Emergency Work Data Recovery

H

HelioX

Gawd
Joined
Jun 11, 2010
Messages
705
I picked up the wrong laptop and blindly installed Linux Mint over a Windows 7 install containing some very important excel documents that I need to get back ASAP.

These were not backed up anywhere......Any recommendations as to steps to take to get the files? I know somewhat the directory structure of where they were. My current plan would be to re-install Windows 7 and install Piriforms Recuva and scan the drive for stuff.

Thoughts?
 
My current plan would be to re-install Windows 7 and install Piriforms Recuva and scan the drive for stuff.
Click to expand...

No do not do that. Stop writing to the drive. Install the drive in a different machine with windows installed and run your recovery programs. Remember that laptop SATA drives have the exact same connectors as desktop SATA drives so you can just plug it in a desktop.

If this was me I would also make a bit for bit copy of the drive before touching it with the linux dd utility to a file or another hard drive.
 
Perfect thanks guys. Wasn't aware I could take the laptop HD and plug it into my tower. Installing my esata card now....can I do the run time stuff @ boot or what?
 
I couldn't figure out the Linux one.

I deleted the partitons and re-formatted as NTFS. I am now scanning the drive with GetDataBack NTFS....my fate will be decided in 1hour.
 
HelioX said:
I couldn't figure out the Linux one.

I deleted the partitons and re-formatted as NTFS. I am now scanning the drive with GetDataBack NTFS....my fate will be decided in 1hour.
Click to expand...

How is it now?
You could try some more data recovery softwares.
 
HelioX said:
I couldn't figure out the Linux one.

I deleted the partitons and re-formatted as NTFS. I am now scanning the drive with GetDataBack NTFS....my fate will be decided in 1hour.
Click to expand...

Wah! You could at least have made a complete harddisk dump to another drive.
 
HelioX said:
I couldn't figure out the Linux one.

I deleted the partitons and re-formatted as NTFS. I am now scanning the drive with GetDataBack NTFS....my fate will be decided in 1hour.
Click to expand...

just keep reformatting the drive. eventually the data will automagically be there. :rolleyes:


what a great way to destroy your data.
 
Windows 7 = significantly larger installation footprint than Linux Mint = Windows 7 would have used up about 9-15GB of the drive during the installation. Linux Mint full install = about 4GB so, the theory holds that if Windows 7 consumed the first ~15GB of drive space, the files that were saved after that would be deeper into the partition well past the 20GB point, maybe even deeper given how things are laid out.

Hooking that drive up to another machine and then doing some proper data recovery (my recommendation is TestDisk which is free and pretty fantastic at what it does albeit it's a bit cryptic and all "DOS-like" in operation.

I'm pretty confident that the data the OP is looking for is still there, deeper into the partition structure. The issue is the partition tables were reset to using Ext4 since that's the default filesystem for Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu) these days. You'd really need to redo the partition structure for NTFS since that's what it was previously and then do the scan(s) from that point on.

GetDataBack might be helpful, but the rule of thumb is this: don't use just one data recovery app and then give up - use several as each one works a bit differently and in that respect you have a better chance of getting the data recovered.

As for the formatting thing, unless the OP is doing flat out full formats - which aren't the defaults on any drive partition or formatting software in this day and age - that's pretty much irrelevant. They all do quick formats which just resets the partition info and the file allocation tables (if they're used). Quick formats don't erase user data; it's still there where it was previously, it's just a question of finding it.

Just some tips I've come across or discovered for myself in doing data recovery for decades... :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top