Data Recovery

[lxskllr]

I had dicked up my HD awhile ago due to a cranial/rectal inversion, and had to reinstall the O/S. I left the portion of the drive that had data I maybe wanted alone with the intention of trying to get the data later.

Well, later came yesterday. I spent about 10 hours manually combing through ~1,500 folders filled with generically named files . The bitch is if I want to be sure, I'll have to do it again. April first came early, and with 0.5 hours left, I paused the recovery, and it didn't resume. It wanted to start from the beginning.

I think I had collected every image ever posted to the internet as well as 6* every icon I ever installed on the machine; such a fuckin' PITA.

If anyone's interested in what can be recovered, my working drive had one partition of NTFS, swap partition, and 2 EXT4 partitions. Those had been removed, and the whole thing formatted to EXT4, I then wiped the entire drive, and created a partition covering half the drive, and installed Debian on EXT4. I created a new EXT4 partition yesterday, and did the recovery.

Many files were incomplete, but I think a lot of them were remnants from earlier intentional deletions. There were quite a few intact files, and I got some stuff I wanted. I used PhotoRec, which is part of the TestDisk package. That can be run from a LiveCD if you don't have GNU/Linux, and PartedMagic comes with it already installed. I HIGHLY recommend PartedMagic as a part of your toolbox. It has just about everything you'd want to do with disk setup, and recovery.

So, do I do it again? Sigh...

 

[0roo0roo]

getdataback works.
lotta other programs claim to work but do shit.

 

[Jeff7181]

Sooo... why are you doing this? What data is so valuable that it's worth 10+ hours of your time? All you've mentioned here is images you've collected from the Internet. Your tone doesn't suggest you find this fun. Maybe if this data is that important, an external backup drive would be a worthwhile investment since you seem to like creating and destroying partitions so much.

 

[lxskllr]

Sooo... why are you doing this? What data is so valuable that it's worth 10+ hours of your time? All you've mentioned here is images you've collected from the Internet. Your tone doesn't suggest you find this fun. Maybe if this data is that important, an external backup drive would be a worthwhile investment since you seem to like creating and destroying partitions so much.

It wasn't for pictures on the internet, It was other stuff I had. The "all the pictures on the web" comment was due to browser caching. Keep that in mind next time you're on 4chan ;^)

I don't have the extra money for HDs, and I already had most of the things I really wanted on other devices. As to why. it's so I could see what can be recovered by consumer level technology, and get practical hands on experience with its use. Since I had it, I used it. I got some stuff back that wasn't so important, but was nice to have, and I got an education on data recovery. How much does 10 hours of a professor's time in college cost? ;^)

 

[Exterous]

getdataback works.
lotta other programs claim to work but do shit.

I've had good luck with getdataback. IIRC they offer a trial where it will scan your disk and tell you what it found and can restore. Then - if it found what you need - you pay to restore the files. I think its $50 for a license

 

[Lifted]

I've had good luck with getdataback. IIRC they offer a trial where it will scan your disk and tell you what it found and can restore. Then - if it found what you need - you pay to restore the files. I think its $50 for a license

Should read "what it might be able to restore". I've not had much luck with these apps and fragmented files.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Ironicly, yesterday was world backup day.

 

[0roo0roo]

I've had good luck with getdataback. IIRC they offer a trial where it will scan your disk and tell you what it found and can restore. Then - if it found what you need - you pay to restore the files. I think its $50 for a license

yea it finds messed up partitions and the rest.

recuva has failed to find files i just deleted at times, its kinda pathetic.