Seriously. If the data on it is important, do not attempt to recover it yourself, unless you really know what you’re doing (and if you have to ask about it on a forum, you don’t). It is very easy to make a mistake and you will probably only ensure that the data is permanently destroyed. The best you can do is disconnect the drive as soon as possible, remove it from the computer and not power it on until you take it to a professional. Sure, this will cost you some money, and depending on how valuable the data is, it may or may not be worth it. Only you can judge that. But trying to do it yourself is certainly not worth it.
This was a bad idea. It has significantly lowered your chance of successful data recovery. But if you’re lucky, maybe something can still be saved from that drive by someone who knows what they are doing.
Sorry i wrote that the disk was allocated, but i meant it is Unallocated does that make a difference?
and the Partition that was on was a non Bootable Exfat Partition.
if you only deleted the partition and did nothing else to the disk than the data on that partition is still there, but inaccessible.
This case is different from when you delete files from a partition, in that case you can use a data recovery program, in this case (where the whole partition is gone) this won’t work.
so i second what @Kresimir said, take it to a data specialist if it is that important, or take your loss
Allocated means that the device has been prepared for use. (Has a Partition Table and a file system.) and is ready to use.
Un-Allocated means its just raw. Device will need a partition table and a file system.
Testdisk is a powerfull program. I have used it in the past and recovered my mistakes. Are you familiar with using the software or did you search for answers and download it in hopes? Did testdisk find the partition in question?
Thanks for your Reply’s, i called two Data center, both said the same thing, data rescue
will cost me, starting off at € 300,00 Euros.
Well my data is not life threatening important, but i would not deleted it voluntarily, who knows
the future…
Some eBooks, newspaper articles, music and the most painfully a few years of Email traffic.
is that worth 300 bucks? autsch.
normally on computer stuff i do it all by myself, nobody there to help me because my knowledge
goes beyond what others know, they all use micro… cough cough.
i was Trying Testdisk but i have to admit im not sure how to use it.
it dindt find as a whole Partition or Disk that i could write a partition table on to,
and for other possibility’s im not experienced enough. Thats why my pledge for help here in the community.
This is what I expected. Testdisk is straight forward but not so easy to figure for someone with no experience with such tools.
In testdisk you first choose the disk you desire to work
then you have to choose the disk type (Testdisk will highlight what it detects) this is MBR or GPT.
once you select the correct then you have to analyse the system. After a while it should show you a list of the partitions it has found. Note that it can take a while for it to read a disk depending on several factors such as cpu/ram read/write speed of disk and etc. The process can take a while. While you can certainly try to use the program you will have to determine in the end what’s it worth to you.
i did what you said, it was a Exfat Partition, so i toggled Windows/PC and i think (pretty sure )
it was MBR, so i toggled that to.
but i dint got a clear response, no notice that Testdisk found One single entire Partition to Restore.
i think the problem is the single 2 Tb Partition, maybe it cant/doesn’t recognized that…
i dont know if i have, or can try other options, i don’t want to make it worsen than it already is.
Question: is it harder to help me with my problem because its a External USB HDD
and could it be easier when it would be a normal Sata III Connection?
I’ve used testdisk on drives as big as 14 TB with no ISSUE. MBR is more for Legacy is your system older?
However it goes back to @Kresimir with this statement
emphasis on the really know what your doing.
In this case while testdisk is the tool needed not knowing how to use it can make things much worse. My recommendation would be to First implement a backup that you don’t loose data from. From what I could tell this is a backup but do not know if you have a backup of this backup?
You have the option to take the time to learn how to use Testdisk (even if you can’t recover) or to format the drive and start over. Learning testdisk now could help with future issues.
In my experience there is no difference (with exception to speed)
The main thing is to make sure you are working on the correct disk. Its always best practice to have only the disk needed to work on be connected.
unfortunate it was my only Backup otherwise it would be easy to solve it.
i started new hardware and made a Backup. i started a second installation without making the first one done and ready and screwed it up, next thing was, i took the wrong external drive and made it worse, than i was done. (shoulder-claps) ( i was tired and not attended enough. F*** )
i searched and looked for Testdisk and saw how it should be working, but until now it dint do it for me.
i really would like to try it further, but i don’t want to make it worse.
for me, 300 Euro and with even an open end, is a lot of Money.
Is there no other way or tool to try to work with? Without to much Danger?
You are at a place many of us have been before. Some of us learned to make multiple backups as a first line of defense against something like this happening again. Others go on an learn tools like Testdisk so if they have issues in the future they have a better chance to recover.
However even knowing how to use tools like these is no guarantee that it will in fact work. The more you access the drive the harder your chances for recovery.
Now unplug your hard drive from your computer and do not use it.
If you have another unused hard drive, you can create exFAT & MBR or GPT with any (test) data on it and delete exFat, then test various recovery tools to prove if they can properly recovery the data until 99% or 100% success. Test more than 5 reps without any problem until you’re clear, then let us know here which recovery method you use if it is good?
Pros:
Free or cheaper
Privacy during your offline recovery. Paid recovery agent doesn’t see or stole your data.
If one asks on a forum about it, I would say that this condition is very far from being satisfied.
I think it is a terrible idea to attempt this yourself, without prior experience. And I also think it is a bad idea (and even unethical) to give any advice on how to do it, for three reasons:
It’s not something that can be learnt from reading posts on a forum. Especially not in a situation of stress where important data depends on it. In order to learn how to do data recovery, one has to have a lot of practice on drives where data is not important.
Giving advice on how to do it gives false hope to the inexperienced user and encourages him to try to do it himself, which actually increases the chances of permanent, irreparable data loss, thus making the situation worse.
It’s impossible to cover every case, there will be things that are missed. This makes the person giving advice on how to do it directly responsible for data loss.
Really, the only reasonable advice one can give in this situation is to take the drive to a professional. I would encourage everyone interested in learning how how to do data recovery to learn it, but the time for learning this skill is not when one is under the stress of data loss, and the drives with important data are certainly not the drives one should practice on while learning.
