Recovery software

PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 9,746

Ok, the day did come... One of my external drives stopped working and doesn't show up in Windows Exprorer.
In Computer Management, I can find it, but it's showing "Not Iniatilized"
Removed the drive from it's enclosure and used a docking station, no success
Haven't tried connecting it to internal SATA yet and don't think it will change anything

It has been a quite a number of years since I had to use recovery software and can't remember which one(s) I used the last time

Which software has been successfully used in recovering files from such drive (no subscription licenses)
I'm looking one that's free or up to $100 for one that makes me coffee and my first born.

Post edited by PerttiA on

Comments

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,066

    Have you tried to Rebuild MBR? Open the Command Prompt and run as administrator, then run the command lines bootrec/fixmbr and bootrec/fixboot.

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 9,746

    Didn't try as I have bad experience with included tools to 'fix' anything, but will check.

    The drive was formated with NTFS and wasn't bootable. There were no symptoms before, so I don't think the problem is physical.

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,066

    I have used the EaseUS programmes and find them good and they do a Data Recovery programme.

    https://www.easeus.com/data-recovery-software/

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 9,746

    Thanks, downloaded the free trial executable, lifetime license doesn't mention anything about making coffee wink

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,066

    PerttiA said:

    Thanks, downloaded the free trial executable, lifetime license doesn't mention anything about making coffee wink

    Thay are doing a nice priced bundle just now.

    https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizardpro/drw-pro-buy.html?linkid=e_drw_win_family

    I have Backup Home and it runs in the background. 

  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,881

    It may be a good idea to check the manufacture of the hard drive and see if their website has any software that can help, including software to do a SMART test.

    You may consider downloading the bootable Gparted image and seeing if it can access the drive at all - https://gparted.org/livecd.php - boots from USB as well.

  • stem_athomestem_athome Posts: 517

    Hi,

     

    I use Lazesoft Recovery Suite (free for home use):-  https://lazesoft.com/

     

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 9,746
    edited March 3

    stem_athome said:

    I use Lazesoft Recovery Suite (free for home use):-  https://lazesoft.com/

    Thanks, checking it out.
    Scanning the 4TB drive goes very slow and I may have to wait for the next weekend to finish.

    Edit; So far the only program that is able to see the drive

    Post edited by PerttiA on
  • 31415926543141592654 Posts: 969

    Probably not the cheapest ... probably not the best ... but when I had a drive fail I tried Recoverit ... cost was about $75 and was good for a year. It did salvage most of my files - though the folder structures were laregly gone. But it was slow - it was a 4 or 5 TB drive - it scanned the drive for almost 24 hours and took another 12 to copy them to a new drive ... and I dared not stop the thing once it started because I think it would start over.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 37,945
    edited March 4

    since this thread is fresh

     I just accidently permenantly deleted a folder in Win10

    Winfr C: J: /regular /n \Users\Public\Documents\Reallusion\Custom\iClone 6 Custom\

    gives me 

    There was an error parsing your command. Please check /? for more information and try again.

    in Windows File Recovery tool, I have no idea what I have wrong in the syntax reading the instructions

    it was a huge folder too with heaps of user data mostly DAZ imports to iClone, just about everything I ever imported basically and all my scenes

    Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on
  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 9,746

    WendyLuvsCatz said:

    since this thread is fresh

     I just accidently permenantly deleted a folder in Win10

    Winfr C: J: /regular /n \Users\Public\Documents\Reallusion\Custom\iClone 6 Custom\

    gives me 

    There was an error parsing your command. Please check /? for more information and try again.

    When reading the Microsoft guide, they give conflicting advice (surprice) about the syntax.
    In one place they say the syntax is "Winfr C: E: /regular /n \Users\<username>\Documents\"
    In another place they say it's "/n /users/<username>/Documents/"

    The bad thing is that the files are on C-drive, where Windows is constantly writing over those files, so installing new programs is a bad idea.
    Removing the drive and connecting it to another (Windows) computer may not work either because it is the OS drive with MS specified standard folders - One may not even see the folders on that drive, but the ones on the OS drive of that other computer.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 37,945
    edited March 4

    I eventually did get it to work skipping the subfolder paths

    ie Winfr C: J: /regular /n \Users\Public\Documents\Reallusion\, but it did not recover all of it and not in a folder hierarchy either

    so yeah SSD too and overwritten

    but got all my iMotions back by looks which is a huge help as I can export those to DAZ now for Genesis 9 with bone minion and M4 

    as I was slowly doing

    I was also rendering this in DAZ when I did it cheeky 

    (accidently deleted folder)

     

    a 4K video!!! but I was rendering to an external drive

    probably didn't help though

    Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on
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