Konkreter Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 Hey Everyone, I have searched the forum and didnt come up with any answers so I thought I would ask. I purchased a Seagate 500 GB external hard drive about 8+ years ago because It was much easier to save everything there instead of 3-4 thumb drives. Anyway, I have used it for years without a problem. Ever. I have been through at least 5 laptops and numerous system restores without an issue because EVERYTHING is on my Back up. I purchased a new laptop about 6 months ago and last week it began freezing up and I was unable to run system restore and didnt make a recovery disc when It was new. I was able to finally save the recovery disc files to a 16 gb flash drive. I was then able to restore my laptop to factory settings from there. I was in the process of re-installing all my software. I had used my wifes flash drive and had went out and purchased a new one that day to use to make a recovery disc so I could give hers back. I was not paying attention or something and I thought I was copying to my flash drive. I was not, turns out I copied to my ext. Drive!! I now have a few issues: #1. I am an Idiot and everything is gone! #2. Computer used to say that the drive had 350+GB used of 500GB with 150 free, Now after formatting over and saving recovery files it says that the total size is only 31.9 GB #3 I ran the Recuva software in deep scan and included non-deleted files but it didnt find but a handful of files and no where near the 350 GB of stuff that is on there. #4 the first thing that I did was to delete the recovery files I had written. (it was a knee jerk reaction) I am hoping that I have not just lost all of my photos, videos, music, and business documents and accounting back-ups!! Can anyone help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan_B Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 Welcome to forum A screenshot of Disk Management will give far more valuable information on your situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konkreter Posted October 5, 2013 Author Share Posted October 5, 2013 Sorry, Is this what u need? Thanks, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan_B Posted October 5, 2013 Share Posted October 5, 2013 Yes, that is what I meant. I would expect most of the original 150 GB free space to be at the "far end" of the disk The E:\ partition is at the start of your disk so that represents 31.9 GB of the original files that has been over-written. There remain 320 GB that could be recovered, ASSUMING that "after formatting over" refers to a Quick format and not a slow overwrite format. Was your external drive originally formatted as FAT32 or NTFS ? What version of Windows do you have ? I have limited experience with Recuva so I now "tag out" and defer to others with experience. All the best Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konkreter Posted October 5, 2013 Author Share Posted October 5, 2013 Thanks Alan, I really do not know the original format for the drive. I will check the seagate website. I am using windows 8 and the formatting was done to save the recovery files to media for a back up disk. any help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konkreter Posted October 5, 2013 Author Share Posted October 5, 2013 Thanks Alan, I really do not know the original format for the drive. I will check the seagate website. I am using windows 8 and the formatting was done to save the recovery files to media for a back up disk. any help? OK I check the users guide and it looks like they ship formatted fat32. I am sure I would not have changed it from factory spec. Thanks Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DennisD Posted October 5, 2013 Moderators Share Posted October 5, 2013 Hi Mark. Don't get your hopes up too much, but there is another avenue we can explore which means suggesting the use of alternative software to first have a look at the drive again, and then second, to explore the possibility of doing something with partitioning software. It's obvious that Recuva isn't going to help you, but working with the original partition or partitions might. Toward that end, it isn't clear to me as to whether your E: drive already had two partitions before your accident. Was the first partition which is marked "Recovery" created by your accidental actions, or did the drive have two definite partitions beforehand? I'm sure Alan is still watching this topic and I would greatly appreciate his opinion on the possibility of first scanning for, and then depending upon the result of that, trying to "Restore" the original partition or partitions. I'm sure the "Unallocated" space still contains all your files, or the ones which weren't overwritten by your actions, and it may just be a case of restoring the partition table to enable that "Unallocated" space to be recognized as the file system it originally was. This isn't an exact science unfortunately, but it does have a positive outcome sometimes. Let me know about the original state of the drive partition wise, and we'll take it from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators mta Posted October 6, 2013 Moderators Share Posted October 6, 2013 +1 with @DennisD on the 'not an exact science' and with that in mind and no other fallback position stated, I would like to chime in and suggest imaging that drive before continuing. otherwise, continuing will be a balls-and-all experience. Backup now & backup often.It's your digital life - protect it with a backup.Three things are certain; Birth, Death and loss of data. You control the last. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DennisD Posted October 6, 2013 Moderators Share Posted October 6, 2013 You're right mta, which is why I added the statement ... the possibility of first scanning for, and then depending upon the result of that, trying to "Restore" the original partition or partitions. It is fraught with a certain amount of risk, and is something I would only try myself if the results of an initial scan were promising, and if all other possible solutions had been exhausted, and toward that end if anyone has anything at all to suggest please feel free to do so. I'm just one guy and there could be something I've overlooked. Imaging the drive is a sound idea mta if Mark has the space available to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan_B Posted October 7, 2013 Share Posted October 7, 2013 I fully agree that restoring a partition table is dangerous. My Laptop had 4 off NTFS partitions and 2 off FAT32 partitions plus a hidden FAT? "Secure Zone" partition created and used by Acronis. One day the partition table broke and the computer could not boot. The Linux based Minitool Partition Wizard Boot Rescue CD was able to create a new partition table. After many attempts it failed to include the Acronis Secure Zone so I gave up and attempted the other 6 partitions. When that looked plausible I committed to the writing of a new partition table for only those 6. I think that when I committed there was no way of then adding the Acronis special without endangering the other 6. The NTFS partitions were well recovered. When I booted up Windows promptly demanded that I should run chkdsk and reboot to fix fatal errors in one of the FAT32 partitions. That was fixed by chkdsk but innumerable errors were fixed and I never trusted that data again. Once all was working I ran chkdsk on all the other partitions and the other FAT32 partition had a large number of errors detected, but the 4 off NTFS partitions only needed a few fixes to some sort of Security logs. That was the day that I finally believed that data was safer on an NTFS partition than a FAT32 partition. I fully agree with the safety of creating an image backup before attempting to write a new partition table. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DennisD Posted October 7, 2013 Moderators Share Posted October 7, 2013 My personal experience is having my internal drive containing the system partition and two data partitions being completely screwed up firstly by installing a copy of Win 8 Preview onto it's own separate partition and secondly by installing a linux distro onto a properly formatted partition. In both cases I was left with the system partition intact and the remaining partitions showing as one very large area of unallocated space. In both instances, MiniTool Partition Wizard (Free) searched for, found, and restored the original partitions completely intact. I agree there is risk involved, but dangerous is a description I wouldn't use. Crossing a busy road is dangerous. You have to measure the risk against the alternatives, and in Marks case he restored some files and then immediately deleted them, and the rest of his files are lying in 433GB of unallocated space. At the moment he has absolutely nothing, and if anyone can come up with a program that will scan and recover files from unallocated space, then please feel free to post it. Alternatives to Recuva are welcome in this instance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konkreter Posted October 7, 2013 Author Share Posted October 7, 2013 Thanks for all of your help guys, I caught a bug and have been out for a few days. I will be back asap with more info and questions, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now