@dempa110,
Just completed my strategy to restore the disk with the backup bootsector copied to sector 2048 and recover the data. Does not work. Sorry for that. So you can abort your search for the backup. May be paid software is the only solution.
Sorry to hear this. Thanks for all your effort and time on this jumanji.
dempa110, it appears that MiniTool Power Data Recovery is now version 8 (I have version 7) and the interface is completely different than what I am used to.
So I'm just going through their site, trying to figure out how to use the new interface, without having the program on my machine...
MiniTool Power Data Recovery - Frequently Asked Questions
Most of the tutorials they have are still showing the old v7 interface, but I found this page:Q: Can I recover my data after performing FDISK?
Even if your partitions have been deleted with FDISK, you can use Physical Device Recovery and select a physical drive scan from Power Data Recovery and recover the data from the lost partition. Furthermore, even if you have created new partitions after removing the old ones, you can still recover your data with the Power Data Recovery.
Main Interface Introduction of MiniTool Power Data Recovery
You could also set it to scan only for NTFS, which is likely what the deleted partition was.
You'll want to run the "full scan" or "complete scan" or whatever they call it now, and it can take a long time to run.
I also found this YouTube video from them on the new v8:
Hard Drive Data Recovery - MiniTool Power Data Recovery v8.0 - YouTube
When I recovered a deleted partition back in May, using v7, I kept a couple screenshots taken with a camera (so not the best), but you can see what I had.
Notice here, it says that more partitions were found but only 2 listed, and I could go "back" to list more partitions if I wanted to.
In my case, the first NTFS partition it found was the one I wanted, and had all the data on it, which was recovered to another drive successfully.
@dempa110
jumanji had posted about an older version of MiniTool Partition Wizard having a partition recovery function in it:
DISKPART tried to create a Partition, has not worked - Page 2 - Windows 10 Forums
Perhaps you would like to give that a go first? You could just run the scan and see if it identifies the lost partition, and if all your data is showing in it.Instead you can try the old version of MiniTool Partition Wizard Free 9.1. Download from here
http://www.filehorse.com/download-pa.../old-versions/
( In later versions Partition Recovery is not free)
Hi @jumanji - you are probably getting sick of me now!... fair enough too!
I am still engaged and keen to persist with your instructions on finding the Backup of the NTFS, but just wondered if there was any smarter/efficient way to shortcut (or narrow down) the scroll process a little more? Worried I'll either miss the Backup of the NTFS bit or go insane in the scrolling-down process :)
See my earlier comments after I had a bit of a go at it and trying to narrow down the range (i.e. #68 - EDITs 1 and 2).
Thanks a bunch! Paddy
I thought it was the other way around... that you got sick and perhaps gave up(( I am not a data recovery professional. Given a problem I try to work on it and find a solution. Requires that I recreate or simulate the OP's drive condition on my Trial HDD and work on it. My first trial failed and I did not want to keep you waiting and that is why I told you give up and go ahead with paid software. )
Anyway, I have been continuing with this project and to answer your question, yes I found another less taxing way of finding the backup bootsector. I was having Hxd, another Hex editor on my PC but I had forgotten how to use it. I pulled it from my archives and found that it has a search facility. Ask it to search for a string and will chug along and find it. On my good HDD it took 6 hours to find the backup - no manual labour. Will it find the NTFS backup on a drive with a FAT32 partition and rest of the space unallocated. My thinking is it should. After finding that, I made a quick second trial and successfully restored the drive. That was a quick one and I made no notes. According to the situation I saw on the drive I used many software like PW, TestDisk and bootice and managed to restore the drive and could see all the data. Now I have to sit and do a third trial to revalidate the procedure and ensure repeatability. I only hope I remember what I did on the quick trial
Hi @jumanji and @simrick - sorry I just realised I missed both your messages 2 days ago (#71, #72, #73). Seemed to slip through without notifying me. Thanks for these!
Thanks @simrick for laying out plan B in more detail - definitely still an option. If I get a length of time (overnight) I will try and run another scan to see if it picks up my lost partition. Work in progress.
@jumanji - looks like your initial go didn't work, but since then there might be a glimmer of hope again? Should I have another go at finding the 'Backup of the NTFS' using another programme as you mentioned to search automatically? Let me know if you have some instructions for me to follow and if worth pursuing.
@dempa110,
There is as I see it,a glimmer of hope. Right now after zero wiping my HDD ( about 4 hours), I have created an NTFS volume in it an loading it with some 400 GB of data ( may take another 3 hours). Then I will create a 32GB FAT32 partition with PW which will make the rest of the space Unallocated. At that time I shall start the search of the NTFS Backup boot sector with Hxd and post the screenshots of how to do it. ( I had already found the location of the backup bootsector using PW.But I will still run HxD as the OP has to do it on not-a - normal drive. ) ( In a normal drive PW > Partition Recovery Wizard > Quick Scan will list all the found partitions showing the start and end sectors of each partition. The NTFS backup bootsector resides in the last sector of that partition)
In the meanwhile, you had already saved sector 0 ( The MBR sector) and sector 2048 ( The FAT32 bootsector). The backup of this bootsector resides in sector 2048+6 = 2054. Please take a backup of this sector 2054 also with bootice and keep it. In my second quick trial I killed sector 0, sector 2048 and also 2054, effectively annihilating the FAT32 volume, making the whole disk unallocated and wrote the NTFS backup into sector 2048. I can delete the FAT32 partition to make the whole disk unallocated but it will leave sector 2048 and the backup bootsector at 2054 untouched and that may interfere with later partition recovery) ( Deleteing a volume only removes the partition table in Sector 0. It doesn't touch any other sector and leaves them as they were before. That is why PW >PRW> Quick scan can easily find the boot sector and from it the start and end sectors to rewrite a missing/corrupted partition table into sector 0)
You can also go ahead with Simrick's suggestion and check whether you are able to recover the data because I may take a longtime to complete my trial. I am also going through a taxing time)
Last edited by jumanji; 27 Jun 2018 at 09:24.
@dempa110
Have a go with the software in post #73, and run a scan
External Hard drive formatted / deleted while installing windows 10 - Page 8 - Windows 10 Forums
It's free, and has the partition recovery function available. If it finds your NTFS partition, see if it's showing all your data.
Thanks @simrick - I have downloaded the old version of MiniTool Partition Wizard Free 9.1 as you mentioned and am currently running a scan (by selecting 'Partition recovery' and then selecting to scan everything - i.e. fully scan - didn't seem to be another option). Now we wait....
Screen shots below - hopefully I am doing it correctly?
Hi @simrick and @jumanji - I have completed the scan using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free 9.1.
This is what I see (screen shots below). The thing that worries me is that when I double click on the NTFS portion (see image #5) - there doesn't appear to be anything in there?...
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
When I go back to the main page - there seems to be the option to do things with the F:ESD-USB, but not for the *: (899.51GB)? See below:
F:ESD-USB.
*: (899.51GB)
Should I assume that all the lost data is in fact still recoverable in that section, and only accessible if I purchase the full version?
Thanks again in advance! Paddy
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