Free data recovery software.

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G4m3r

77 posts

Master Geek

#109838 27-Sep-2012 15:31

So I have a HDD here that no longer has the NTFS format on it and it is now a RAW format.

I have been trying to find a good free data recovery program. All the programs I have found so far either:

Can only search for the files and tell me that they are there.

Only remove 4 folders at a time.

or remove files giving them random names and no longer in folders where they use to be.

Does anyone know where I can find a free data removal software that I can get all the data off the HDD at once and in their original folders and with their original names?

xpd

Geek @ Coastguard NZ
13765 posts

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#692325 27-Sep-2012 15:48

Ive used Recuva with some success

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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gzt

17104 posts

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#692329 27-Sep-2012 16:01

Can you explain how this happened?

G4m3r

77 posts

Master Geek

#692335 27-Sep-2012 16:13

From what I have been told the laptop that this external HDD was plugged into was turned on. The laptop tried to boot from this HDD, when the user noticed what was happening they then pulled the HDD out of the laptop.

Since then every time the user would plug the HDD in it would ask for them to format it.

gzt

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#692378 27-Sep-2012 17:48

What was the operating system (if any) and created the format on the disk and what was the operating system on the machine it was plugged into?

Btw, you really should take an image of the disk as backup before attempting to recover data.

I have been eying up TestDisk for a while now but have not had a really good reason to use it. It is distributed with GParted live. TestDisk is not a one click tool and requires a little knowledge about partition types but not too much and ideally some knowledge of the history of the disk. Have a look through an example walkthrough to get the idea.

gzt

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#692468 27-Sep-2012 20:20

just remembered, last time I was thinking about using testdisk - gparted was able to resolve the problem for me and I did not need testdisk.

FPR

176 posts

Master Geek

#692554 27-Sep-2012 23:59

xpd: Ive used Recuva with some success

I have used Recuva before with a 2 TB Western Digital Elements. It took a while but I got all
1.6 TB's back.

as said Tesk Disk is very good, also Find & Mount is another good program.