Tool

Evidence-gap checker

Say what you are trying to establish. This gives you the sources that would establish it, in the order to collect them, with the ones that expire first at the top, and the source people commonly reach for that does not actually settle the question.

An external device was attached and files were moved to it.

collect, in this order

  1. shellbags

    Collect it. The full entry, paths, retention and limitations, lives in the artifact reference, and this one is part of membership.

  2. lnk files

    Collect it. The full entry, paths, retention and limitations, lives in the artifact reference, and this one is part of membership.

  3. recyclebin

    Collect it. The full entry, paths, retention and limitations, lives in the artifact reference, and this one is part of membership.

  4. usn journal

    Collect it. The full entry, paths, retention and limitations, lives in the artifact reference, and this one is part of membership.

the trap

Device connection records on their own. Knowing a drive was plugged in is not knowing anything was written to it: the LNK volume serial and ShellBags are what tie a file to a specific device.

if you find nothing

ShellBags survive the drive being removed and often preserve the folder structure of a device you will never see, which makes them the best starting point rather than the last resort.

Worked a case where this list was wrong or incomplete? That is worth more than the list is. Say so.