Storage partition was overwritten
Posted: 05 Apr 2015, 03:37
Hello all!
Here is my current setup/predicament:
I have a 120GB SSD with 2 partitions. One with windows 7 and one with Ubuntu. I also have 4 x 3TB drives in a RAID 5 configuration to make one large storage array. Single partition.
I wanted to try Windows 8.1 and decided I'd install it on the Ubuntu partition. I created a bootable USB to install it and let it load up. The setup failed after a few minutes stating that there was no appropriate partition available (it was the very beginning of the install, where it states that it's going to copy files. Never left 0%). Not a big concern. Booted back into Windows 7. That's where I noticed it...
The install - for whatever reason - decided that my RAID array was where it wanted to try and install windows. It repartitioned my ~8.5TB drive into 3 partitions. I now have the standard windows 100MB partition, a 2TB 'OS' partition (empty) and the remainder is now unallocated. I'm LOST. I've gone into TestDisk and it shows a 100MB partition, the 2TB and then it shows a 735GB partition (I don't understand the 735GB part... if it was the other 6TB, that would make sense to me). I'm not sure where to go at this point, or what to do in order to get my data back. I tried to list the files in the 735GB partition and it didn't come up with any. I don't want to use photorec unless absolutely necessary. There'd be WAY too many files to sift through.
I haven't done a 'deeper' scan as I'm fairly certain that will take a few days due to the size. Are there any steps I should be doing, or anything I can do to 'revert' the partitions the way they were? I've gone through the step-by-step instructions, but I feel like that's for cut and dry missing or deleted partitions. Not necessarily one that's been overwritten.
If someone could offer a hand, it would be greatly appreciated.
Here is my current setup/predicament:
I have a 120GB SSD with 2 partitions. One with windows 7 and one with Ubuntu. I also have 4 x 3TB drives in a RAID 5 configuration to make one large storage array. Single partition.
I wanted to try Windows 8.1 and decided I'd install it on the Ubuntu partition. I created a bootable USB to install it and let it load up. The setup failed after a few minutes stating that there was no appropriate partition available (it was the very beginning of the install, where it states that it's going to copy files. Never left 0%). Not a big concern. Booted back into Windows 7. That's where I noticed it...
The install - for whatever reason - decided that my RAID array was where it wanted to try and install windows. It repartitioned my ~8.5TB drive into 3 partitions. I now have the standard windows 100MB partition, a 2TB 'OS' partition (empty) and the remainder is now unallocated. I'm LOST. I've gone into TestDisk and it shows a 100MB partition, the 2TB and then it shows a 735GB partition (I don't understand the 735GB part... if it was the other 6TB, that would make sense to me). I'm not sure where to go at this point, or what to do in order to get my data back. I tried to list the files in the 735GB partition and it didn't come up with any. I don't want to use photorec unless absolutely necessary. There'd be WAY too many files to sift through.
I haven't done a 'deeper' scan as I'm fairly certain that will take a few days due to the size. Are there any steps I should be doing, or anything I can do to 'revert' the partitions the way they were? I've gone through the step-by-step instructions, but I feel like that's for cut and dry missing or deleted partitions. Not necessarily one that's been overwritten.
If someone could offer a hand, it would be greatly appreciated.