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Author Topic: Hypothetical hard drive question.  (Read 5115 times)

Mabs2

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Hypothetical hard drive question.
« on: June 09, 2008, 08:21:01 AM »
If I hypothetically deleted a friend's hard drive partition with lots of data on it, how would I go about recovering it?
Let's say it's hypothetically an external hard drive that he hypothetically let me borrow so I could back up stuff on my failing primary disk.
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41magsnub

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #1 on: June 09, 2008, 08:29:04 AM »
Quote from: mbs357 on June 09, 2008, 07:21:01 AM
If I hypothetically deleted a friend's hard drive partition with lots of data on it, how would I go about recovering it?
Let's say it's hypothetically an external hard drive that he hypothetically let me borrow so I could back up stuff on my failing primary disk.

Hypothetically you are screwed. 

Not really...  there are tools to help you.

http://www.partition-recovery.com/ is pretty popular and works well.  The windows version is what you would want.  There are lots of others, but this is what our service center uses with good results.  it will scan the disk and hopefully find the partition.  I would suggest getting the demo version and letting it scan the disk, if it finds the partition then buy the real one and let it fix it.
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Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #2 on: June 09, 2008, 09:10:53 AM »
Quote from: dtemplar on June 09, 2008, 07:36:48 AM
You have a good chance of recovery IF the data hasn't been written over.  When you delete stuff the "normal" way, the data is not actually erased.  The area simply gets its "reserved" status removed so that portion of storage is now available.
Agreed.  I immediately realized what I did, so I didn't even format, just deleted the partition.
That program is doing a quick scan now, but it's taking a while...
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
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Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

Manedwolf

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2008, 09:15:15 AM »
Quote from: mbs357 on June 09, 2008, 07:21:01 AM
If I hypothetically deleted a friend's hard drive partition with lots of data on it, how would I go about recovering it?
Let's say it's hypothetically an external hard drive that he hypothetically let me borrow so I could back up stuff on my failing primary disk.

I think you need to fall on a sword. cheesy
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Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #4 on: June 09, 2008, 09:18:32 AM »
Quote from: Manedwolf on June 09, 2008, 08:15:15 AM
Quote from: mbs357 on June 09, 2008, 07:21:01 AM
If I hypothetically deleted a friend's hard drive partition with lots of data on it, how would I go about recovering it?
Let's say it's hypothetically an external hard drive that he hypothetically let me borrow so I could back up stuff on my failing primary disk.

I think you need to fall on a sword. cheesy
Thought about that!
Cheesy
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #5 on: June 09, 2008, 10:36:23 AM »
Quote from: mbs357 on June 09, 2008, 08:10:53 AM
Quote from: dtemplar on June 09, 2008, 07:36:48 AM
You have a good chance of recovery IF the data hasn't been written over.  When you delete stuff the "normal" way, the data is not actually erased.  The area simply gets its "reserved" status removed so that portion of storage is now available.
Agreed.  I immediately realized what I did, so I didn't even format, just deleted the partition.
That program is doing a quick scan now, but it's taking a while...
Still scanning.  At 66 gigs of 700.
It normally take this long? undecided
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

K Frame

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #6 on: June 09, 2008, 10:40:01 AM »
"Still scanning.  At 66 gigs of 700.
It normally take this long?"

You're quite whiny for such a stupid ass...  laugh laugh laugh


You have, however, proven one the great truisms of life...

Never give someone a computer disk if there's something on it you want/need.
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Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #7 on: June 09, 2008, 10:45:07 AM »
Quote from: Mike Irwin on June 09, 2008, 09:40:01 AM
"Still scanning.  At 66 gigs of 700.
It normally take this long?"

You're quite whiny for such a stupid ass...  laugh laugh laugh


You have, however, proven one the great truisms of life...

Never give someone a computer disk if there's something on it you want/need.

Sad
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

cordex

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #8 on: June 09, 2008, 11:06:28 AM »
Quote from: Mike Irwin on June 09, 2008, 09:40:01 AM
Never give someone a computer disk if there's something on it you want/need.
Right, because we might burn it.

Or is that just with floppies?
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Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #9 on: June 09, 2008, 11:08:25 AM »
I'm mainly concerned.
I have a track record of either breaking computer things or stuff just going bad by itself...
Especially since the first time I quick scan'd it only took a second...
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

MrRezister

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #10 on: June 09, 2008, 11:10:06 AM »
700 gigs is pretty huge, I wouldn't worry if it takes a long time.
Also, if you do end up saving the data, you and your buddy will almost certainly want to invest in some back-up software.  I use SyncBack, which automatically makes a copy of the information I want to keep onto a seperate drive of my choosing once a day or more if need be.

And it's free:
http://www.download.com/SyncBack/3000-2242_4-10413802.html?tag=lst-1&cdlPid=10847554
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GigaBuist

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #11 on: June 09, 2008, 11:19:09 AM »
If all you've done is remove the partition's entry from the partition table just recreate it exactly as it was before.

Everything is still there.
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Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #12 on: June 09, 2008, 12:00:21 PM »
Quote from: GigaBuist on June 09, 2008, 10:19:09 AM
If all you've done is remove the partition's entry from the partition table just recreate it exactly as it was before.

Everything is still there.
I understand it's still there, but how do I recreate it?
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

GigaBuist

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #13 on: June 09, 2008, 12:26:12 PM »
On Windows there's an 'fdisk' command.  Whatever tool you used to edit the partition table last time should do.

Was the drive just one big partition?  If so recreating the partition table should be easy.
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Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #14 on: June 09, 2008, 01:36:34 PM »
Well, here's how it happened.
He gave me the USB HD so that I could back up stuff off my single failing hard drive.  I get the new hard drive today, take the failing one out, insert new one and boot up with windows disk.  Here I was thinking that since there was only one hard drive in my system the partition crap would require no brains, so I used no brains. =\ Unfortunately, Windows setup detected the USB drive and I accidentally deleted its partition. Sad COMPLETELY forgot about the external, hadn't touched it in a couple of days since I had finished backing up my stuff.
So yea, not only is some of his stuff on it, but a lot of mine too.
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #15 on: June 09, 2008, 04:18:05 PM »
Well, I just told him.
He weren't happy, but I was able to convince him that the data was recoverable.

Sooo any of you guys on the west coast got a couch to spare?
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #16 on: June 09, 2008, 06:43:53 PM »
Are you trying to recover the partition via USB with the drive still in its external case?  If so, that's likely why it is taking so long to scan.
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Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #17 on: June 10, 2008, 04:33:11 AM »
Yea that makes sense.
Well this morning the scan was complete, it detected the partition but it didn't show the files like it did with the trial version.  I told it to recover and it took about 3 seconds...and I can't figure out what happened.  I see the drive in My Computer, but I can't access it, nor can I access the files through Active Partition...
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

PTK

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #18 on: June 10, 2008, 05:35:56 AM »
Technology hates you. Neat!
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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #19 on: June 10, 2008, 05:38:20 AM »
In late and didn't read the whole thread, but if no one has suggested it yet, try running a Knoppix CD and see if you can see your stuff in Linux. I've recovered many a lost Windows file that way.

Or nevermind, I read the thread and I don't think this would help with deleted files. Couldn't hurt to try though...
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Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #20 on: June 10, 2008, 05:45:44 PM »
Yea, technology hates me, that's pretty obvious.
Data is still inaccessible.
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

Phyphor

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #21 on: June 10, 2008, 06:35:54 PM »
Is this an ide/sata drive in an external USB enclosure or what?
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Mabs2

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #22 on: June 10, 2008, 06:46:57 PM »
It's an external Seagate harddrive with USB and 120v hookup.
No clue if it's IDE or SATA inside, but it's fairly new, so probably SATA.
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Quote from: jamisjockey
Sunday it felt a little better, but it was quite irritated from me rubbing it.
Quote from: Mike Irwin
If you watch any of the really early episodes of the Porter Waggoner show she was in (1967) it's very clear that he was well endowed.
Quote from: Ben
Just wanted to give a forum thumbs up to Dick.

Phyphor

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #23 on: June 10, 2008, 07:23:33 PM »
Um,  any chance of having a look?

IOW, model number and such?  As far as you know?
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"You know what's messed-up about taxes?
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You get your check, money gone.
That ain't a payment, that's a jack." - Chris Rock "Bigger and Blacker"
He slapped his rifle. "This is one of the best arguments for peace there is. Nobody wants to shoot if somebody is going to shoot back. " Callaghen, Callaghen, Louis La'mour

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Re: Hypothetical hard drive question.
« Reply #24 on: June 10, 2008, 07:28:47 PM »
Where are you located MBS?  Among other things, I run a computer repair company.  I have some data recovery resources, along with tools that can restore partitions if they are not too badly hosed.
One of the tools I use can recover data on some drives with hosed partitions.

APS folks get a special rate.  (Meaning we'll negotiate something pretty decent if you like.  I haven't really done anything for an APSer as yet.)   angel
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If there really was intelligent life on other planets, we'd be sending them foreign aid.

Conservatives see George Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale.  Progressives view it as a "how to" manual.

My wife often says to me, "You are evil and must be destroyed." She may be right.

Liberals believe one should never let reason, logic and facts get in the way of a good emotional argument.
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