Lost Data

[bigmack]

Not a good situation.

I've had a 500Gig external HD that I've archived music & photos for about 7 years. My nephew was wiping his hard drive clean though had my external HD plugged into the USB as he was using it to play music. Somehow it seems my external has been wiped.

The loss is catastrophic. Any suggestions?

500G Western Digital.

[headhawg]

When you say wiped, do you mean files were deleted, or was the drive reformatted or zeroed out? Makes a difference with regard to recovery.

[gillenr]

What ever you do, don't do anything until you hear from our resident geeks here - you may be OK, but you won't be if you mess around.

[Gibbon]

Mack daddy - check this out:
http://www.iolo.com/sr/4/

Otherwise, Ontrack (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/hard-drive-recovery/) data recovery borders on the miraculous albeit expensive.





______________________________
Never let a computer know you're in a hurry.

Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy. ~ Joseph Campbell

[bigmack]

When you say wiped, do you mean files were deleted, or was the drive reformatted or zeroed out? Makes a difference with regard to recovery.
h2, it's showing that it needs to be formatted so I don't know what to assume.

Mack daddy - check this out:
http://www.iolo.com/sr/4/

Otherwise, Ontrack data recovery borders on the miraculous albeit expensive.
God love ya, Gibby. I'll snoop into those. If I am unable to recover this data look for me to be brought up on murder charges.

[Dave Schwartz]

Mack,

I have that same drive and use it for the same thing.

A couple of things to consider...

1. As was already suggested, unless the disk has been f-disked (i.e. partition destroyed and recreated) your data is probably still there.

2. Finding the right utility to perform the recovery as not as important as finding the right guy to do it.


My suggestion would be to find someone in your area that says he can do this... and not just a "Geek Squad" guy who will say that then destroy whatever chance you had at this.

If you don't find a good source by Tuesday, send me an email - I've got a guy I can talk to who can give us some guidance.

[Gibbon]

f-disked I have used Iolo (http://www.iolo.com/sr/4/) app successfully on a deleted partition and reformat. Yes, it is a very slow process.

Ontrack data recovery claims they can recover data from severely damaged drives. Including taking the drive apart in a clean room and restoring individual sectors.





________________________________
"Back up my hard drive? How do I put it in reverse?"

[douglasw32]

I have used iolo for this with great success.

[bigmack]

My suggestion would be to find someone in your area that says he can do this... and not just a "Geek Squad" guy who will say that then destroy whatever chance you had at this.

If you don't find a good source by Tuesday, send me an email - I've got a guy I can talk to who can give us some guidance.
Dave - I have a guy though he can't engage til Monday. I am currently running a program: Recover My Files, and it seems to be picking up files though slowly like a dental hygieinst picking clean a stray fleck of pastrami from a back molar.

I GREATLY appreciate the suggestions from all. It reinforces the likelihood that many around these parts are A-OK. Thank you.

[headhawg]

I've had good luck with the tools from this site, although I haven't used any of the data recovery tools that are listed.

Recovery Tools (http://www.astalavista.com/index.php?section=directory&cid=115)

[tupper]

I am currently running a program: Recover My Files, and it seems to be picking up files though slowly like a dental hygieinst picking clean a stray fleck of pastrami from a back molar.Sounds like you are already on your way.

If your drive was merely unformatted/reformatted, then the user data was probably not touched, but the address tables were erased/changed.

There are lots of other programs that will work, too, some faster than others.

[bigmack]

They're s-l-o-w-l-y coming back. For every 3 hours it finds on average of 200 files. The HD has thousands. I can wait.

They're all kafufu in terms of their organization but I'll cajole the neph into taking on that task.

I could have lost wavs & wavs of vinyl that I've long since parted with. When this is over I pick up another drive and keep that under the mattress. "That's not me, it's my hard dirve"

[dutchboy]

Why not check in to an online backup service? If someone breaks in to your house or there is a fire or a flood or a tornado everything will be gone forever if you are keeping everything in your house.



They're s-l-o-w-l-y coming back. For every 3 hours it finds on average of 200 files. The HD has thousands. I can wait.

They're all kafufu in terms of their organization but I'll cajole the neph into taking on that task.

I could have lost wavs & wavs of vinyl that I've long since parted with. When this is over I pick up another drive and keep that under the mattress. "That's not me, it's my hard dirve"

[Gibbon]

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