Data Recovery for 5 TB video files

[Kisianik]

HI
Just got freaky accident - lost all my backup video files, total about 5.5 TB.
Nothing is corrupted, was moving files from 8TB HDD to 10TB HDD and forgot to initialize 10TB HDD, somehow files were transferred. Then I deleted files from 8TB and started write test on 8TB. In a few minutes I wanted to open 10TB HDD and it was not listed. I stopped write test on 8TB.

First question. Which HDD is easier to recover. 8Tb deleted files and started write test (fill with zeros) for about 1-2 minutes or 10TB which accepted transfer, but mysteriously was not initialized.

I checked recommended Recuva, but it shows only 1,900 files for recovery, I am sure I got much more than that, and it will take 14 hours to do the job (for 8TB drive), trying now anyway.

Does anyone had experience with anything faster and better. Commercial/paid programs are OK, as long as they will do the job and can, at least, scan HDD really fast for lost files, so I can at least see the number and compare different programs.

Appreciate in advance any experienced help.

Update. I just bite a bullet and got MiniTool Power Data recovery personal edition and started scanning 10TB "lost partition", which had exact number of files as 8TB, but Minitool shows slmost 22,500 files, which is closer to the reality.

So right now I am running Recuva for 8TB and MiniTool for 10TB. Recuva stated 14 hours for 1,900 files and MiniTool 26 hours for 22,500 files.

But more suggestions are appreciated.

 

[USAFRet]

The reliability of any particular line of drives means exactly squat when you hit the delete button.

 

[Kisianik]

Well..I see a bunch of zeros there, so you may be out of luck.
That looks like it cannot find anything to 'fix'.

From the TestDisk documentation....this is what a recovery might look like at the start:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Undelete_files_from_NTFS_with_TestDisk

I re-selected my drives and some numbers popped up, than I went down the directory of the J drive (8TB) until I got empty directory, that when C to copy worked.
So far it is recovering all files, I got already one Acronis backup back, but did not check it yet, it will take, I think, about at least 14 hours run time, if it is fast as Recuva.

 

[Kisianik]

The reliability of any particular line of drives means exactly squat when you hit the delete button.

Never do anything important when you tired or in the hurry, that is the most important lesson I learn recently.

Now it is actually my third time in all my PC life recovering files.

First one was long time ago when my WD IDE hard drive crashed from overheat, I was able to recover about 75%.
After that incident all my internal HDDs now have as much air for ventilation as possible.
Second time was for my friend, he lost HDD with about 200,000 pictures, that was major headache, worse than now, back then I used diferent methods, which duplicated files, it was nightmare....

Present methods I like so far, getting use to it.

 

[mjslakeridge]

That is encouraging! Just be patient and don't interrupt the recovery process or run anything else on the pc until complete.

 

[Kisianik]

It is moving slow, but moving.

I guess for today I will use only TestDisk first and Recuva second, if TestDisk miss something, because Recuva erases original files, what a very bad idea.
TestDisk is simple programs, but it has some hiccups here and there, but this could be related to the size (10TB) of the drive.

Will update the situation, most likely tomorrow.

 

[USAFRet]

Good luck.

 

[Kisianik]

Oh My God

TestDisk is so quick - it is done already, checking resulted file integrity....