cgsecurity.org

I tried to read about the specs of each program but I'm not very tech savvy so I just chose PhotoRec to restore my data. However, browsing through the forums, I see people talking about the TestDisk Undelete option so now I'm wondering if I chose the right one.

My situation isn't a complex one. I accidentally formatted my 3TB NTFS external hard drive. There were no operating systems on it. Only files that I would drag and drop there. When I made the mistake, I didn't do anything else to the hard drive so nothing was overwritten. I see no reason as to it shouldn't all come back completely intact. It's bringing back my files but I guess the filenames and locations were lost or deleted because it's putting them in the recup.direct folders.

Does TestDisk Undelete bring back the original filenames and locations? Would it bring everything back in it's original folder structure that I had before it was formatted? Or is that not possible when anything is formatted or deleted.

What are the differences between TestDisk Undelete and PhotoRec? Which one should I use? Would it make any big difference for my situation? Or would the results be the same.

Thank you. For your answers.

Undelete is only an option to retrieve shortly deleted files.
It'll only work as long as your data are not overwritten.
Undelete can keep file and folder names.
Example:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Undelete ... h_TestDisk
If you retrieve files out of your recycler, folder structure can be changed.
If you'd like to recover deleted files, you can try Undelete.
If you have formatted a partition or the the file system is faulty, undelete doesn't work.
In this case you'll need datarecovery software which reads your data underlying in your sectors to recover them.
To achieve better results, you could try PhotoRec/FileOpt and pressing s to deselect all file types.
Check only these file types where you'd like to recover.
Might be jpg, png, doc etc..
It safes a lot of time and doesn't recover unnecessary files.

If you accidentally formatted a partition exactly like before (formatting a NTFS partition with NTFS), you'd need datarecovery software.
If you formatted different file systems for example NTFS to FAT, TestDisk might be able to recover it.
Info:
Recovery of reformatted partition
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Data_Rec ... _partition

Fiona