Recuva can't see unallocated space?

[Roq]

Hi!

Done quite the stupid thing, pointed MS Media Creation Tool at my 1TB data drive.

Now I have on this physical drive first 32GB of "ESD-USB" and after that 900GB of unallocated space. Ok, MTF is gone, but all in this 900GB should be recoverable.

But how to point Recuva there?

It can see only the "ESD-USB" logical drive.

Should I delete this one, make a new 1TB drive by Quickformat and let Recuva scan this drive?

Other suggestions?

[DennisD]

Hi Roq, and welcome to the forum.

 

With that newly created "ESD-USB" logical drive I can't suggest anything definitive with any confidence, but I can give you an initial suggestion which is well worth trying.

 

When a drive has suffered some mishap, usually with the bootsectors, and is now viewed as "unallocated space", I'm a big fan of running said drive through a partition management program with a view to searching for the previous partition. Whether that is still possible after MS Media Creation Tool has created a mishap I have no idea.

 

However, the way these partition managers work is that they will search for a "lost" partition and indicate as to whether they've found one (or more) without actually doing any writing to the drive. That is something I am sure about. Doing the initial search is completely safe and will not touch any data on the drive.

 

Even pressing "Finish" after the search will write nothing to the drive. You have to then press the "Apply" button top left of the page before any disk writing takes place.

 

I'm actually hopeful about this, as a number of years ago I had my system drive divided into 3 partitions (still is, 1 system and 2 data)), and I attempted to create a relatively small partition in the available free space on the larger of the data partitions, to install a Linux distro.

 

The Linux partition was created successfully, but I only made that discovery after booting my now non-bootable system drive with a rescue cd.

 

Hundreds of albums and movies and my Operating System now replaced by "unallocated space", and one small empty partition.

 

Panic! Had the system drive backed up but not the music and movies as I didn't have the external drives I now have.

 

To cut this story short, I used MiniTools Partition Wizard to search for the lost partitions and it not only found them, but it restored them. Every album and movie intact.

 

The only difference with your situation and mine is that I didn't install any type of operating system or software, I just attempted to create a 4th partition. So whether your install has wiped out any possibility of restoring the original partition I'm not sure, but as there's no risk in having an attempt with a search it's well worth the effort.

 

MiniTools Partition Wizard: (Free)

 

MiniTools Guide and Screenshots:

 

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Failing that, there is software out there (free) which will scan unallocated space for data, although some usually have a free recovery limit. For example Easeus Data Recovery will allow 2GB of data for free. At least that 2GB allows you to see if it works for you or not.

 

Easeus Data Recovery: (Free version)

 

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There's also TestDisk and Photorec 7.0. These are sister programs which come in the same download. Both very powerful and completely free with no limitations.

 

TestDisk still has a "command line like" interface although it isn't command line exactly, but has a structured dialogue to follow and detailed guides for recovery scenarios.

 

PhotoRec however, now has a Graphical User Interface and will search unallocated space for a great many file types, not just photos.

 

TestDisk & PhotoRec 7.0 (18 April 2015), Data Recovery:

 

File Formats recovered by PhotRec:

 

PhotRec Documentation:

 

TestDisk Documentation:

 

When you unzip the download, look for "qphotorec". This being the GUI version.

 

A lot to go at, but I hope it may help.

 

 

EDIT: I would leave the quick format option, or the creation of a new partition as the very last resort.