1.1 How to activate products?
After you receive the product, please register online (please go to our website: http://code.xlysoft.net/validen.aspx for registration and receive your license key for product activation), the product numbers are written on small labels on the consoles.

1.2 Why I can't register my Data Compass?
There are two reasons for that:
1. PC Configuration. We have tested in PC with Intel 845/865/915 chipset Motherboard and we recommend Intel 915 chipset Motherboard. Further more, USB interface of Data Compass adopts the standard of USB 2.0, so make sure there is USB 2.0 driver installed in your PC.
2. Operation System. We recommend you install English OS as we find registration fails on non-English OS.

1.3 Primary Configuration Required for Data Compass?
The Basic configuration（PC or Laptop）: 865 chipset motherboard with 2 USB interfaces; Celeron 1.0 GHz CPU, 512 MB RAM, DVD-ROM;
Recommended configuration: 915chipset motherboard with 2 USB interfaces; Pentium 4 1.5 GHz CPU or faster, 1024 MB RAM, DVD-ROM.

1.4 Can Data Compass recover firmware corruption?
Data Compass is intended for data recovery only and can't recover firmware-related problem. For firmware problem, you need to use HD Doctor.

To 3.5” PATA HDD 1. USB Cable to 3-in-1 Adaptor 2. USB Cable to DC 3. 3-in-1 Adaptor 4. ShadowDisk 5. Laptop Power Supply 6. DC Console 7. IDE Cable 8. Power Cable 9. Source HDD	To 2.5” PATA HDD 1. USB Cable to 3-in-1 Adaptor 2. USB Cable to DC 3. 3-in-1 Adaptor 4. Shadow Disk 5. Laptop Power Supply 6. DC Console 7. IDE Cable 8. Power Cable 9. 2.5” to 3.5” IDE Adaptor 10. Source HDD	To 3.5” SATA HDD 1. USB Cable to 3-in-1 Adaptor 2. USB Cable to DC 3. 3-in-1 Adaptor 4. ShadowDisk 5. Laptop Power Supply 6. DC Console 7. IDE to SATA Adaptor 8. ATA Power Cable 9. SATA Power Cable 10. Adaptor SATA Cable 11. Source HDD

1.6 What's the function of Data Compass?
Data Compass is a data recovery tool used to extract data on HDD, especially those drives with severe bad sectors. With advanced technology, Data Compass is a powerful tool to retrieve your data.

1.7 What's the function of Shadow disk? When should I use Shadow disk?
Shadow disk is the essential technology of Data Compass. It's intended for the drive with severe bad sectors. When Shadow disk is connected and enabled, it will “mirror” the manipulation on source disk. Every time when Data Compass successfully reads a sector on source disk, it will at the same time write the sector on shadow disk. And next time, when the sector needed to be read again, Data Compass will read the content from Shadow disk in the aim of protecting source disk.

1.8 What's the difference between Shadow disk and imaging disk?
Shadow disk is different from imaging disk. Data storage structure in Shadow disk is developed by us. As a result, you can't read the data without connection to Data Compass.

1.9 Can Data Compass extract data from undetectable drives?
For Hitachi drives, if key modules (P-list related) are not damaged, We can use Data Compass to load the internal resource to access data area and extract data. But this is not for all undetectable drives. We are still researching the possibility to apply the technique on other brand drive.

1.10 If I purchase the HD Doctor Suite do I need the Data Compass as well?It seems that the HD doctor suite can allow for data recovery as well
HD Doctor does the HD restoration only, which is the first stage of the broad sense 3+1 data recovery flow. After bring the damaged HD back to life, you need to deal with the data extraction and file retrieval by using Data Compass. Both HD Doctor and DC are needed for you to perform a broad sense data recovery from a patient HDD, they address to different level of problems that can't be done by using only one of them.