Data Recovery and Disk Utilities Forum @R-TT

If you copy your failed disk to another disk, you'll have two similar disks. You won't be able to copy recovered files to the copy of your failed disk, because you can overwrite lost files. So, the choice is to make an image of the failed disk on the large disk, and recover files from that image. Image is a file, so you'll have plenty of space to store recovered files on the larger disk without the risk of overwriting something on the image. And you may create a special folder to store the recovered files. R-Studio will copy the folder structure from the failed disk to that folder and write the files to their respective folders.
Merging partitions is quite a complex task with a lot of data transfer from one place to another. System crash during this operation can make a real mess with the data, so, even you see the correct folder structure and file names, and even file sizes are correct, that doesn't guarantee anything at all.
I'd do the following:
1. Scan the entire disk and look through the recognized partitions to see which is the best match of the lost one. Try to preview some files on the recognized partition to estimate chances for successful file recovery. If everything correct, recover files from that recognized partition.
2. If Step 1 fails, look through the Extra Found Files. They don't have original file names, only numbers, so you'll have to guess which file is which. File preview can help you in that.
You may read more in the R-Studio's help. There's its online version too: [url=http://www.unformat-unerase.com/Unformat_Help/secondtopic.html]R-Studio online help[/url]. Case 2 is yours.
Good luck in file recovery, and remember:
NEVER EVER THINK ABOUT PARTITION MANAGEMENT WITHOUT BACKING UP YOUR FILES!!!!

Background for my questions:

I bought my copy of R-Studio after Partition Magic 8 botched an attempt to merge 2 [40 & 250 GB] partitions on a 320 GB drive. My major concern is the larger partition, that contains a collection of data going back 15 years. Scanning the 4 objects remaining on the drive after the disaster produced some Recognized objects and some Extra Found Files, so it looks like there is a good chance of being able to recover most of the data.

Since the disaster, I have obtained another drive that is 3X the size of all of the objects I want to recover. My inent here is to put the recoverable objects on the new drive, and recover the data from there. My questions, which came to mind after creating a Region in one of the scanned areas, are in regard to my best approach. So here we go.

Should I make an image of the recovery objects, or should I make a copy? Is there a difference? Should recoverable objects on the new drive be Recognized and Extra Found Files, or would Regions be better? What are the differences in terms of chances for success? Can I put the recoverable objects in a folder on the new drive, or do they have to be attached to the root?

Thanks in advance for the help.