Accidentally wrote my 5 TB storage drive as a Windows 10 installation media

Using TestDisk to repair the filesystem
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epicgamer
Posts: 2
Joined: 28 Mar 2021, 13:15

Accidentally wrote my 5 TB storage drive as a Windows 10 installation media

#1 Post by epicgamer »

Hi. I was trying to install Windows 10 installation media on a 16 GB USB drive, but somehow I made the target my 5 TB storage drive on accident. Prior to this mistake the entire drive was one partition in NTFS format. It seems like there is some untouched partition that may have the contents of the drive (the 2609.49 GB partition in image below). Immediately after writing to the drive there were 3 partitions - a 32 GB one which was accessible in Windows, a 2609.49 GB one, and one that was around 2.0 TB. I used TestDisk to try to restore that 2609.49 GB partition, marking it as a logical partition. After rebooting, the partition table for the drive (at least from Windows Partition Manager's perspective) was that in the image below. I could see the drive letter appear in My Computer (G:), but when I tried to access it, Windows said it cannot access RAW formatted drives and I would have to format it. I ran TestDisk again and did a deeper search this time. I'm posting it here in hopes that someone may be able to help me with this issue.

Image

The log file from the deeper search is here: https://pastebin.com/3jepeqCy . Lines 181-184 were the result of some typos.

If there's any chance I could recover the contents I would be very happy as it has some photos and documents I didn't have saved anywhere else. At this point though it seems like I may have to write it off as a loss and format the drive.

recuperation
Posts: 2718
Joined: 04 Jan 2019, 09:48
Location: Hannover, Deutschland (Germany, Allemagne)

Re: Accidentally wrote my 5 TB storage drive as a Windows 10 installation media

#2 Post by recuperation »

You have to use the "p"-key to list files inside a selected partition. If its readable, Testdisk will show you its content and enable you to duplicate files and folders.
When unhappy with the result, use deep search and check the newly found partitions.

If all that fails, use Photorec or any commercial application.

epicgamer
Posts: 2
Joined: 28 Mar 2021, 13:15

Re: Accidentally wrote my 5 TB storage drive as a Windows 10 installation media

#3 Post by epicgamer »

Thanks for your advice recuperation. Unfortunately TestDisk did not show any files, however I was able to recover some documents using PhotoRec.

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