Use Testdisk instead? Pausing Photorec - Restarting from start or from previous point?
Posted: 26 Oct 2016, 12:50
Hi,
Background: my Win7 laptop was freezing all the time and I decided to put Linux onto it. I accidentally deleted the partition table but did not erase the data on the disk. I have Linux Mint 18 and am using TD/PC 7.1 in Linux. I took my computer to a repair store and they put a new 1 TB hard drive into my laptop and put the old HDD into a case so I can use it as an external. I tried running Photorec today and got it to save the files into a new folder in my documents on the new HDD in my laptop. This worked OK.
However, my question....
- The old HDD is 500 GB. There is roughly 240 GB of data on it which was stored in a separate partition. Windows was partition C with 250 GB, D:/ was for my movies. Should I use Testdisk instead to try and get the partition back and see if the data is still there, intact? Is this possible? Just redraw the partition again?
- If not, when using Photorec, the estimated time goes up to about 150-170h. I don't mind leaving my computer on 24/7 until it is finished, but I am moving house in 4 days and will obviously need to turn it off so I can move house. I noticed when testing the software that it has the option to continue with previous scan. So, if I let it run between now and Sunday, turn off my PC on Sunday and then turn back on again on Sunday night and restart Photorec, will it start from scratch, or will it skip over the sectors already scanned? ie. Should I just wait until Sunday night and start then?
Thanks
PS. I am a Linux newbie. Please don't give complicated answers with code I won't be able to understand.
Thanks
Background: my Win7 laptop was freezing all the time and I decided to put Linux onto it. I accidentally deleted the partition table but did not erase the data on the disk. I have Linux Mint 18 and am using TD/PC 7.1 in Linux. I took my computer to a repair store and they put a new 1 TB hard drive into my laptop and put the old HDD into a case so I can use it as an external. I tried running Photorec today and got it to save the files into a new folder in my documents on the new HDD in my laptop. This worked OK.
However, my question....
- The old HDD is 500 GB. There is roughly 240 GB of data on it which was stored in a separate partition. Windows was partition C with 250 GB, D:/ was for my movies. Should I use Testdisk instead to try and get the partition back and see if the data is still there, intact? Is this possible? Just redraw the partition again?
- If not, when using Photorec, the estimated time goes up to about 150-170h. I don't mind leaving my computer on 24/7 until it is finished, but I am moving house in 4 days and will obviously need to turn it off so I can move house. I noticed when testing the software that it has the option to continue with previous scan. So, if I let it run between now and Sunday, turn off my PC on Sunday and then turn back on again on Sunday night and restart Photorec, will it start from scratch, or will it skip over the sectors already scanned? ie. Should I just wait until Sunday night and start then?
Thanks
PS. I am a Linux newbie. Please don't give complicated answers with code I won't be able to understand.
Thanks