Recovery Advice Needed

WinTenUser · 07 Feb 2022

I inadvertently did a big boo-boo yesterday. Somehow I formatted and installed Windows 10 on the wrong drive.
It was a 1TB HDD that was nearly foll of files. So now it shows as empty with about 30GB OS installed.

What is the best way to recover this data. Would love to be able to keep the file structure intact as apposed to randomly recovering different catagories of files (jpg, exe, pdf, txt). Not sure this is possible given the format but would love to try.

What software should I use?
What steps do I do?
I am currently not using this drive at all as I wait for a good method for recovery.

Thanks

P.S. Murphy has done it again as this is the only drive I had not backed up!

Ghot · 07 Feb 2022

This is a job for... @jumanji

He's pretty much our resident recovery expert.
In the future... always use backup software, and always unhook all other drives when installing an operating system.

Samuria · 07 Feb 2022

Its going to be all mot impossible without sending it to prove recevery. That is assuming 10 has changed the parition structure and then formated the drive, while format generally only kills the file tables it does make it impossible to recover.

WinTenUser · 07 Feb 2022

Ghot said:

This is a job for... @jumanji

He's pretty much our resident recovery expert.
In the future... always use backup software, and always unhook all other drives when installing an operating system.

Ah yes, @jumanji
I have worked with him before!
He's Good

jumanji · 07 Feb 2022

Hi @WinTenUser

Veteran Samuria said "'it is almost impossible". I would say it is well-nigh impossible as a DIY project. I doubt even Professional Data Recovery experts doing Forensic Data Recovery will manage to get your data out in the form you want complete with folder structure. If at all, they may be able to recover some files in the "untouched by Windows" space.

Anyhow it will be interesting to see how your 1TB disk looks like in Windows Disk Management. May be be other Windows 10 experts who have been routinely installing Windows 10 are better equipped to analyse the situation and help.

WinTenUser · 07 Feb 2022

jumanji said:

Hi @WinTenUser

Veteran Samuria said "'it is almost impossible". I would say it is well-nigh impossible as a DIY project. I doubt even Professional Data Recovery experts doing Forensic Data Recovery will manage to get your data out in the form you want complete with folder structure. If at all, they may be able to recover some files in the "untouched by Windows" space.

Anyhow it will be interesting to see how your 1TB disk looks like in Windows Disk Management. May be be other Windows 10 experts who have been routinely installing Windows 10 are better equipped to analyse the situation and help.

Even skipping the file structure, there should be a way. There are countless software out there that claim to do just this.

Samuria · 07 Feb 2022

We need to see full details from disk manager what you show is a primary but its not active so boot files must be on another drive you don't show the free space

WinTenUser · 07 Feb 2022

Samuria said:

We need to see full details from disk manager what you show is a primary but its not active so boot files must be on another drive you don't show the free space

FROM MiniTool Partition Wizard:

I have not booted from the 1TB drive (Disk 2) but from another drive. There is the base Win 10 OS on Disk 2, however by which I could boot from. I am avoiding it like the plague at the moment.

NOTE: So far A program called "Disk Drill" is finding files

jumanji · 08 Feb 2022

Hi @WinTenUser,

Looking at the Partition Wizard Screenshot, I would think you should try Partition Recovery first..Run Partition Recovery Wizard, Full scan. take a screenshot of Partition/s found Window that appears when the full scan is completed..Close PW and post the screenshot.

WinTenUser · 08 Feb 2022

jumanji said:

Hi @WinTenUser,

Looking at the Partition Wizard Screenshot, I would think you should try Partition Recovery first..Run Partition Recovery Wizard, Full scan. take a screenshot of Partition/s found Window that appears when the full scan is completed..Close PW and post the screenshot.

I will run Partition Recovery and post a screenshot.

Disk Drill is copying all found files to new HDD. Once The file recovery process is complete we can attempt partition recovery options...whatever they are.

5:50PM EST
All in all I recovered about 822GB of data in 131,891 files, some unnamed and some still having names using "Disk Drill"
As far as folder structure....very little structure remained but there was some.