Partition for what purpose? Why not backup your files before making any changes?

ontrca wrote on 2023-11-25, 10:27:

I was messing around with a DOS program in Windows 11 and it partitioned one of my hard drives with random partitions. [...]

This statement needs a lot more background - Windows 11 is 64b only and can no longer run 16b DOS programs, also UAC should prevent any programs from making unauthorised changes to the system 😮

So:
- what "DOS program" were you messing around with?
- how did you run it in Windows 11? (DOSbox? A VM? Something else?)
- the partitions don't have drive letters associated - have they been formatted with a file system? If not, how are you sure there is still any data on them in the current state?

I've Googled quite a bit and I don't think there is a way to get my data back 🙁

And the drive was almost full too 🙁

Lmao how does such a thing happen? Please do tell.
Did you mount the whole drive in Dosbox and ran some partitioning software on it or something?
Or did you mess around with diskpart in the command prompt (not really a DOS program)?

Get some file recovery software and do a full scan of the drive, you might get some stuff back...as long as it didn't fully reformat those partitions.

ontrca wrote on 2023-11-25, 13:14:

I've Googled quite a bit and I don't think there is a way to get my data back 🙁

And the drive was almost full too 🙁

1. Which program where you messing around with? Exactly ?
2. most data recovery programs should be able to recover data from a working storage device which only had some parts of it overwritten.
Though it's likely that some data will be overwritten., a few megabytes. and you're showing an 8TB drive.

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY
2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on your disk
3) you need an extra disk where you can park your restored files
4) you will probably lose some files, deal with it

dionb wrote on 2023-11-25, 11:19:

- the partitions don't have drive letters associated - have they been formatted with a file system? If not, how are you sure there is still any data on them in the current state?

that's a good status. at least it cannot be made worse now. as there is no file system detected, no one will write to unassigned/unformatted partitions

I used TestDisk in 2018 when I mistakenly deleted my partition.

Anyways what DOS program did you use? And how did you even run in in Win11? DOS shouldn't get any hardware access on Windows NT so you probably ran diskpart tool

Wow how many HD's do you have in that box (looks like 9 to me) ? Yeah even dispart will require you to acknowledge "do you want to allow to make changes.." when first launched which should be a big warning to anyone 😀

Disruptor wrote on 2023-11-25, 13:38:

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY 2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on you […]
Show full quote

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY
2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on your disk
3) you need an extra disk where you can park your restored files
4) you will probably lose some files, deal with it

dionb wrote on 2023-11-25, 11:19:

- the partitions don't have drive letters associated - have they been formatted with a file system? If not, how are you sure there is still any data on them in the current state?

that's a good status. at least it cannot be made worse now. as there is no file system detected, no one will write to unassigned/unformatted partitions

I'm trying "File Scavenger Version 6.1" 😀
It's a 10TB hard drive, it says estimated remaining time: 11 hours.
Looks hopeful tho 😀

If you click on the unallocated spaces and remove it then it will all become one large unpartitioned space taking you back to where you started, with a block on unallocated space and your Windows partitions.

Disruptor wrote on 2023-11-25, 13:38:

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY 2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on you […]
Show full quote

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY
2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on your disk
3) you need an extra disk where you can park your restored files
4) you will probably lose some files, deal with it

dionb wrote on 2023-11-25, 11:19:

- the partitions don't have drive letters associated - have they been formatted with a file system? If not, how are you sure there is still any data on them in the current state?

that's a good status. at least it cannot be made worse now. as there is no file system detected, no one will write to unassigned/unformatted partitions

"File Scavenger" is done.

It's taking alot of time but everything seems to be going great at the moment 😀

First thing you should do now is to save the "project" file.
Second thing to note is that the unregistered copy may have a file size limit to restore (like 64 kB).

Disruptor wrote on 2023-11-27, 07:09:

First thing you should do now is to save the "project" file.
Second thing to note is that the unregistered copy may have a file size limit to restore (like 64 kB).

Yes, the DEMO has a file size limit, it's a really small size of 64k.
I got the full version(Premium) 😀
And the first thing I did was save a 'Drive Session' and a 'Drive List' 😀

Everything still seems to be going good just slow work going through it all... :3

Disruptor wrote on 2023-11-25, 13:38:

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY 2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on you […]
Show full quote

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY
2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on your disk
3) you need an extra disk where you can park your restored files
4) you will probably lose some files, deal with it

dionb wrote on 2023-11-25, 11:19:

- the partitions don't have drive letters associated - have they been formatted with a file system? If not, how are you sure there is still any data on them in the current state?

that's a good status. at least it cannot be made worse now. as there is no file system detected, no one will write to unassigned/unformatted partitions

Another question please? 😀

Do you guys ever do a 'Full' format on large Terabyte hard drives(I know it would probably take forever)?

Or do you guys just always do 'Quick' formats? 😀

ontrca wrote on 2023-11-28, 04:17:

Another question please? :) […]
Show full quote

Disruptor wrote on 2023-11-25, 13:38:

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY 2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on you […]
Show full quote

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY
2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on your disk
3) you need an extra disk where you can park your restored files
4) you will probably lose some files, deal with it

dionb wrote on 2023-11-25, 11:19:

- the partitions don't have drive letters associated - have they been formatted with a file system? If not, how are you sure there is still any data on them in the current state?

that's a good status. at least it cannot be made worse now. as there is no file system detected, no one will write to unassigned/unformatted partitions

Another question please? 😀

Do you guys ever do a 'Full' format on large Terabyte hard drives(I know it would probably take forever)?

Or do you guys just always do 'Quick' formats? 😀

Absolutely yes for me.
A couple of my disk arrays can take a couple of days to initialise and format.

Even in modern times its possible to buy disks that have bad sectors.
I actually have a 2Tb 2.5" disk I use for scratching my DSLR photos to but it actually has an ISO trapped on it from when I used it to store disk images.
Ive never tried to format it to wipe it off to remind me why I suffer a long format.

ontrca wrote on 2023-11-27, 05:12:

It's taking alot of time but everything seems to be going great at the moment 😀

Good news.

Still very curious about what you were actually doing that caused this - at the very least as a warning for others not to do the same unless you want to learn a lot about data recovery very fast...

dionb wrote on 2023-11-28, 07:03:

ontrca wrote on 2023-11-27, 05:12:

It's taking alot of time but everything seems to be going great at the moment 😀

Good news.

Still very curious about what you were actually doing that caused this - at the very least as a warning for others not to do the same unless you want to learn a lot about data recovery very fast...

I'm not really sure., I was messing around with a few different things that day..
I'm thinking maybe WinImage....?

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-11-28, 05:51:

Absolutely yes for me. A couple of my disk arrays can take a couple of days to initialise and format. […]
Show full quote

ontrca wrote on 2023-11-28, 04:17:

Another question please? :) […]
Show full quote

Disruptor wrote on 2023-11-25, 13:38:

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY 2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on you […]
Show full quote

1) do NOTHING with that drive, treat it READ ONLY
2) use a program like "Recuva" or "File Scavenger" and do a long search on your disk
3) you need an extra disk where you can park your restored files
4) you will probably lose some files, deal with it

that's a good status. at least it cannot be made worse now. as there is no file system detected, no one will write to unassigned/unformatted partitions

Another question please? 😀

Do you guys ever do a 'Full' format on large Terabyte hard drives(I know it would probably take forever)?

Or do you guys just always do 'Quick' formats? 😀

Absolutely yes for me.
A couple of my disk arrays can take a couple of days to initialise and format.

Even in modern times its possible to buy disks that have bad sectors.
I actually have a 2Tb 2.5" disk I use for scratching my DSLR photos to but it actually has an ISO trapped on it from when I used it to store disk images.
Ive never tried to format it to wipe it off to remind me why I suffer a long format.

If anyone is curious it takes 14 hours to do a full format on a 10TB hard drive(11-28-2023 3:33am til 5:31pm).
Hard Drive is a Seagate 10TB Exos X10 ST10000NM0086