I have a hard drive which originally contained system files. Later, I repurposed this drive – reformatted, and used it to store backups (*.tib files, which are Acronis True Image disk images).

Today when I connected it to my computer (Vista SP2), after a lot of disk clickety clack it shows up as empty. Windows Explorer (eventually) shows a drive (B:) of 0 bytes used, 0 bytes free. Disk Management shows the correct size, but 100% free and File System = RAW (it should be NTFS).

Obviously the drive is on its last legs, so time for Recuva-ry. After grinding away over night, Recuva came back listing tons of files, some recoverable, some not. The problem is, the files listed are old system files from prior to the last format, not the backups. The files listed as unrecoverable have the comment that “The file is overwritten with “B:\?\D24Server-C.tib”. I don’t care about the system files – I want to recover the TIB file. Recuva wants to recover the files that the TIB file overwrote…

Any tips on how I might recover the files that Recuva seems to think are plainly visible?

Thanks!

Try running the scan with the Scan for Non-Deleted Files option ticked.

I guess you're runnning a deep scan? If you have to rescan try a normal scan first with the above option shown. If no-go then try the deep scan with the above etc.