Whenever the system crashes, Scandisk or Chkdsk utility runs and recovers any files or chunks of "data" which may have been lost as a result of the crash. Since every recovered file has .CHK extension, you'll not be able to find the file type. You cannot distinguish if the file is graphic file(like .jpg) or a word document (.doc) or any other type of file.

These recovered files may contain some important data, so it advisable to check the content of these files before deleting them. This is where CHK-Mate comes in. CHK-Mate is a freeware which helps in identifying the type of the recovered files.

CHK-Mate will scan the contents of these recovered files and will identify their file type. Once the contents are recognized (for example a GIF file), it will automatically copy the existing file as new file with the right extension (Filexxx.chk -> Filexxx.gif). Now you'll be able to open the file using the associated program.

If it fails to recognize the file type for a particular file, you can still extract all the readable text from the CHK file and save it in some other file.

By default CHK-Mate recognizes the files of JPG, GIF, ZIP, CAB, EXE, DLL, OCX, WRI, BMP, DOC, PPT, XLS, PDF, HTM(L), WAV, MID, AVI, RAR, TIF and MP3 format. You can further add more file types in it.

Download CHK-Mate