -- not solid state.

In any event, when you remove something that's stored in a file system (as it usually is in a thumb drive or iPod) you typically just remove an entry in the directory structure, and mark that space as free. You don't actually remove the data itself, just the pointers that help one find it. With some work, if you get to the drive/device before anything else is written to it, you can usually recover the data.

However, the Campac on your radio has a miniscule amount of storage (compared to a hard disk or even a compact flash card) and there is no file system involved -- data is stored in a binary format right to a specific part of the device. When the data is erased, either zeros or a default set of data is written to that part of the device, totally erasing what was there before. It's gone.

Now, I say it's gone, but if it were important enough to somebody, they might find a way to recover it. For example, if your Campac had the location of Osama bin Laden (assuming he's not already been captured and is waiting for a week before the election to be `found') on it before you erased it, the NSA could probably recover it. It might cost $100k or more to do so, but they probably could do so if properly motivated.

(In case you wonder how they'd do it, it's often by treating digital devices as analog ones. For example, your device might have 1s and

0s, but in reality it may have 0.92 and 0.08, because the previous value has some small bearing on the current value, even after a write. There may be other ways as well -- it's amazing what throwing a lot of money at a problem can come up with. But it would require a lot of money.)

But for all practical purposes, your models are gone. Get to reprogramming it :)

It all depends on how it was erased.

For speed, disk drives and other large devices that have indices (indexes if you can't spell) are simply flagged as 'free data' in the indices: The actual data is not erasd, and, since the actual data often has poointers to teh next data block in teh chain embedded within, its possible to stitch large files back together.

In te cae of small devices, which have no indices, you tend to erase the whole lot, or at least mark each block beginning as 'empty'.

Without the ability to manually patch the memory and a way other than the transmitter of actually reading it, and knowledge of the meaning and location of the data, its hard. If its all been really erased its impossible.

You are on a hiding to nothing. Don't let the apparent similarity etween model memory and a hard disk drive fool you into thinking the cases are in any way simuilar. They are not.

Thanks for the input to my problem, i think the solution is to start with a baseline supplied by Euromodelle and ensure it does not happen again.