Recover Partition (Extended LBA)

[PedroMendes]

Hi, i found testdisk googling for some solution for my problem and i'm putting all my trust to this program (thanks in advance for making it free and user-friendly)
The problem:
I'm using Windows XP and some day i plugged-in my external hard disk and didn't saw the drive at "my computer", after that, i checked at disk management and saw that it became "Unallocated", my first thought was to use partition magic.. so i create a partition and now i have this:


I didn't get what i expected.. i want to recover all the content i had (hopefully still have) in the disk.. the image shows that in the disk2, the "extended" has used 953850MB (the disk is 1TB and it is almost full), witch i hope that are all my files! :s
the computer management shows the extended partition also:


and i did this steps at testdisk:






(here testdisk also sees the extended partition)



(but here it doesn't)



i don't know if the files are in that partition, or where they are, but i need to recover them..
please help me, i don't know what to do anymore :s
thanks in advance
/pedro mendes

[Fiona]

Please, don't use Partition Magic anymore!
It's obsolete and can cause loss of data.

If it became unallocated, now you have an exended and a logical partition.

All your partitions are FAT32.
Except the new created one, this partition is NTFS.
Do you have any idea about your previous situation, like did you use a primary partition and FAT32?

Please run Deeper Search in TestDisk, to have a try to find your missing partition.
Don't write or change anything to your affected disk anymore.
Please upload a screen from the result of Deeper Search.
If a partition is found, please check it and press p to list your data.

Fiona

[PedroMendes]

i didn't knew :s i used partition magic in a similar situation and solved the problem, i thought this time would be simple and it would solve it too..
yes, it was only unallocated, and now i have one extended (the one i think it have the files and it is the previous partition) and the logical (ntfs, created with partition magic)
the fat32 partitions are my internal disk, everything works fine there
my external disk (the one with this problem), was ntfs and logical before all this happen, therefore i created one ntfs partition too (the logical and that testdisk recognizes)

ok, i'm doing the deeper search right now, as soon as it's over, i'll uploaded it..
thanks in advance for your help

pedro mendes

[Fiona]

was ntfs and logical before all this happen, therefore i created one ntfs partition too (the logical and that testdisk recognizes)

If you created an extended and logical partition exactly like before and you formatted your logical partition, then it looks like, that you overwrote your previous file system.
In this case you should use datarecovery software which reads your underlying data in sectors of your disk.
Don't write anything to your affected disk anymore, otherwise you'll overwrite your data also!
If datarecovery software finds something, you should copy/backup it to another intact disk or partition.

TestDisk Deeper Search will show results if you partitionned or formatted different.
In this case a direct recovery could be possible, but not if you created and formatted your partition equal to your previous situation.

In this case, you can have a look at PhotoRec in your TestDisk folder.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
If you'd like to recover file names and directories, you should have a look for commercial datarecovery software.

[PedroMendes]

the deeper search it's like this for hours (at 25%):

(did it recognize 2 partitions? one deleted?)

i though it would not advance anymore, so i stopped and i got this:


should i start all over again with testdisk or try to use the data recovery software that you've mentioned?
and by the way, which one do you recommend?

[Fiona]

You've got some read errors, and partition table is not readable anymore.
Did you remove your HDD from your enclosure?
It's important to know.

I'd suggest, first diagnose your HDD, if your file system is overriden, then I'll suggest datarecovery software.

[PedroMendes]

no, i did not remove.. but as the testdisk got that error, i did another quick search and it didn't find any partition (weird i thought), so i went check if the disk management and partition magic still recognize the disk and they did not (but the l: drive was still at my computer).. so i reboot the computer and start another deeper search with testdisk.. at 2% i got this:


and at the moment i got this:

is this a good sign?

it will take more than 12hours to conclude (if it doesn't got any error this time).. should i wait for it to finish, or should i stop before it reaches the 25% (when it got the error the other time)?

[Fiona]

It looks like that your current partition is already found.
But it's the empty one.
If TestDisk doesn't find another partition, you'll need datarecovery software.
Also, if TestDisk hangs, please let me know, you cann interrupt the scan.

For datarecovery, you can use PhotoRec in your TestDisk folder.
But it doesn't keep file names and directories.
In PhotoRec you can use the menu FileOpt and pressing s to deselect all file types.
Then you can check only your desired ones.
It safes a lot of time sorting files.
If you'll get your directories and file names, you should try commercial software.
Please use a trial first, to check the results.

[PedroMendes]

hi again, "good news", testdisk didn't hang and finally the deeper search finished.. these are the partitions found:



i've listed the files of the first partition, but it is the partition that i've created, as so, it's empty.. the other, that strangely has 196gb, cannot list files (don't know why and don't know what partition is this)

what should i do with this testdisk results in effort to recover my old partition or the files inside it?

[PedroMendes]

In the meanwhile i started a search with photorec, but the estimated time to completion is more than 350hours, is this normal?
And what about testdisk, is there any hope for recover my files/old partition with it?