File recovery question

Using TestDisk to repair the filesystem
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DawnMJ
Posts: 1
Joined: 11 Dec 2014, 03:29

File recovery question

#1 Post by DawnMJ »

I have an external Hard Drive that stopped working due to a power cord failure, so the drive could not get any power.
I hooked up my hard drive using a SATA-USB cord to access the files. When I do it says my drive is "unallocated" and "not initialized"
If I run TestDisk on the drive will I be able to access my files and use the hard drive again?
I really don't want to loose my files, so I am afraid to run the software.
Thank you.

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

Re: File recovery question

#2 Post by Fiona »

Might be possible that testdisk find your partition?
Since W2k (windows 2000) disk must be initialized using the disk management console, so that windows can handle it.
Windows initializing writes only a 4 Bytes signatur to your MBR.
So it doesn't touch any data.
Please don't create any partitions and format it, to avoid any changes and modifications.
It easily means, leave it unallocated.
If testdisk find your partitions, and you're able to list your files, you could recover it.
Info will follow.

You can run testdisk Analyse and Quick Search to have a look for your partition/s?
If nothing is found, you should run Deeper Search, to have a try to find more partitions.
If a partition is found, please mark that partition and press p to have a try to list your files.
Don't confirm with Write, so nothing will be changed.
It's recommended to run testdisk as a diagnose only.
Especially if you're unsure.
Within your testdisk folder, you'll find your testdisk.log.
Please open it using a wordprocessor like wordpad and copy and paste the content of your testdisk.log into your next post.

Fiona

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