WD 2tb NTFS accidentally formatted in Fat32 with partdisk but stopped at 1%

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synder
Posts: 9
Joined: 19 Sep 2018, 20:21

WD 2tb NTFS accidentally formatted in Fat32 with partdisk but stopped at 1%

#1 Post by synder »

Hello guys,
I am desperately writing from Italy.i Have a WD 2Tb Elements external USB disk which i wrongly formatted with partdisk in Fat32 bit stopped quickly at 1% of the process..i know i did a very stupid thing, i wrongly thought It was a USB Pen drive which i needed to format :oops: :cry: a friend of mine tried to recover files with some recovery programs and the files Can be seen...but when he tries to copy them ti another location It says that a NTFS errore occurred. Can i fix all with test disk? Can You guide me step-to-step ? I have all' my Life insider that HD...documents,pics...Everything! And i cannot afford the cost of a file recovery Company :cry: :cry: wait for your kind help...the disk is actually inaccessibile and shows windows unknown file icon. No chkdsk possibile.i have an old portabile Toshiba laptop with Win 7 32bit. Thanks again! :oops: :cry:

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cgrenier
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Re: WD 2tb NTFS accidentally formatted in Fat32 with partdisk but stopped at 1%

#2 Post by cgrenier »

Is the partition listed as NTFS in the partition table ? (See TestDisk, Advanced menu)
Is the NTFS sector OK ? (TestDisk, Advanced, Boot)
Can TestDisk list the files ? (TestDisk, Advanced, Boot, List)

Each potential problem need to be checked and solved in this order. There is a chapter about repairing filesystems in https://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.pdf

synder
Posts: 9
Joined: 19 Sep 2018, 20:21

Re: WD 2tb NTFS accidentally formatted in Fat32 with partdisk but stopped at 1%

#3 Post by synder »

Thanks You so Much :) ...i will check when My HD will be returned and ask again for your help .and then i will post the solution to help other users...hoping It will work :) wait for me...anyway your program is awesome!

synder
Posts: 9
Joined: 19 Sep 2018, 20:21

Re: WD 2tb NTFS accidentally formatted in Fat32 with partdisk but stopped at 1%

#4 Post by synder »

Hello,
regarding your answers i can say:
"Is the partition listed as NTFS in the partition table ? (See TestDisk, Advanced menu)" YES ;)
"Is the NTFS sector OK ? (TestDisk, Advanced, Boot)" YES ;)
"Can TestDisk list the files ? (TestDisk, Advanced, Boot, List)",unfortunately NO, but..


Boot sector
Status: OK

Backup boot sector
Status: OK

Sectors are identical.

A valid NTFS Boot sector must be present in order to access
any data; even if the partition is not bootable.


But also

partitions can't be recovered

please help..i have got all my life there..i am available also for a remote help,or any other idea :cry: :cry: :cry:

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cgrenier
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Re: WD 2tb NTFS accidentally formatted in Fat32 with partdisk but stopped at 1%

#5 Post by cgrenier »

Run "cmd" (right click run as admiistrator) and "chkdsk /f d:" (replace d: by the correct drive letter).
What is the result ?
If it doesn't work, use PhotoRec on the partition, choose [Whole] instead of [Free]. Do not store the recovered files on this disk but somewhere else with enough free disk space.
It will not recover the original filenames but PhotoRec should get your data back.

synder
Posts: 9
Joined: 19 Sep 2018, 20:21

Re: WD 2tb NTFS accidentally formatted in Fat32 with partdisk but stopped at 1%

#6 Post by synder »

Hello,
here's what it shows at the end of the deeper search; the HD is NTFS and does not have multiple partitions so i dont' understand why it happens like this except that when i wrongly started
to format it maybe i did it with diskpart in FAT but only at 1%. Hope you can tell step by step what to do after that and this topic get solved :)
Thanks again for the kind availability
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cgrenier
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Re: WD 2tb NTFS accidentally formatted in Fat32 with partdisk but stopped at 1%

#7 Post by cgrenier »

You wrote that an NTFS partition is listed in current partition table, so the result of TestDisk, Analyze, Quick Search, Deeper Search is useless.

Run "cmd" (right click run as administrator) and "chkdsk /f d:" (replace d: by the correct drive letter).
What is the result ?
If it doesn't work, use PhotoRec on the partition, choose [Whole] instead of [Free]. Do not store the recovered files on this disk but somewhere else with enough free disk space.
It will not recover the original filenames but PhotoRec should get your data back.

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