Please help restoring exFat and HFS partitions
Posted: 18 Dec 2013, 03:29
First of all, I would like to thank the creators of TestDisk and all of you who make this such an active forum community. TestDisk is a wonderful program that has been made even more useful by all of the knowledge shared here. I have recently been using TestDisk to try and recover my partitions but have run into some stumbling blocks. I am therefore hoping that someone here will be able to point me in the right direction.
Back Story/How this happened:
I have a 2tb external drive that was formatted with 2 partitions that were each 1tb each. The first was an exFat partion, the second HFS. Because I am primarily a windows user, I used MacDrive (http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive) to copy all the data from the HFS partition to the exfat partition. After all the data had been copied successfully, I attempted to use windows Disk Management to delete the HFS partion so I could extend the exFat to the full 2tb. Unfortunately MacDrive was "protecting" the disk and interceded in the process and offered 3 options. (http://support.mediafour.com/entries/21 ... -Mac-disk-).
I chose "Erase the Mac Disk so I can make Windows partitions" but instead of just releasing and erasing the HFS partition, MacDrive allowed Windows Disk Management to delete both partitions and leave the drive "unallocated". Unfortunately, while I am usually a little over protective in terms of backing up, in this case, since I had deleted single partitions countless times before without it affecting the other partitions I did not backup the data on the exFat partition that also was deleted at the same time. So as it stands, while both partitions are a clone of each other, I need to restore at least one to get my data back.
My attempts to restore thus far:
Prior to beginning the restore process I completed a sector to sector copy of the drive to another disk using HDDRawCopy and I am using that drive for any operations that require writing. At first, it seemed that TestDisk was successful in finding the missing HFS partition but then I received an error about the disk appearing too small. This was confusing since the HFS partition seemed correct except that its ending value was higher than the disk's total size .
I therefore completed a "Deeper Scan" which revealed two HFS partitions that were the right size but in the wrong place on the disk.
As I stated above, the drive was setup with an exFat partition in the first half of the drive and the HFS in the second. Therefore, the 121612 0 1 to 243212 165 61 location seems correct except it ends after the drive supposedly ends.
Even though I did not expect it to work, I tried mounting both incorrectly placed HFS partitions from the deeper scan. In both cases they did not function after a restart.
I am therefore hoping someone on the forum can offer a suggestion as to what to try next. Should I use the advanced controls to alter the drive size to match 243212 165 61? Or is there someone who can look at my log file (posted below) and instruct me on how to manually write my partitions based on what I have described?
Lastly, I have been able to use PhotoRec to restore all of the files from the drive but it would be much better if I could restore partition so that my file names will be restored too.
Thank you in advance for all of you help.
Back Story/How this happened:
I have a 2tb external drive that was formatted with 2 partitions that were each 1tb each. The first was an exFat partion, the second HFS. Because I am primarily a windows user, I used MacDrive (http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive) to copy all the data from the HFS partition to the exfat partition. After all the data had been copied successfully, I attempted to use windows Disk Management to delete the HFS partion so I could extend the exFat to the full 2tb. Unfortunately MacDrive was "protecting" the disk and interceded in the process and offered 3 options. (http://support.mediafour.com/entries/21 ... -Mac-disk-).
I chose "Erase the Mac Disk so I can make Windows partitions" but instead of just releasing and erasing the HFS partition, MacDrive allowed Windows Disk Management to delete both partitions and leave the drive "unallocated". Unfortunately, while I am usually a little over protective in terms of backing up, in this case, since I had deleted single partitions countless times before without it affecting the other partitions I did not backup the data on the exFat partition that also was deleted at the same time. So as it stands, while both partitions are a clone of each other, I need to restore at least one to get my data back.
My attempts to restore thus far:
Prior to beginning the restore process I completed a sector to sector copy of the drive to another disk using HDDRawCopy and I am using that drive for any operations that require writing. At first, it seemed that TestDisk was successful in finding the missing HFS partition but then I received an error about the disk appearing too small. This was confusing since the HFS partition seemed correct except that its ending value was higher than the disk's total size .
I therefore completed a "Deeper Scan" which revealed two HFS partitions that were the right size but in the wrong place on the disk.
As I stated above, the drive was setup with an exFat partition in the first half of the drive and the HFS in the second. Therefore, the 121612 0 1 to 243212 165 61 location seems correct except it ends after the drive supposedly ends.
Even though I did not expect it to work, I tried mounting both incorrectly placed HFS partitions from the deeper scan. In both cases they did not function after a restart.
I am therefore hoping someone on the forum can offer a suggestion as to what to try next. Should I use the advanced controls to alter the drive size to match 243212 165 61? Or is there someone who can look at my log file (posted below) and instruct me on how to manually write my partitions based on what I have described?
Lastly, I have been able to use PhotoRec to restore all of the files from the drive but it would be much better if I could restore partition so that my file names will be restored too.
Thank you in advance for all of you help.