Partition deleted (exFAT) AND overwritten File System (ext4)… on a wrong HDD (Running for the “Stupid award”)

[marcotti]

As for the subject I deleted an exFAT partition and overwritten with an ext4 File System with Ubuntu, on the wrong hard drive.

Deep scanned with TestDisk and found an NTFS file system.
Saved to disk, but now it says RAW partition.
I tried with RebuildBS but it didn’t work out.
PhotoRec found many files (don’t know if all of them), but being 650k it’s impossible to rebuild the file structure.

Any idea would be appreciated

Thanks
m

[recuperation]

If there has been an exFAT file system it is not a good idea to write a table containing an NTFS file system.
Using the p-key ("list files") would have shown you that Testdisk is unable to read something from within your NTFS file system.

Your only chance left is to use some other software that will try to evaluate the remains your FAT or a second FAT used. Furthermore such a software might evaluate the remains of your root directy and subdirectories.

[marcotti]

Thank you for the feedback.
Unfortunately the only option it gave me the "Deep search" was the NFTS (further than the Linux ext4 I knew was not the right one).
In that moement I wasn't sure it was NTFS or exFAT, so no brainer.
Question: what does "Advanced --> Type" do?
There's a message that says "Change type, this setting will not be soved on the disk"
If I enter the menu it let choose among several partition types (despite only the ones on the first column can be selected) and for instance here exFAT does not appear.
Selecting one (e.g. NTFS) and answering "NO" to the "New partition type?" it goes to another selection screen (where now exFAT appears) but selecting one of them apparently nothing really happens.

Thanks for explaining
m

[recuperation]

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

https://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.pdf

[marcotti]

Thank you for the help.
Obviously I already went through the documentation before bothering people in the forum, but unfortunately searching the pdf among the 13 occurences of the word "advanced" and the 54 of the word "type", I only found the menu I asked about, mentioned in chapter 17.1.6 (page 56) with no explanation, reason why I asked the question.

Thank you anyway.

P.S.: consider the highlight on the weird behavior described in my previous post, a help to improve the software, given for free.

[recuperation]

Question: what does "Advanced --> Type" do?

Thank you for the feedback.
Unfortunately the only option it gave me the "Deep search" was the NFTS (further than the Linux ext4 I knew was not the right one).
In that moement I wasn't sure it was NTFS or exFAT, so no brainer.
Question: what does "Advanced --> Type" do?

It's all described in chapter 17.1.6.
Please ask specifically what you don't understand.

There's

I don't know where "There" is. Please provide adequate documentation. Unfortunately I don't have all Testdisk messages in my mind. Thank you.
Adequate documentation is describing how one arrives at a certain problem, providing text AND uploaded screenshots to the cgsecurity site.

a message that says "Change type, this setting will not be soved on the disk"
If I enter the menu

I won't bother searching in Testdisk hoping I might find something that fits your description.

it let choose among several partition types (despite only the ones on the first column can be selected) and for instance here exFAT does not appear.
Selecting one (e.g. NTFS) and answering "NO" to the "New partition type?" it goes to another selection screen (where now exFAT appears) but selecting one of them apparently nothing really happens.

Thanks for explaining
m