File carving is a technique whereby data files are extracted from a digital device without the assistance of file tables or other disk meta-data, and can therefore be used to recover files that are fragmented. Sequential hypothesis testing procedures are used to detect a fragmentation point of a file by sequentially comparing adjacent pairs of blocks from the starting block of a file until the fragmentation point is reached. The detected fragmentation point can be used to help recover the fragmented file. Such a serial analysis helps to minimize errors and improve performance.