Problem recovering Partitions

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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Sleepy
Posts: 3
Joined: 11 Jan 2013, 01:21

Problem recovering Partitions

#1 Post by Sleepy »

I was using Fat32Formatter to format an external HD and accidentally formatted my main drive :oops:

I can change the partition characteristics from D to P but as soon as I mark both of them as P (only options available are *, P or D) the Structure changes from OK to Bad.

Unfortunately, my Windows install is on the first partition (C) and all my photos are on (D) and have no backup thanks to a reckless decision to re-use my backup drive for something else in the short-term.

Code: Select all

TestDisk 6.14-WIP, Data Recovery Utility, December 2012
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sdb - 160 GB / 149 GiB - CHS 19457 255 63
     Partition               Start        End    Size in sectors
 * HPFS - NTFS              0   1  1   783 254 63   12594897 [RECOVERY]
 P HPFS - NTFS            784   0  1  4706 254 63   63022995
>P HPFS - NTFS           4706   0 31 19457  21 20  236976128




Structure: Bad. Use Up/Down Arrow keys to select partition.
Use Left/Right Arrow keys to CHANGE partition characteristics:
*=Primary bootable  P=Primary  L=Logical  E=Extended  D=Deleted
Keys A: add partition, L: load backup, T: change type, P: list files,
     Enter: to continue

User avatar
Fiona
Posts: 2835
Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 17:19
Location: Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart - Germany

Re: Problem recovering Partitions

#2 Post by Fiona »

Looks like, that your third partition has changed and is not intel standard anymore.
It uses the same space/cylinder 4706 like your C:-partition.
Did you list your data from your third partition?
Did you run Deeper Search?

Fiona

Sleepy
Posts: 3
Joined: 11 Jan 2013, 01:21

Re: Problem recovering Partitions

#3 Post by Sleepy »

Thanks for the reply Fiona.

I can list data on the third partition without any problems (and have saved off the photos to another drive).
Running a deeper search doesn't make much difference to the result.

Any suggestions? Is there a way to recover D? Or should I just count myself lucky that I can save off the photos, restore the C:\ partition and, if that boots ok, create a new partition to copy the contents of D:\ back into?

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