Accidentally formatted my external hard drive

[Rathji]

I know what you are thinking:

How could anyone 'accidentally' format their hard drive. An hour ago I probably would have been in the same shoes as you, because I know most of you are thinking "what an idiot" this guy is.

Long story short, I am trying Windows Home server and when I added it to the list of drives that were shared to the network it said

"... formatting hard drive ..."

Of course seeing as I had just backed up all my data *to* that hard drive, this wasn't what I had planned and I tore the USB cable from my machine as though somehow it might prevent my partition table from dying a horrible death.

So here I sit, all my music, video and pictures are gone, hoping that TestDisk can recover my partition table and make me a happy man again.

The reason I make this post is before I actually write any changes from TestDisk to the disk. It has only found 2 of my 3 partitions on the drive. Does anyone have any suggestions about something that might be able to recover all 3?

[Hack&Lube]

Unfortunately it looks like Windows home server overwrote the files on your third partition and the partition table can't be saved.

I wish you good luck and hope that some more knowledgable CPers will be able to help you.

At least you saved 2 partitions. My harddrive with priceless memories, photos, and backups of all my PCS dating back to a 386 died because Seagate blows.

[ricosuave]

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/col...ads/files.html

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1139

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by ricosuave

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/col...ads/files.html

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1139

Thanks!

[cKy]

I have used the EASUES programs before, and I was pleasantly impressed with how well they recovered the files.

[Rathji]

I ended up finding the 3rd partition but there were no files left on it.

The other 2 were fine.

[calumniate]

I don't know how important these files would be to you, but there are pro data recovery shops out there. My Phd friend needed to use them.. cost $700 but recovered months of work.

http://www.essentialrecovery.com/

Something like this.. they can do crazy forensic stuff on even faint traces of data.

oh and for these guys to effectively do their jobs, it's best to avoid messing with the disk after data loss

[Raekwon]

How much of an idiot can you be to "accidently" format a hard drive?

The exact same thing happened to me about 3 months ago. I went to format my flash drive and clicked the wrong drive and beforeI knew it BAM all gone. I tried a few different programs but the ones that seemed to work were not free and not cheap. Luckily it wasn't an important drive just a Steam backup and movies etc.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by hack&lube

unfortunately it looks like windows home server overwrote the files on your third partition and the partition table can't be saved.

I wish you good luck and hope that some more knowledgable cpers will be able to help you.

At least you saved 2 partitions. My harddrive with priceless porn, great porn, and mindblowingly awesome porn dating back to a 386 died because seagate blows.

fyp

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

fyp

No, the porn is actually all safe. I'm not stupid enough to put that on a external USB harddrive. That is backed up in triplicate on a fully air cooled internal raid array. Sadly I don't have any of the porn left from my 386 though.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

No, the porn is actually all safe. I'm not stupid enough to put that on a external USB harddrive. That is backed up in triplicate on a fully air cooled internal raid array. Sadly I don't have any of the porn left from my 386 though.

Ahhh 386 porn, delivered one pixelated line at a time.

[chalms04]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Ahhh 386 porn, delivered one pixelated line at a time.

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