Recovering data from external drive just gets one huge file! Topic is solved

Using PhotoRec to recover lost data
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MartinW12
Posts: 2
Joined: 10 Dec 2013, 01:57

Recovering data from external drive just gets one huge file!

#1 Post by MartinW12 »

Hello,

I have upgraded my old HD recorder and am trying to recover the files containing the programmes I had recorded (but not yet watched!) so that I can watch them on the PC.

I have taken the drive out of the HD recorder and plugged it into my PC. From this I can see the Hitachi HD drive and since under "Partition" it says "Linux" I selected the "ext2/ext3" option. Sure enough it finds an MPEG file which is what the drive contains many of. However when I try to recover the files it doesn't recover the individual files, it recovers one massive file - basically it got to a 90GB file before complaining it had run out of space.

Needless to say none of the programmes I recorded are 90GB, so I am guessing it is trying to dump an image of the entire hard drive and then just giving it an extension of MPEG, or perhaps it is failing to recognise the end of the file and so adds everything to the end of the file.

Any suggestions as to why it is doing this and/or what I should do?

Thanks in advance, hope someone can help!

Martin

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cgrenier
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Re: Recovering data from external drive just gets one huge f

#2 Post by cgrenier »

Have you try to access the files ?
Run TestDisk, Advanced, select the partition, List, select your files, copy them.

MartinW12
Posts: 2
Joined: 10 Dec 2013, 01:57

Re: Recovering data from external drive just gets one huge f

#3 Post by MartinW12 »

Thanks, but I have solved the problem.

Basically, PhotoRec didn't work but I successfully extracted the files using different software ...

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