Partition and File Recovery

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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oscardagrch
Posts: 2
Joined: 20 Jun 2012, 22:17

Partition and File Recovery

#1 Post by oscardagrch »

I am running a Dell Vostro 1520 that just decided to quit on me one day last week. None of the modes of Windows 7 would boot up which left me in the DOS world. Me, being the intelligent person I am, decided to erase the partitions for some dumb reason because I thought then I would be able to start from scratch and reinstall all my software after I reformatted the drive.

It was before I reformatted and before I installed my OS back on that I realized how terrible an idea this was. I then utilized testdisk to get in and find all my photos and documents that I need to recover before I reformat the drive. I can see them on the Analyse screen. I have even been able to copy them, but unfortunately, because a number of my photos are named similarly (ie Charleston 1, Charleston 2, etc.) when I go to copy them it just copies one on top of the next as "CHARLST"....meaning that if I wanted to copy my photo files I would have to copy them one at a time....for over 10,000 photos. Is there a better way to copy than this?

In the meantime, I tried to write the partition back into existence and rebooted, but it does not appear that the partition is getting written back in because I still cannot see any of the files from the C:\ and if I can just get the partition back into existence I should be able to take out the internal hardrive and connect it to a functional drive and transfer the data.

Does anyone have any ideas what I am doing wrong or how to get my files off the defunct drive?

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

Re: Partition and File Recovery

#2 Post by Fiona »

I would need Info from TestDisk and Analyse.
It's your current partition table.

If you can't boot, you can use a live CD and make a screen in low resolution.

Fiona

oscardagrch
Posts: 2
Joined: 20 Jun 2012, 22:17

Re: Partition and File Recovery

#3 Post by oscardagrch »

I am booting from my driver CD that came with my computer which gets me to the DOS prompt. From there I switch over to my B: drive where I have a 4GB flash drive that is DOS formatted hooked in and has the testdisk files on it and I type in "testdisk" to get into the program. I then run through the steps into Analyse and get the following:

I have a DISK 80 - 320GB /298 GiB hard drive
When I anaylse this is what shows up after a Deep Search:

Start End Size in Sectors
* FAT16 >32M 0 1 1 4 254 63 80262 [DellUtility]
P HPFS - NTFS 5 25 21 1917 84 23 30720000 [RECOVERY]
P HPFS - NTFS 1917 84 24 38913 70 5 594339840 [OS]

My files with my documents and photos are in the [OS] area and I am able to copy them but run into the problem I detailed before. If I hit enter to continue after the Analyse - Quick Search screen to get to the Deeper Search Screen and select "Write" it asks me to confirm to which I hit "Y", then click "Ok" and then I "Quit" and reboot. However, when I reboot nothing shows up in the files on my C: and still nothing works without the boot CD.

Please let me know if you need more information.

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