disk structure and 2nd partition destroyed

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BenedICT
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue May 08, 2018 12:18 pm

disk structure and 2nd partition destroyed

Post by BenedICT » Tue May 08, 2018 1:05 pm

OK, I'm trying to get a disk's data back, and hopefully also filenames and dir names, and need some help/advice. I'm a registered user of R-studio NTFS/Linux for almost 10 years now, but I'm hoping someone with (even more) experience can chime in on my options.
Here's what happened (I'll leave out the why);

- The HDD originally had only 2 partitions, the 100MB one at the start, and a big one next to it.
- I shrunk the disk when it was in that state, in order to make space for an image I needed to restore and wanted to put onto that new small partition.
I created that end-partition, which is still there (called "oldw7boot").
This is what the disk looks like now in diskmgmt.msc:
Image

and these are its properties in R-Studio (which is currently scanning the entire disk for another 4 hours):
Image
(wow, just found out 23hq still has no TLS!)

So, the disk then held 3 partitions, the 100MB one at the start (no idea where that came from, probably once booted from this disk).
This is the state I'd like to get it back in.

I wanted to restore an old image on that new partition. I used Macrium Reflect for that (big mistake, unreliable software apparently).
The source of that image was a 335 GB volume, with only 120 GB of data on it. Reflect trims that, it says, so it only needs to save the actual data of the image. This is good for me, because that means the data it has overwritten, at the start of the disk I want to restore, is only the first 120 GB of the parition, and the rest of the 335 GB is probably left untouched by Reflect.

Anyway, so I restored that image, I carefully picked that NEW partition I created to restore the image to and on in Macrium's crapware.
It went ahead with that, it didn't even warn me. Yes, it mentions that you're overwriting a disk, but it doesn't specify partitions, it never does, so you're pretty much uncertain what it does from here on.
And lo and behold; It didn't do what I asked it to! It actually restored the image in *front* of the disk (onto its position on the image source disk probably, using that as if I wanted to restore a boot-disk, which I didn't ask it to)
So, it overwrote the most important large partition of that 3.5 TB disk with that old 335GB partition.
All the former data is undoubtedly mostly still on that large partition that once was 1, minus the starting 120 GB, which macrium overwrote.

I'm mostly here now hoping that the former GPT info is somehow still somewhere on the disk. Perhaps on that 100MB partition?
The source of that image used by Macrium Reflect was an MBR disk. Most likely it has ruined the GPT because of that?
I can provide more precise data if needed, using HDHacker or MBRwizzard.

I'm still amazed such large disks don't hold several versions of their state and structure as backups internally, especially since that's never big data anyway, just some text entries. By themselves I mean. Why do we always need to dive in deep to get data back, and then don't even have their filenames/dirnames? How can it be that in 2018 it's still not just pointers of file and folder locations stored somewhere else on the disk, perhaps even eprom or nand nowadays? (Clearly these file-systems and disks are not designed by me..)

Data-Medics
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Location: Providence, RI USA
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Re: disk structure and 2nd partition destroyed

Post by Data-Medics » Wed May 09, 2018 12:32 pm

All I can say is....WHY!!?!?? Why the heck would you try to recover data the way you did? Why would you mess with partitioning of a drive that has data that isn't backed up? Why would you image to a partition rather than to a full separate disk or even just an image file?

You've really overcomplicated things now and likely overwritten some of your data.

Just let the scan finish and hope it finds the files you really need back.

BenedICT
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue May 08, 2018 12:18 pm

Re: disk structure and 2nd partition destroyed

Post by BenedICT » Wed May 09, 2018 5:21 pm

Data-Medics wrote:
Wed May 09, 2018 12:32 pm
All I can say is....WHY!!?!?? Why the heck would you try to recover data the way you did? Why would you mess with partitioning of a drive that has data that isn't backed up? Why would you image to a partition rather than to a full separate disk or even just an image file?
First, where did I state its data "isn't backed up"? It's just the folder structure, filenames and the terabytes of this (pooled) disk that I would rather be able to add back to the pool it was always part of. I use Covecube's Stablebit DrivePool. It misses this disk in the pool. I've switched off the pool until I've restored as much of the duplicates it has made on that disk.
Second, Macrium Reflect specifically prides itself in how it is able to restore images into/onto any other partition one would wish to. It saves partition images as files, by the way. Look it up on their site. They even state you can restore an MBR image into a GPT partition. So either you have no idea what you're writing about, or you didn't read it well, but your comments are entirely useless nonetheless.

By the way, luckily, it seems the restored image has actually not overwritten much of the old data residing on the disk. Somehow Macrium found an empty spot for that partition to start writing the 120 GB to, rather than at the start of the disk (which Windows diskmanagement depicts it as residing).
I'm now recovering the Pool dir with the files it could find in that dir that are 100% in tact. Macrium did overwrite and ruin the structure/layout of the disk, but R-Studio found it all back fluently.

Data-Medics
Posts: 220
Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2015 10:13 am
Location: Providence, RI USA
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Re: disk structure and 2nd partition destroyed

Post by Data-Medics » Mon May 14, 2018 9:55 am

BenedICT wrote:
Wed May 09, 2018 5:21 pm
First, where did I state its data "isn't backed up"?
In the first nine words that you posted here:
BenedICT wrote:
Tue May 08, 2018 1:05 pm
OK, I'm trying to get a disk's data back
And the fact that you're posting on a forum related to data recovery software you're using. If you have a backup, just nuke and pave with the backup.

I'm done trying to help

kellog

Re: disk structure and 2nd partition destroyed

Post by kellog » Sun Jul 15, 2018 4:58 pm

Windows 7 Pro OS, 64 bit
I attempted to clone a rotating drive to an SSD using Macrium free. The operation failed- after some writing, Macrium then said it couldn't write to it - and now the SSD does not show up in my file system. The device, CT240BX200SSD1, does show up in the device manager which alleges: "This device is working properly." Device properties come up blank, even after I "populate" them.

Is there anything that R-TT can do for me to restore access to the SSD?

Alt
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Re: disk structure and 2nd partition destroyed

Post by Alt » Mon Jul 16, 2018 3:45 pm

kellog wrote:
Sun Jul 15, 2018 4:58 pm
I attempted to clone a rotating drive to an SSD using Macrium free. The operation failed- after some writing, Macrium then said it couldn't write to it - and now the SSD does not show up in my file system. The device, CT240BX200SSD1, does show up in the device manager which alleges: "This device is working properly." Device properties come up blank, even after I "populate" them.

Is there anything that R-TT can do for me to restore access to the SSD?
Cloning conventional HDDs to SSD devices has always been a challenge. Not all disk cloning software can do this smoothly.
Does Windows show both these devices in its Disk manager? And if yes, in which status?

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