uninitialized disk recovery

[plexer]

Before I left my old job I backed up personal files to a 1500GB Seagate drive in a usb dock.

 

I've just connected it to a different usb to sata bridge and windows says the disk is uninitialized.

 

Attaching it via the same usb to sata bridge to another laptop running runtime softwares live cd I can see all the data so I guess I can pull it off from there.

 

I tried various programs on my windows laptop recuva, yodot, mini tool partition wizard, testdisk, pci file recovery but none were able to see the uninitialized disk perhaps if I had initialized the disk so it had a drive letter in windows these may work but I wanted to try non destructive first, once I've got the data off I'll try that too.

 

Ben

[tmcd35]

Initialising a disk/quick formatting *should* only write a new FAT to the disk. Although unaccessible the under lying data shouldn't be over written. I don't think even a Windows full format actually overwrites the data. You need to use something like DBAN to zero out the blocks/sectors to erase the data entirely. So, yes, something like PCI File Recover or Recuva *should* work if you initialise the disk.

 

That said. If you've got a method that can read the disk as is, without re-initialising. I'd do that instead. First rule of file recovery - don't write anything to the disk.

[chazzy2501]

I've often has to do this, q format the drive in the same format as before then use a file recovery program.

 

I you have access to spinrite then you could use this to see if the disk is repairable without changing data. spinrite is not a file recovery program though.

[tmcd35]

Also, could the problem be with the USB on the first machine rather than the disk or SATA controller? You'd have thought if the disk or controller were at fault the second laptop would have the same problem? no?

 

Might be worth checking out before erasing an otherwise healthy disk.

[plexer]

There's nothing wrong with the usb on the fist laptop it's a brand new Dell I think the issue is just that I used to access this drive and it was formatted etc... on a different pc months ago with a different dock interface.

 

Ben

[plexer]

I've ended up with a knoppix boot dvd and an external hard drive to copy the info of the sata drive hooked up with the sata usb bridge.

 

Will see how long this takes to copy.

 

Ben

[plexer]

Now for the interesting part as I'd got all the info copied off using the knoppix cd I thought I'd plug it back in to my windows laptop via the usb bridge and initialise and see what happens next, thing is I didn't need to the drive mounted perfectly and is accessible.

 

Linux magic

 

Ben