Question I accidently tried to image my external HDD instead of SD card ?

[19841984]

I use Win32 Disk Imager to create SD cards for my Raspberry Pi. I was trying to create an SD card with Volumio and accidently selected my 8tb external USB hard drive instead of the SD card.

I knew something was not right when Explorer froze for a few seconds before starting the write process (external hard drive spinning up from power save mode). I realized what I had done and cancelled the write about 5 seconds in, but of coarse the damage was already done.

I did a full scan with EaseUS Partition Master and it could not find the large NTFS partition. Disk Drill and several other tools also failed to find the original NTFS partition.

The files can be retrieved using Disk Drill and other file recovery programs, but I will lose the original folder structure and file names which will make the process of getting my data back a very long and tedious one.

Am I pretty much hosed for getting the NTFS partition back because Image Writer created other partitions? If not what software and process would be recommended?

 

[Aeacus]

but I will lose the original folder structure and file names which will make the process of getting my data back a very long and tedious one.

You have 2 choices;
* long and tedious recovery by yourself, but won't cost you anything or
* data recovery firm. Will cost accordingly to the damage done, either a small fortune or an arm and a leg.

Pick your poison. In any event, it will hurt (either your wallet or your patience/time).

That's life's tax. Next time, disconnect other drives beforehand, so that this kind of "mistake" won't happen again. Also, keep several backup copies, preferably offline ones as well.

 

[fzabkar]

DMDE will probably find your partition in a few seconds, but all the NTFS metadata will probably be gone. The $MFT (Master File Table) is normally located at around the 3GB - 4GB point, so if this has been overwritten, you will not be able to recover the original file/folder names.

https://dmde.com/

Can you show us the Partitions tab in DMDE?

You can try the pro tools, but you will undoubtedly be restricted to raw recovery, aka "file carving".

Software used by data recovery professionals:

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=3208

This tute was written by a pro:

Lost data due to using selecting wrong drive in Windows Media Creation Tool:

https://www.reddit.com/r/datarecove...t_data_due_to_using_selecting_wrong_drive_in/

 

[19841984]

DMDE can see the NTFS partition along with the original folder structure and files names!!!! Yay!

Thank you!

 

[fzabkar]

I guess 5 seconds at 200 MB/s is only 1GB, so that explains why DMDE can see your data. However, it doesn't explain why your tools (EaseUS and Disk Drill) weren't able to recover anything. Are they really that bad?

 

[19841984]

Every other program took from hours to days of scanning to find nothing useful and DMDE just sees what I'm looking for. For $20 I can have it back.

Thank you, fzabkar.

 

[fzabkar]

I don't understand why these tools were not able to find the $MFT even after a full scan. In fact all the information that is necessary to find the $MFT is present in the boot sector, and the location of the boot sector is recorded in the partition metadata. There are copies of both the boot sector and the partition metadata at the end of the drive. I'm no expert, but I could have found the $MFT in a few minutes after examining those sectors with a hex editor.

:-?

 

[USAFRet]

Every other program took from hours to days of scanning to find nothing useful and DMDE just sees what I'm looking for. For $20 I can have it back.

Thank you, fzabkar.

Can you actually open any of these files?

Not just see the file and folder name, but actual functionality.

 

[fzabkar]

Can you actually open any of these files?

Not just see the file and folder name, but actual functionality.

Any file whose content is located in the overwritten area will be corrupt, even though it will appear to have been recovered correctly. All other files should be OK, though.

 

[USAFRet]

Any file whose content is located in the overwritten area will be corrupt, even though it will appear to have been recovered correctly. All other files should be OK, though.

My point exactly.

Like the Table of Contents of a book.
Knowing that what you need is on page 82 is no good if the actual page 82 is shredded.