Partition Recovery - Possible ?

[Vipersan]

Ok ...Another project I am facing atm ..
This a huge-ish 5tb Seagate usb expansion drive ..
I dont know how much data is on it as it is not mine...but I do know that the partitions were acidentally deleted.
It was not reformatted or wiped ..and has not been written to ...
So theoretically all that is required is the partition structure bebuilding ?
Is such a thing possible ?
Anyone ?
rgds
VS

 

[Channel Hopper]

When you say 'accidentally' deleted, how did it occur ?

 

[Vipersan]

I'm informed he went into windows disk manager ...and misidentified the drive ...and deleted the wrong drive..
Realising what hed done he left the drive as is ...thus no further actions were taken..
Makes sense and very unfortunate ...
Yes I could recover specific data from it with a deep interrogation ...but wondered if it could simply be restored by rebuilding the partition structure as this drive is rather large..
The things I get tasked with..

This is the guy I do a lot of repairs for ...cameras monitors etc ..for drain inspection..
Hes not an idiot ...just simply made a mistake ..
He had the good sense not to re-format etc
Im guessing he uses it for video storage footage of inspections etc..
cest la vie

 

[mickwig]

Looks like there are several programs available that can recover lost ntfd partitions.

 

[Vipersan]

Looks like EaseUS might well be a contender ..
but is presumably a pay util ..
Any freebies out there ?

 

[Channel Hopper]

I'm informed he went into windows disk manager ...and misidentified the drive ...and deleted the wrong drive..
Realising what hed done he left the drive as is ...thus no further actions were taken..
Makes sense and very unfortunate ...

Not if it was the primary drive, with the operating system onboard.

You could start with slaving the drive in a PC with modern(ish) windows and use one of the administrative/computer management programmes, part of the operating system tools.

Overview of Disk Management

 

[Vipersan]

Not if it was the primary drive, with the operating system onboard.

You could start with slaving the drive in a PC with modern(ish) windows and use one of the administrative/computer management programmes, part of the operating system tools.

Overview of Disk Management

Slaving was my first thought ..but gaining access to the drive(s) without breaking it open might be tricky ..
It could have 2 in that enclosure..?
There are no screws ..and I cannot find a how to ..
doh..!
plus I can't be sure that it was ALL NTFS ..it might have had proprietory boot partitions.

I'm tempted to actually purchase EaseUS and bill him for it ...
I'd rather not ..but It might be a useful tool..
Anyone used it before ?
rgds
VS
Seagate Expansion 5TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive - Ebuyer

 

[pontiend]

There is a free version EaseUS Partition Master Free 11.8. If you download it don't click the blue Download button at the top.Scroll down to the bottom to the smaller Free Download button in the Edition Comparison table.

 

[pontiend]

This is the site Vipersan partition-tool.com'

 

[4wd]

MiniTool Partition Wizard | Best partition magic alternative for Windows PC and Server (which I use a lot for partitioning, excellent) got a recovery function (never lost a partition, so not tested it) maybe worth letting it do a scan and see if it finds anything.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Slaving was my first thought ..but gaining access to the drive(s) without breaking it open might be tricky ..
It could have 2 in that enclosure..?
There are no screws ..and I cannot find a how to ..
doh..!

Ah, like a remote control, in which case droppping it from 1.2m onto a hard surface ought to open it up.

 

[4wd]

How's it going ? Came across this article How to recover lost data using TestDisk

 

[Vipersan]

How's it going ? Came across this article How to recover lost data using TestDisk

Tried several partition recovery tools ...
Sadly non of which would reconstruct nor even find the partitions..
I suspect the Seagate external drive uses a propietory linked file partition system ...
However all was not lost as I managed to recover 99% of the missing data ...by cracking upen the unit and mounting the drive directly in a PC ...followed by deep analysis of the unformatted now raw disk area ..
He has another of these ...so ..I will now borrow the second one and having discovered how to open it ...remove the 'good' drive temporarily and use a clone dock to duplicate the drive ..
Hopefully I'll end up with 2 working external drives containing the same data ...and I can then wipe the clone whilst retaining the partition structure ...then put the recovered data back on the drive..
Hope that makes sense..
The things I do for folk ...
lol

 

[Lazarus]

Impressive work, buddy ;)

 

[Channel Hopper]

He has another of these ...so ..I will now borrow the second one and having discovered how to open it ...remove the 'good' drive temporarily and use a clone dock to duplicate the drive ..
Hopefully I'll end up with 2 working external drives containing the same data ...and I can then wipe the clone whilst retaining the partition structure ...then put the recovered data back on the drive..

He gets the data, you then have two drives of salvegeable value , offer him a fiver ..................................

 

[Vipersan]

He gets the data, you then have two drives of salvegeable value , offer him a fiver ..................................

Sadly not the case CH ...as hopefully both units will be fully reassembled ..and do doubt he will want them both back as they are worth about £100 each ..
I will be charging him for my time and expertise tho'
lol

 

[Topper]

Most impressive Evan, Demon Data Doctor