Arch Linux

Ringworm

Member

Registered: 2009-10-10

Posts: 1

Recovering HD

Hello. Last night I was installing Arch when at some point, at the "Set Filesystem Mountpoints" stage, a message came in saying I needed a boot section, and I attributed it to my 750GB HD, unaware that it would format it, besides partitioning it. Well, now I have my HD with very important data formatted and set to ext4. I installed Windows XP and R-Linux, a data recovery program that supports ext4. The thing is: when it scans for lost files, it only finds the boot ones that are already there, and all the other programs for NTFS HD data recovery don't even recognize the HD. Is the only solution to format it again as NTFS to use one of those programs? Wouldn't it be very hard to recover my data after a second format?

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: Recovering HD

I dunno about formatting a filesystem again to recover data.  I think you might be f*cked unfortunately.  Have you read the file recovery wiki article?  I've had good luck using the testdisk package before.  Might be worth your time.

Last edited by graysky (2009-10-10 23:14:56)

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vacant

Member

From: downstairs

Registered: 2004-11-05

Posts: 816

Re: Recovering HD

Before you continue, I suggest you acquire another hard disk at least 750GB and copy over an image to try and recover files from the copy.

From just about any distro or install CD/flash drive, as root:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

assuming your important data is sda and your spare disk is sdb.

Then if you have no luck you may want to part with cash to get a commercial outfit to do it for you.

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,356

Re: Recovering HD

There is no easy solution. You overwrote the filesystem access table, so any files you may be able to find will have to be found by going bit-by-bit through the HD. As you can imagine, this isn't something commonly done by non-professionals... Vacant's first idea is good. His last idea is the best.

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graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: Recovering HD

+1 for creating an image of your hdd to work-off-of.. that is suggested in the wiki article I pasted as well.

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CPU-optimized Linux-ck packages @ Repo-ck  • AUR packages • Zsh and other configs

stefanwilkens

Member

From: Enschede, the Netherlands

Registered: 2008-12-10

Posts: 624

Re: Recovering HD

I went through EXACTLY the same several weeks ago.

your best option is to find an application that supports RAW recovery mode, it will ignore all filesystems defined on the drive and scan the entire drive for files. You need this because you have quickformatted the 750 gig drive with a new filesystem type. Not all is lost, but be prepared that a notable portion of your files is damaged, depending on what filesystem was defined for /boot.

From what I know, Photorec will ignore the filesystem bounds and supports ext4 and supports a vast pile of files:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/File_For … y_PhotoRec

don't write anything to the drive, do NOT run fsck or the likes and image the entire drive if you can. Never restore to that drive, always restore to an alternative location.

*edit*

I understand that that partition was NTFS before you foobard it? if you still have XP installed, give Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro and Runtimes GetDataBack for NTFS a try.
GetDataBack is especially usefull at raw recovery.

Last edited by stefanwilkens (2009-10-11 19:30:48)

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