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Accidental Hard Drive Formatting

  • 08-07-2011 2:38pm
    #1
    PDD
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,019 ✭✭✭


    Hi Folks,

    I did a very very stupid thing today, I accidentally formated my external backup HDD :eek: I was using gParted to format a USB thumbdrive or so I thought and selected the wrong HDD.

    The drive was formatted in Fat32 and there is some very valuable stuff on there. I was wondering if anyone knows if gParted does a low-level format or a high-level write over format?

    Also any suggestions on how I can restore the files would be greatly appreciated.

    Regards,

    Dave


Comments

  • #2
    Johnboy1951
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,074 ✭✭✭✭Johnboy1951


    PDD wrote: »
    Hi Folks,

    I did a very very stupid thing today, I accidentally formated my external backup HDD :eek: I was using gParted to format a USB thumbdrive or so I thought and selected the wrong HDD.

    The drive was formatted in Fat32 and there is some very valuable stuff on there. I was wondering if anyone knows if gParted does a low-level format or a high-level write over format?

    Also any suggestions on how I can restore the files would be greatly appreciated.

    Regards,

    Dave


    If you know exactly how the drive was partitioned previously and nothing has been written to the data areas, then recovery is possible I believe.
    Formatting tools generally do not touch the data area as I understand it.

    The first thing to do is to make a bit-by-bit copy of the partition/drive. Put the original aside safely so it cannot be mounted by any OS.


    EDIT:
    I suggest the use of the dd command to make a bit-wise copy of what you wish to recover.

    Work on the copy ..... using I would suggest
    photorec (file recovery)
    testdisk (recover old partition setup)


    regards.


  • #3
    DeepBlue
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,691 ✭✭✭DeepBlue


    GetDataBack (for FAT) may also work - on Windows.
    ^^ As said above work on a copy of the drive.


  • #4
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 94,288 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    try using testdisk - you install it to get photorec anyway

    it might pull back the partition (unlikely but would be nice)

    otherwise run photorec

    there are other utils out there that might recover folder structures and filenames


  • #5
    boidey
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 161 ✭✭boidey


    +1 to testdisk. It has saved me more than once.


  • #6
    Johnboy1951
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,074 ✭✭✭✭Johnboy1951


    Just a further thought ..... if there has been no change to the partition except for the file system format then it is likely that changing the format back to what it was will completely restore everything.

    ..... to be done on a copy of course, not on the original ;)


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