Using QPhotorec in a 2TB External HDD is taking too long and I don't know if I should keep going
Posted: 11 May 2026, 19:12
Hi everyone, hoping this message finds everyone doing well, I write with a few questions about the use of Qphotorec. Let me explain.
A few months back, my brother was trying to install the Windows media creation tool in a simple usb pendrive so he could install windows in his new PC. However, in the install wizard, I think he accidentally chose my external usb HDD Toshiba 3.0 2 TB (I wasn't there so I don't have the exact info of what happend as he wasn't sure either, we are not techs savvys or anything, I only know really basic stuff but I'm really good looking for information and following guides, so I'm the one that usually solve stuff in the computers at home, well kind of...). The thing is, that the information in the HDD was deleted instantly, he stopped the Windows media creation tool, but everything was deleted anyways. We checked some fast solutions (I know, bad mistake) and we tried using recuva and after 40 hrs or so, we could recover 14.000 files approximately. The files are, mostly inaccesible or corrupted, and have weird names. In that time I gave up and didn't look for any other solutions, until now. After looking up a few minutes, I came across with Testdisk. Believing the problem was a deleted partition, I tried to use it, but when I checked the existence of Photorec I thought maybe I just needed to recover files. Long story short, I didn''t do anything with Testdisk, I used PhotoRec, the process started and it said it would take more than 100 hours, and I was glad that I could look up the jpgs that were being recovered, but then I realized that Qphotorec had an User Interface, so I stopped the process and started it again in QPhotorec (I know, another mistake?).
Now, the process in QPhotrec has been going for 2 days, and as I'm writing this, Qphotorec is reading sectors with 9 digits (that are constantly changing and going back and forth), of 3907029168 sectors. It says it's in the progress bar 2% but it's going to 1% and sometimes 3%, which I believe is because of the going back and forth in the sector. It has recovered 6848 files, which mostly are jpgs that I can view.
So, everything seems going right, right? However, since it's taking too long to just going up 1%, I checked the forums and I read something about bad sectors and DDrescue and cloning the drive and more stuff that were clearly indicating me that maybe my process is not going that right, so I looked up CrystalDiskInfo to see the state of the HDD drive and it's the only yellow one with a "Caution" health state, saying there's 112 reallocated sectors. I looked up more info and then I went back to the DDrescue stuff, however, I understand that you have to use DDrescue in a Linux OS with a usb, and that is more terrain that I don't know anything about.
Finally, my question is, should I continue with QPhotorec process - it keeps going back and forth - and wait several days to see if I keep getting files back, or should I stop the process and try to clone the HDD into another with DDRescue and then try again? Or is there any other option? For specification purposes, the hard drive contained a lot of photos with a certain sentimental value, a lot of games and stuff from other PC's. For the moment I won't stop the process. Thank you in advance for your help!
PS: I'm really sorry if my text is quite difficult to understand, english is not my first language (I'm chilean). I will understand everything you'll reply but I'm not a good writer.
A few months back, my brother was trying to install the Windows media creation tool in a simple usb pendrive so he could install windows in his new PC. However, in the install wizard, I think he accidentally chose my external usb HDD Toshiba 3.0 2 TB (I wasn't there so I don't have the exact info of what happend as he wasn't sure either, we are not techs savvys or anything, I only know really basic stuff but I'm really good looking for information and following guides, so I'm the one that usually solve stuff in the computers at home, well kind of...). The thing is, that the information in the HDD was deleted instantly, he stopped the Windows media creation tool, but everything was deleted anyways. We checked some fast solutions (I know, bad mistake) and we tried using recuva and after 40 hrs or so, we could recover 14.000 files approximately. The files are, mostly inaccesible or corrupted, and have weird names. In that time I gave up and didn't look for any other solutions, until now. After looking up a few minutes, I came across with Testdisk. Believing the problem was a deleted partition, I tried to use it, but when I checked the existence of Photorec I thought maybe I just needed to recover files. Long story short, I didn''t do anything with Testdisk, I used PhotoRec, the process started and it said it would take more than 100 hours, and I was glad that I could look up the jpgs that were being recovered, but then I realized that Qphotorec had an User Interface, so I stopped the process and started it again in QPhotorec (I know, another mistake?).
Now, the process in QPhotrec has been going for 2 days, and as I'm writing this, Qphotorec is reading sectors with 9 digits (that are constantly changing and going back and forth), of 3907029168 sectors. It says it's in the progress bar 2% but it's going to 1% and sometimes 3%, which I believe is because of the going back and forth in the sector. It has recovered 6848 files, which mostly are jpgs that I can view.
So, everything seems going right, right? However, since it's taking too long to just going up 1%, I checked the forums and I read something about bad sectors and DDrescue and cloning the drive and more stuff that were clearly indicating me that maybe my process is not going that right, so I looked up CrystalDiskInfo to see the state of the HDD drive and it's the only yellow one with a "Caution" health state, saying there's 112 reallocated sectors. I looked up more info and then I went back to the DDrescue stuff, however, I understand that you have to use DDrescue in a Linux OS with a usb, and that is more terrain that I don't know anything about.
Finally, my question is, should I continue with QPhotorec process - it keeps going back and forth - and wait several days to see if I keep getting files back, or should I stop the process and try to clone the HDD into another with DDRescue and then try again? Or is there any other option? For specification purposes, the hard drive contained a lot of photos with a certain sentimental value, a lot of games and stuff from other PC's. For the moment I won't stop the process. Thank you in advance for your help!
PS: I'm really sorry if my text is quite difficult to understand, english is not my first language (I'm chilean). I will understand everything you'll reply but I'm not a good writer.