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Geek Culture / HDD data recovery tools?

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Phaelax
DBPro Master
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Location: Metropia
Posted: 11th Aug 2013 22:30
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Without going into a long story in which I would most likely use several words that would get me banned, I have a 700GB folder that just got erased in which I need to recover.

It just happened and I'm making sure nothing is being written to the drive in hopes the sectors are still intact.

I don't have access to EnCase anymore, so is there any software you guys can recommend?

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xplosys
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Playing: FPSC Multiplayer Games
Posted: 12th Aug 2013 00:56
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This worked well for me in the past. After trying multiple free and cheap alternatives, I went ahead and purchased it. You can try before you buy.

Brian.

I am the underground.
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Phaelax
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Posted: 12th Aug 2013 01:06
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3 seconds to delete over 15k files, 90min to recover only 7% of that so far....

I'm using something called MiniTool Power Data Recovery. A lot of the files are several hundred megs to a few gigs each, so not surprising it's taking a long time to recover all the matching sectors. I have no idea what the fragmentation was on this 1tb drive beforehand. But at least it's working and costs about the same as the one you specified.


After searching, there appears to be tons of available tools for data recovery, just not any free ones. At least not without limitations. So I'm thinking, how hard would it be to make my own tool? Any idea on where to begin? (suppose I should check sourceforge first)

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xplosys
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Posted: 12th Aug 2013 02:10
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Quote: "just not any free ones. At least not without limitations"


Exactly. When I needed data recovery I wanted to actually see it work. I don't mind limitations, but it at least has to show me that it can recover files. Many of them show you the files, but won't recover any until you pay. There's a big difference between finding a file reference and actually recovering the file.

Buyer beware!

I am the underground.
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Phaelax
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Posted: 12th Aug 2013 03:16
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It's been 4 hours and it's recovered 432GB, over 15k files. It's almost done. Not bad really. It seems to have really picked up speed while I was playing COD. (which yes runs from a different hd)

I verified a few random files, and they appear to be intact properly. So for the moment, I'd endorse this program.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 12th Aug 2013 06:10 Edited at: 12th Aug 2013 06:20
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May have spoken too soon. Not sure what's going on, but trying to play videos from what was recovered now plays something completely different. As if the file is pointing to different video. Yet ones I just copied over to another drive are working fine, those same ones are not on the original source. Very bizarre.

Tried a reboot, just to make sure, no luck.

It's very strange. Files I had literally just copied over work fine, however the recovered sources don't work. And anything I copy over from now on are corrupted as well, included the ones that just worked. It's as though the entire folder I had recovered, which was working fine moments ago, has suddenly become completely corrupted.

Files pointing to the wrong thing I've seen happen once before, and it was the drive that was failing. But I don't think that's the case since the issue is localized to only those files which were recovered.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 12th Aug 2013 06:30
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Scanning a random mp3 with a hex editor, I see a partial header to an m4 video file, but 5.92mb of the 5.94mb that make up the file are just empty 0s. My data has definitely been corrupted. But since some of it was originally intact after the recovery, I'm not 100% sure it was the software that caused it.

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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 12th Aug 2013 06:36
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I know my words of condolence won't help much, but man, I am so sorry that's happening to you. That must be no fun to deal with.
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Phaelax
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Posted: 12th Aug 2013 06:40
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Yea, the worst part is I was a computer forensics major... I just don't have access to that fancy fbi software I learned on. And a license is several thousand dollars of course.

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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 12th Aug 2013 06:49
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Hmm well, I guess if you find some pattern to the corruption of your data, you could write a program to fix that. That sounds pretty unfun, though.
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TheComet
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Location: I`m under ur bridge eating ur goatz.
Posted: 12th Aug 2013 14:29
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Hi,

Have you check this site yet? http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm

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Phaelax
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Posted: 12th Aug 2013 16:41
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I ran a chkdsk repair on the disk (took all night) and found no problems. Didn't expect to, but worth a shot.

The problem with all those programs is they are for recovery of deleted files. I've already done that, but it corrupted the data (after it was restored for hour in good-standing)

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