Main areas of functionality:
Backup and restore of partitioning information
Search missing partitions and recreate them
FDISK/LVM create and maintain partitions
Imaging, disk-areas to/from (compressed) files
Cloning, disk-areas to/from other disk-areas
FS-specific: Check, Display, Undelete and Fix
Disk data analysis and update (binary edit, disasm)

DFSee can be used in one of several ways:

- As a replacement for the classic FDISK program
DFSee is a complete replacement for the partitioning tools as found with DOS, OS/2, Win9x, Windows-NT and Windows-2000/XP
At the moment (version 10.0) it is almost a full replacement for the LVM utility used with eComStation, MCP 1 & 2 and Warp Server for e-Business.
The only thing not covered is creation of multi-partition spanned volumes.
Apart from the standard create/delete type of functions there are a lot of special commands to display information and fix all kinds of problems related to partition tables and LVM information.
An often used function here is the DFSDISK script that automates the collection of needed information to 'UNDO' an accidental FDISK operation or other partitioning related disaster.
Another important feature is the ability to save and restore ALL partitioning information in a regular file that you can keep as a backup on a diskette so recovery operations will be MUCH easier (see PSAVE and PRESTORE commands and corresponding menu items).
Finally, this FDISK capability is being used by large organizations for automatic (and unattended) roll-out scenarios.

- As a tool to 'UNDELETE' files that have been accidentally deleted, or to recover/copy files from damaged or inaccessible filesystems
This feature is implemented for HPFS, NTFS and JFS only, but on those filesystems it is a very powerful tool. It works by finding all wanted files (DELFIND or FILEFIND), and then letting the user make a selection based on a wildcard file specification and an outlook percentage for recoverability (DELSHOW or list +f).
The actual recovery operation will copy the matching files to a specified directory, if possible on another disk (RECOVER).
For FAT similar functions exist, bute these are less powerful.

- As an analysis and recovery tool for most used filesystems.
This includes boot sectors, superblocks and low-level directory structures. For most supported filesystems some specific commands are available that fix common problems with that filesystem.

To support a large number of possible filesystems, DFSee uses specific modes of operation. Every mode has its own set of dedicated commands and recognized data formats (sector types).
Generic commands (and sector types) are available in all modes.
On selecting a data source (disk, partition, volume) DFSee will try to recognize the involved filesystem and activate support for it automatically.

The most important modes are:
- FDISK for partitioning work, default active at startup
- HPFS native filesystem on OS/2, eComStation, WSeB …
- FAT classic PC filesystems including FAT32 and VFAT
- NTFS native filesystem on Windows-NT/2000 or Windows-XP
- JFS journalled filesystem on OS/2 MCPs, eCS or WSeB
- EXT2/3 most used journalled filesystem on Linux
- Reiser alternative journalled filesystem on Linux
- AUX Auxiliary mode for unrecognized data

- As a simple but powerful binary (or HEX) display and edit tool.
DFSee can access data on hard-disks, or operating system volumes like diskettes or CDROM and (image) files.

Home Page - http://www.dfsee.com/