The other day I accidentally pointed DD (yeah, I know...) at an external 6TB storage array, with
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dd if=memtest86.img of=/dev/sdi conv=sync
I've since removed both drives and am only operating on one of them, as I lack the storage capacity to create images of it. My plan is to copy back over from the hard drive I don't operate on to the one I do operate on if any of my attempts further damage the filesystem/partition scheme.
I'm wondering what my options are, and what the best way to go about recovering this would be. After an initial scan with TestDisk (so I'd have a log to post here, once I can post attachments) that didn't help, I'm running photorec to carve out anything it can find, and it's finding quite a bit, albeit with no filename or directory structure information
It's my understanding that there should be a backup copy of the partition scheme at the end of this 6TB disk, correct? Would it help at all to attempt to rebuild the damaged partition tables, and then try "undeleting" what I can find by some other means? I know ext filesystems store several backup copies of the superblock around the disk, but I'm not sure if ExFAT has anything like this, so I don't know how successful any attempts at using what's left of the filesystem will be.
The disk is about 55% full and I don't expect much fragmentation, in case that makes any difference.
Photorec got me out of a really tight spot, oh, about ten years ago, it was a lifesaver. With some luck and persistence, maybe I can recover most of what I just destroyed.