Too many files and never ending PhotoRec scan

Using PhotoRec to recover lost data
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Author
kkonze
Posts: 1
Joined: 18 Jan 2013, 03:26

Too many files and never ending PhotoRec scan

#1 Post by kkonze »

I have some questions on the current photorec scan I'm running...

...but first the details. I'm and idiot and reset my cpu back to facorty settings without quadrupal checking my backups. Luckily I didn't lose any pictures or videos of my kids or I'd be in a padded room right now under 24 watch! But I did lose any and all MS Office files (and god only knows how many of my husband's music files) that I need for my online business. My #1 priority is recovering .xls and .doc files.

I am in the middle of using PhotoRec to try to get my files back and I think I bit off more than I can handle. The scan is currently in the 13 HOUR of running and has found 1.5 MILLION files. What the what?!?!? I did start out going through the recup_dir folders to look for .xls and .doc files...but there are already 2100 of the recup_dir folders and it took my 4 solid hours today to get through 290 of them.

And yes, I have read all about the builtbackwards script to try to organize the files.

Here are my questions:
1. Is this scan ever going to end?
2. When it ends can I run the builtbackward script to try to organize this insanity? Or will I need to set that up and run another epic 13+ hour scan?
3. Why am I such an idiot?
4. So far the files I've recovered are all out of order (which I expected), but I have only seen one MS Office recovered file that was last updated later than December 2011. Does Photo Rec work backwards somehow starting with the oldest files?
5. I have seen at least 10 examples of duplicate recovered files. From the quick glances I'm giving the few files I can actually open they look to be true duplicates? Is this normal?
6. Seriously, why am I such an idiot?
7. Since the scan seems on track to never end is this a sign that something is not going to work and I should stop it and start over? It can't get much worse than loosing all my work files, but I'm getting a little worried about the time it's taking to scan and the number of found files.

Thanks. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Idiot in NC

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cgrenier
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Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 15:08
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Re: Too many files and never ending PhotoRec scan

#2 Post by cgrenier »

PhotoRec starts from the beginning of the partition, it will finish when it reaches the end of the partition. A filesystem can contains millions of files.
If you have made the mistake to store the recovered files on the source partition despite the warning, some files will be duplicated.

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