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Data Recovery on an external USB 8TB HDD

Tags: Hardware

Hi all. My mate asked me if I could try to recover some files on his external HDD after he accidentally, basically quick formatted it !! The PC he uses was starting to play up a lot and as he hasn’t a vast amount of knowledge on PC problems, decided the best way to try to sort it himself was to download and install a startup recovery program on one of his USB sticks……..you know what’s coming I bet 🙂 Well, sure enough without realising it, he installed it on the external HDD 🙁
The result is that when I scanned the drive with Stellar Data Recovery, it reports a D drive @ about 40GB or so and a lost drive of about 7400GB. The scan reported about 1.3TB of recoverable files, during which the previews showed plenty of images that he was expecting to see so we thought it would be OK.
However, although the SW appears to recover the file OK (and I’ve tried loads of different files with all manner of file extensions) it refuses to open, usually with a “this filetype is not recognised” error message.
I’ve downloaded and installed another recovery SW that has a free 1GB of recovered files allowance to see if that makes any difference but even though you can preview files that have been scanned in this one (and it does bring up the pics in the preview field OK and they look OK) I’m still not holding out much hope that it will actually work after reading up on data recovery topics online.
Is he basically clutching at straws here because the drive had been formatted (admittedly only a quick one) and all the files that the software purports are actually not going to be recoverable at all ?
TIA for any feedback 👍

Topic

Stop.

In reply to Data Recovery on an external USB 8TB HDD

This is no longer a DIY data recovery job. The more you do the less content that will be recovered by a Data Recovery Company.

As to what’s going to be recovered at this point I’m going with “not much”. The damage was done then done again.

Around town the fees start at about 300 USD and go up from there. Backups are cheap, recover is not.

Reply To: Data Recovery on an external USB 8TB HDD

In reply to Stop.

Thanks @rproffitt. It’s all new to me is this data recovery stuff, hence the question. He’s obviously gonna be gutted coz there are 1000’s of photos etc on the HDD which he’s prolly lost due to a rookie mistake but at least there’s nothing critical such as bank details or personal identifiers or the like.
I’ll let him know what the situation is and let him decide if he wants to take it to a recovery service.

Since you mentioned PHOTOS.

In reply to Reply To: Data Recovery on an external USB 8TB HDD

A nod to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoRec

Notice how it recovers images and how it by default does not write to the blown drive.

You should also reinforce the need for backyp’s

In reply to Reply To: Data Recovery on an external USB 8TB HDD

They are always far cheaper than Data Recovery.

[shaky177]

Reply To: Data Recovery on an external USB 8TB HDD

In reply to You should also reinforce the need for backyp’s

Hi @oh smeg. Yeah, you are of course 100% correct and after he’s decided where (and if) to take the drive for a pro recovery job he’s gonna setup an online backup.
Interestingly enough, I decided to see if the recovery SW I used that seemed to report most of the files on his scans was actually any good (Stellar Data Recovery) so seeing as I was upgrading my own storage from 1 X 2TB HDD and 2 X 4TB HDD’s to 4 X 8TB HDD’s once I had transferred my video files from the 2TB HDD I deleted the volume, formatted it, copied an 800MB file across, deleted the volume and formatted it again, then ran Stellar. I also prematurely stopped the scan after about 5 mins.
The SW said it’d found 6 video files in the 5 min. scan so I told it to attempt recovery. About 5 mins later, I had 6 videos available that all played perfectly, so it obviously works OK as long as (as @rproffitt usefully explained) the drive hasn’t been used too much since the initial deletions/formatting.
He’s currently sorting out any files he wants to keep on the internal storage on his machine and getting them backed up before we re-install windows as there is deffo summat wrong with his PC. Hopefully that’ll sort it and it’s nothing hardware based 🤞
Thanks again for all the replies 👍

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by shaky177.

Reply To: Data Recovery on an external USB 8TB HDD

In reply to Data Recovery on an external USB 8TB HDD

A quick format doesn’t fully erase data, so recovery is possible, but the overwritten part (where the recovery program was installed) may be lost. Since the files are previewing correctly but won’t open, they might be corrupted or missing key metadata. Try Recuva, R-Studio, or EaseUS Data Recovery for better results. Also, attempt opening recovered files with different programs—IrfanView for images or VLC for videos. If nothing works, a professional recovery service might be the last option.

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