External Hard drive formatted / deleted while installing windows 10

Thanks again @simrick for clarifying - good to know that option is there!

I am halfway in with jumanji's idea - so will persist and try follow it through and see if we get lucky first.

Much appreciated!

yep @dempa110,

simrick very clearly mentioned MiniTool PowerData Recovery in his post #42. You have other optons too Active @ File Recovery Erased file recovery tool - Active@ File Recovery - for deleted files and damaged disks USD29, GetDataback Simple Data Recovery Software Products - Runtime Software Products USD70
Actually you can download and try their demo version. These will show your files which you can preview/open and check. To copy of course you have to buy.

Now for free , try this immediately. A little bird came and told me in my dreams

Partition Find and Mount Partition Find and Mount free partition recovery software

Run it., Out of the three Options (Fast intellectual scan, Normal scan, Thorough scan.) Choose Thorough Scan
It is a sector by sector scan. So will take quite a bit of time.
You may find the lost partition as unmounted. Select 'mount' and give it a drive letter.
Do you see..... almost all your folders and files? Copy all to another drive.

Do not worry. It does not write anything to your WD Elements 1TB ESD-USB drive. You can freely make any mistakes, fumble and tumble as you like till you get it right .

If successful, I will stop scratching my head and save it for another day

jumanji said:

yep @dempa110,

simrick very clearly mentioned MiniTool PowerData Recovery in his post #42. You have other optons too Active @ File Recovery Erased file recovery tool - Active@ File Recovery - for deleted files and damaged disks USD29, GetDataback Simple Data Recovery Software Products - Runtime Software Products USD70
Actually you can download and try their demo version. These will show your files which you can preview/open and check. To copy of course you have to buy.

Now for free , try this immediately. A little bird came and told me in my dreams

Partition Find and Mount Partition Find and Mount free partition recovery software

Run it., Out of the three Options (Fast intellectual scan, Normal scan, Thorough scan.) Choose Thorough Scan
It is a sector by sector scan. So will take quite a bit of time.
You may find the lost partition as unmounted. Select 'mount' and give it a drive letter.
Do you see..... almost all your folders and files? Copy all to another drive.

Do not worry. It does not write anything to your WD Elements 1TB ESD-USB drive. You can freely make any mistakes, fumble and tumble as you like till you get it right .

If successful, I will stop scratching my head and save it for another day

Hi @jumanji

Yes lets give it a crack - I really appreciate all your help so far. Just wondering - was all the previous stuff I did before on your instruction (see #50) in relation to, or a building block, for your new instructions in #54?

Or are the new instructions (#54, which I'll have a go at now) a new way of approaching the problem - informed by #50?

Thanks, Paddy

All the previous stuff is kept in reserve. I have just loaded my experimental 500GB Hdd with about 400GB of data. I am yet to start any serious work on it having taken off for today. Only tomorrow I will start work on it. Another thread in Seven Forums is still running and I am timesharing.

"Here is me checking the 512byte file was saved (I'm showing this as I wasn't sure if 1KB file was too small? Perhaps that's normal?)"- Your post #50.

I think anything less than 1KB filesize Microsoft shows it as 1KB. Right click on the saved file > Properties and you will see the file size as 512 bytes. The sector map has 512 fields each one accomodating a byte of data.

i was to trying to download TCS app, i found the website but the URL doesn't seem to be working my end check if its working for you..

jumanji said:

All the previous stuff is kept in reserve. I have just loaded my experimental 500GB Hdd with about 400GB of data. I am yet to start any serious work on it having taken off for today. Only tomorrow I will start work on it. Another thread in Seven Forums is still running and I am timesharing.

"Here is me checking the 512byte file was saved (I'm showing this as I wasn't sure if 1KB file was too small? Perhaps that's normal?)"- Your post #50.

I think anything less than 1KB filesize Microsoft shows it as 1KB. Right click on the saved file > Properties and you will see the file size as 512 bytes. The sector map has 512 fields each one accomodating a byte of data.

OK thanks - all good! I am currently just waiting for the thorough Scan in Partition Find and Mount to finish. Hopefully more soon!...

OMG! Why are you awake at this time? Do this job at your leisure and time knowing fully well that your data is all safe . Worst comes worst you may have to spend a few dollars to get it. Simrick has guaranteed it for you - not the Dollars but the data

OK complete the task and I have another simple task cut for you. Incidentally the OP in Seven Forums also is running the thorough Scan. In that case also the data is all there and we are trying to get it out. The next is TestDisk. But it is a straight TestDisk application. In your case though it needs a surgery and implantation before running TestDisk.

jumanji said:

OMG! Why are you awake at this time? Do this job at your leisure and time knowing fully well that your data is all safe . Worst comes worst you may have to spend a few dollars to get it. Simrick has guaranteed it for you - not the Dollars but the data

OK complete the task and I have another simple task cut for you. Incidentally the OP in Seven Forums also is running the thorough Scan. In that case also the data is all there and we are trying to get it out. The next is TestDisk. But it is a straight TestDisk application. In your case though it needs a surgery and implantation before running TestDisk.

Haha - yes I just really want peace of mind that the data area actually in that unallocated partition - not really convinced. Just had it running in the background while I did other stuff.

OK I left the thorough Scan in Partition Find and Mount overnight to finish. It is now completed this morning and this is the result (below). It doesn't appear to have found any other partitions on the HD besides the current 32GB FAT32 bit? Seems like other methods are required?