Question Post format 'recovered' data has full file structure, and shows size, but hex editor shows totally empty. None open.

[Supertex]

Title says it all. Ran several recovery suites on a theft-recovered machine with an unbootable win 10 system 500GB NVMe drive. I suspect a system reset attempt had occurred, taking the 'fully clean the drive' option, but I'm not sure. They didn't have the charger, so it's possible that it died during the attempt.

Active@ Undelete, GetDataBack Pro and a few others found file structure, but it was new install structure. 'Recover by file type' found far more, but in amongst what it found was a .IBD fileset, with a size in excess of 3TB ...on a 500GB drive. None of the file were able to be opened. DMDE found a 'deleted' file structure, and I was able to display the windows.old folder with the correct user name. Total volume of 200GB or so. Recovered it all to working SSD, but when I view the 'recovered' data, every....single...file... fails to open. Hex editor shows "00" at every location.

I find it hard to believe that ALL of the files fail, when the entire directory by name appears to be intact, and the sizes are all as expected.

I thought I might seek some advice before I give in and delete the recovery data.

Thoughts, suggestions?

 

[USAFRet]

I find it hard to believe that ALL of the files fail, when the entire directory by name appears to be intact, and the sizes are all as expected.

Thats like having the Table of Contents for a book.
But not having the rest of the book.

The original data is gone.

This is what a good backup routine is for.

 

[fzabkar]

Your data has probably been TRIM-ed.