How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard drive

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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Author
rppc
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 May 2012, 19:04

How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard drive

#1 Post by rppc »

Good afternoon.

So, my situation is the following: whilst attempting to remove a CDFS partition from an external hard drive, I ran DBAN from Hiren's BootCD. I had run it in interactive mode before, and this time I thought I could run it in automatic mode. Result: both my internal hard drives were erased. However, the programme was running for 3 seconds only, so it can't have possibly irrecoverably deleted everything that was in both drives. But it cause considerable damage to the file systems.

I ended up formatting the drive where I kept Windows installed (no important files besides programme files, etc., were there, so it is no big deal). The biggest problem so far is my 500 GB hard drive. Since I didn't want to take any risks, I didn't format it, so it remains as unallocated space.

So I ran Test disk. After Quick Search, I just get an error message. After Deeper Search, I get the same error message:

"This partition seems too small (...) BIOS (...) HD jumpers (...) This partition can't be recovered." (I'll post a picture of it, when I have the chance)

I have very important files in that drive and I desperately need to recover them.

How can I solve that error message and recover all the data that was in that drive?

Thank you very much,

rppc
Last edited by rppc on 05 May 2012, 14:43, edited 1 time in total.

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

Re: How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard dri

#2 Post by Fiona »

whilst attempting to remove a CDFS partition from an external hard drive
I've seen that on external HDD's in conjunction wth hard ware encryption.
Most cases were on external IOMEGA-disks.
Please let me know what kind of external HDD you have?

Fiona

rppc
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 May 2012, 19:04

Re: How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard dri

#3 Post by rppc »

I don't care about my external hard drive right now...

I just want to recover what was in my internal 500 GB hard drive.

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

Re: How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard dri

#4 Post by Fiona »

Sry, probably was reading to fast.
To determine any damage to the file systeme of your internal drive, could you diagnose it using TestDisk?
I would need infos from Analyse, Quick and in Case Deeper Search.
Deeper Search creates an additional Search looking for a backup of your boot sector and can find more!
If a partition is found, pleas check it and press p.
Do you see your data or an error message?

Fiona

rppc
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 May 2012, 19:04

Re: How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard dri

#5 Post by rppc »

I see the same error message (as in the first post) after Quick Search and after Deeper Search.

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

Re: How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard dri

#6 Post by Fiona »

I see the same error message (as in the first post) after Quick Search and after Deeper Search.
The error message doesn't matter.
TestDisk displays this message if it found a partition or a remnant which ends after disk limit.
This message has no significance.
Analyse is your current partition table (might be important),from Quick Search the result would be appreciated (not your message that TestDisk can't recover it...).
Also I can check your disk geometry and why a partition is not recoverable.
Also, if it's possible you can zip and upload the testdisk.log
Another possibility might be to copy and paste the content.

rppc
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 May 2012, 19:04

Re: How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard dri

#7 Post by rppc »

OK, I'll do it. Wait a moment.

rppc
Posts: 5
Joined: 03 May 2012, 19:04

Re: How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard dri

#8 Post by rppc »

OK, I just recovered everything! Everything! Not a single file was left behind!

For some reason, I couldn't do it the first time. But it's all been recovered now!

Thanks anyway for your attention, Fiona.

I've learnt my lesson: I'll do more backups next time...

TestDisk is the best software in the world!

liondegon
Posts: 3
Joined: 06 Aug 2012, 23:54

Re: How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard dri

#9 Post by liondegon »

:( I'm in a similar situation, except I might have left the program running more than 3s but definitely less than 20s. First I quickly pulled out my external HDD before forced shutting down the machine. I later connected it to another machine hoping the drive will be detected but no luck :(

Prior to erasing my internal HDDs with Dban. I backed up everything to my 1TB Toshiba HDD (which was formated as one single FAT32 or 16 partition am not 100% sure - using a third party formatter)

My only concern is the external HDD. I have analysed the drive using Quick Search but no partition was found. I'm now half way through Deep Search but still nothing is found.


Could someone please help me? :((

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

Re: How to recover everything that was in my 500 GB hard dri

#10 Post by Fiona »

The Backup of the boot sector lies at the end of the partition.
It means if your partition uses the whole space, you'll find your partition at the end of the partition or disk.
Probably it takes time.
Please finish your scan to achieve best results.

Fiona

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