Question Lost all data after using Diskpart clean command ?

ba.theexpert

Honorable
Aug 16, 2017
12
0
10,510
so today i tried to install windows 10 on an old laptop and youtubed how to change mbr to gpt. did the commands in the windows installation area and the whole hdd got wiped.
diskpart - select disk - clean - also did a convert to GPT
so i dont have any backups of my data and i really need them back. it would be great if you could offer any simple or advanced solution to get any part of my lost data back.
thanks in advance
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
You would need to do one of two/three things;
1| Use TestDisk
or
2| Use an app like Recuva
or
3| take the drive over to a data recovery specialist
I'd advise on doing the last since you didn't have any clue walking into this endeavor. Pretty much any video out there would have stated to make sure your data is backed up in case things go South, however a Clean command would mean a full wipe. You're also advised to perform as little tinkering with the drive as any more writes/reads/tampering can remove the data for good.

Might want to learn from your mistake and use an app like EASUS Partition Master to convert an MBR drive into GPT but in all honesty, you should've backed up data, then start afresh on the drive you want to install the OS on.
 
What did you think diskpart clean would do?
It removes all partitioning and all data from the drive.

Well - in reality it just overwrites partition table. Data doesn't get overwritten. So it should be possible to recover data with appropriate software.

What you have to do is:
install windows on another drive, keep cleaned drive disconnected during install,​
then connect cleaned drive,​
use recovery software to recover data.​

You should be able to do partition recovery with Minitool Partition wizard free - partition recovery function.

If minitool can't do it, then try getdataback. Free version shows, what can be recovered. Full version is not free though.
You'll need anther drive to hold all the recovered data.
https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm