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Interruption During Partition Merge - Recoverable?

Posted: 19 Mar 2012, 17:26
by Traciatim
I don't yet have access to the drive, but important data was saved on one partition of a multi-partition drive. The first partition was removed and the goal was to merge the first in to the second to recover the space. During that operation there was an interruption and now the drive does not show any partition in the Drive Manager in windows.

My main trouble is my machine I will be doing the recovery on will not have enough room to make an image of the drive first, so I want to ensure the safest method of file recovery.

Should this be a scenario where I should be doing a partition recovery, or is it better to use a tool like PhotoRec to try to get the files off of drive before any partition attempts are made?

Re: Interruption During Partition Merge - Recoverable?

Posted: 19 Mar 2012, 17:42
by Fiona
For datarecovery it's very important not to change anything on your disk.
That's why only a diagnose is appropriate.
You can use TestDisk.
I'd need infos after Analyse, Quick and in case if no partition is found containing your data from Deeper Search also.
If partitions are found, please check them and press p to list files.
If you're able to list your files, please let me know on which partition.
If you are not using write, you're not going to change anything to your harddisk.
If TestDisk hangs or it doesn't respond anymore, please let me know.

You can upload screens or the testdisk log.
To copy the content of your testdisk.log might be a possibility also.

PhotoRec is a good idea, if your file system is seriously damaged.

Re: Interruption During Partition Merge - Recoverable?

Posted: 20 Mar 2012, 15:20
by Traciatim
TestDisk was able to read the partition data and list files, and all the very important data on the drive was recoverable. There is still a lot of the other data that is being copied and one directory displays are corrupt and unable to be read, but that directory luckily did not contain anything really important that can not be replaced.

Since the drive is 2TB and plugged in via USB2 (and I only have a 1TB drive in the recovery machine, with even less space available) it's been a little slow going. But so far the software has worked pretty flawlessly in this scenario. Thanks for the quick response yesterday in advising how to use the software without changing data on the drive.

Re: Interruption During Partition Merge - Recoverable?

Posted: 21 Mar 2012, 09:09
by Fiona
Thank you for your feedback! :)
I'll set your topic as solved.