Partition recovery after recovery disk creation.

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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ketjow
Posts: 2
Joined: 05 Sep 2017, 20:47

Partition recovery after recovery disk creation.

#1 Post by ketjow »

Hello

I have a problem with recovery of my data from 500GB external 2.5'' hard drive.
I have used that drive for a long time, it was divided on two partition: one small FAT (to run in devices that doesn't support NTFS) and the rest of space was on NTFS partition.
After i have bought new laptop i decided to create recovery disk on this FAT partition (YES THAT WAS MY MISTAKE!!).
I have errased all data and even set name to that partition and started recovery disk creation. I was hoping that main NTFS partition will be left ok :oops: but no, i ended with one partition with recovery files...

I have launched TestDisk to check if i can recover my partition. Quick search didn't found it so i have launched deeper search.
And success - my partition was found. But unfortunatelly when i try to see files i get message that "Can't open filesystem. Filesystem seems damaged.".

This is the output after deeper search:

Code: Select all

Results
     HPFS - NTFS              0   1  1 58711 254 63  943208217
     NTFS found using backup sector, blocksize=4096, 482 GB / 449 GiB
     FAT32 LBA                0  32 33  4177 117 36   67108864 [EFI System Partition] [NO NAME]
     FAT32, blocksize=32768, 34 GB / 32 GiB
   * FAT32 LBA            58712   0  1 60800 254 63   33559785 [DELL_RCVRY]
     FAT32, blocksize=16384, 17 GB / 16 GiB
Not an exFAT boot sector.

     HPFS - NTFS              0   1  1 58711 254 63  943208217
     NTFS found using backup sector, blocksize=4096, 482 GB / 449 GiB
Can't open filesystem. Filesystem seems damaged.
EFI System Partition is partition with available recovery disk.
[DELL_RCVRY] is my old FAT partition that i wanted to use as recovery (name i have assigned)
NTFS partition is probably what left from my main partition with important data.

Is there a chance to recover this partition ? In fact less than 10% of data on this partition are realy important for me (fotos).
If partition recovery is not possible what options do i have? File recovery?

I have included only part of TestDisk log. If there are any important informations that i have missed please let me know and i will post them ASAP.

Please help...
Thanks in advance.

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cgrenier
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Re: Partition recovery after recovery disk creation.

#2 Post by cgrenier »

The first step is to recover the old partition and fix the boot sector.
After Deeper Search, set the NTFS partition and the last FAT32 as P(rimary), the other FAT32 as D(eleted).
On next screen, choose Write, confirm, BackupBS, confirm, Quit and restart your computer.

Now the problem is to fix the NTFS filesystem. Try TestDisk, Advanced, Boot, Repair MFT.
If it doesn't work, run "cmd" (right click run as administrator) and "chkdsk /f d:" (replace d: by the correct drive letter).
If it doesn't work either, run photorec on the NTFS partition, choose |Whole] instead of [Free].

Good luck

ketjow
Posts: 2
Joined: 05 Sep 2017, 20:47

Re: Partition recovery after recovery disk creation.

#3 Post by ketjow »

Hello, thank you very much for quick answer :).

I would like to ask just few more questions.

If i correctly understand what happened with my disk than it looks like:
There were two partitions:

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[------------------------NTFS - 449GiB-----------------------][---FAT32 - 16GiB---]
after recovery disk creation process created was one partition

Code: Select all

[---FAT32 32GiB----]----NTFS - 449GiB-----------------------][---FAT32 - 16GiB---]
So probably first 32GiB of my NTFS partition are permanently lost. Is that correct?
If yes i hope that my 10% of important data were not there...

Till this moment i didn't write anything on that disk to don't make any new damages that may make recovery impossible but i suppose that finaly i have to do it.
In your last post you have described few steps - i wonder if it is reasonable to make backup image of entire disk before that to restore it if something will go wrong?
In fact i am asking if with this operations (BackupBS, Repair MFT, chkdsk /f) i can make situation worse than currently?
Currently i don't have another disk large enough to make such copy so it will be necessary to buy it - i just want to know if this is reasonable expense.

The last question is: i assume that goal of all steps you have described before usage of PhotoRec is to have working NTFS partition with kept folder structure / file names etc...
The last step (PhotoRec) means that this is not possible and the only solution i have is to recover as many data as i can and after in huge ammount of data locate my important 10%. Is that correct?

Thanks in advance.

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