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external NTFS formatted to FAT32 - reverse

Posted: 21 Jan 2015, 23:48
by Skalpel
Hi,
I've been a bad boy. During while formatting flash drive in ubuntu I misclicked and formatted 1TB NTFS full of data to FAT32 - quick format, cancelled it before it got a chance to fully finish (panic, mistake no. 1?). Its an external drive, did not touch it further, cried a little and went to sleep with nightmares.

next day,OS does see the drive as FAT32 full of rubbish data. Tried bunch of recovery tools, they give me lots of single files back, but without file structure. Thousands od photos and other documents, so this is useless without the file structure - only that I know that the data are there somewhere.
I have messed around with testdisk for a while, found wiki manual exactly for this case: Recovery of reformatted partition, tried that - but after identifying previous file system as NTFS still I do NOT see data structure on drive through list command - I see nothing instead, not even the rubbish. After a while of desperation, tried to recover boot sector from backup - testdisk was telling me boot is BAD but backup is OK. (mistake no. 2?)
Now I see the drive as unformatted, not even the rubbish data. Anything else giving still the same results, including data recovery software (recuva) still giving me about 300K files back with no file structure.

Now, any chance to get the file structure back? I will be more than happy to provide more data about the issue, just tell me what you need me to do (except for me being less dumb in the past), even donated few E to the sw as it looks solid... dont expect more help with that, but hey, cant hurt my chances now and at least somebody will be a bit happier.

No seriously, I will be so much grateful for any help. Next stop will be, after a while of more panicking and whining propably some professional data recovery service - and these guys are gonna rip me for so much more. Mistakes come with costs I suppose.

Re: external NTFS formatted to FAT32 - reverse

Posted: 22 Jan 2015, 08:13
by cgrenier
Try TestDisk, Advanced, Undelete. Do you see your files ?
If it's not the case, you will have to try other data recovery utilities.
PhotoRec can recover your data but without the original filenames.