I have an old 40GB laptop hard drive that I removed from a laptop around 7–8 years ago. It hasn't been used since then.

I recently remembered that it contains some old pictures that I would really like to recover.

The problem is that, about 7–8 years ago, I formatted this drive three times during Windows installations.

After the last format, I removed the drive from the laptop and basically haven't used it since.

Is there still any realistic chance of recovering those old pictures after all these years and three formats?

I wanted to share my recent data-recovery experience because it might help someone who finds themselves in a similar situation.

I had previously installed Windows on both my PC and laptop, so I was fairly comfortable with OS installations. This time, I decided to install Linux Mint XFCE on my laptop.

Initially, I tried installing Linux Mint alongside Windows for dual boot. The installation completed, but Linux didn't appear as a boot option afterward.

So, I decided to try installing Linux again, this time choosing the option to replace Windows. I misunderstood the option and thought it would basically format/delete only the C: drive where Windows was installed. I had around 200GB+ of personal data stored on my other partitions, so I wasn't expecting those files to be affected.

Within 10 seconds of starting the installation, something didn't feel right. I immediately cancelled the installation.

I then tried booting into Windows.

"No bootable device found."

At that point, I checked the drive and realized that my partitions were gone. My heart sank. 😓 I genuinely thought I had lost all my personal files.

I started searching Reddit and came across discussions about TestDisk and DMDE. I first tried TestDisk, but unfortunately, it couldn't properly identify/recover my original partitions.

Then I tried DMDE.

And this is where things turned around.

DMDE was able to detect the old NTFS filesystems and partitions, even though Windows was no longer showing them. I opened the detected volumes and, to my huge relief, I could actually see my original folders and files!

I started recovering the data to another hard drive. In the end, I was able to recover essentially all of my important 200GB+ of data. A very small number of files were corrupted, but thankfully the important ones were intact.

After recovering everything, I was even able to restore the original partition layout and get the partitions visible in Windows again.

What I learned from this:

• Never assume that "Replace Windows" only affects the C: drive.
• If you've accidentally started an OS installation, stop as soon as you realize something is wrong.
• Do not format, initialize, or write anything else to the affected drive.
• TestDisk is worth trying, but don't give up if it doesn't find what you're looking for.
• DMDE was the tool that ultimately saved my data.
• Always keep important data backed up on another drive.

A huge THANK YOU to the Reddit community, the people who shared their recovery experiences, DMDE, and ChatGPT, which helped me understand what was happening and guided me through the recovery process step by step.

I went from thinking "I've lost 200GB+ of personal data" to getting almost everything back. Definitely one of the most stressful computer experiences I've had! 😅

If you're currently in a similar situation: don't panic, and most importantly, don't write anything else to the affected drive. There may still be hope.

TL;DR: SD Card corrupted after a shoot while trying to import Footage, multiple Recovery methods tried, nothing worked thus far.

Hello dear beloved Redditors!

Me, an austrian media student finishing school this year, and my collagues are currently shooting a movie project for our A-Levels and just (supposedly) wrapped up with all the shoots. On our last day, and final wrap, we were all really happy.

Until I got to my laptop to import the footage. The SD Card somehow corrupted inbetween taking it out of the camera (Sony A7Cii) and putting it into my Laptop (Dell XPS 9520 from 2020 running Windows 11)

SD Card in Question: SanDisk Extreme Pro V30 256GB with 200MB/s
Card was mostly "empty" when we started shooting with it that day.

Windows Partition Manager shows the SD Card as RAW, File Explorer prompts formatting

I've tried many things. Many data carvers like Recuva and EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, even Klennet Carver. They all found the files, but no luck, all unplayable.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard found multiple hundreds of gigs of footage still left in the depths, and it also found our footage. But everything, every single file was totally fine and recoverable, except for everything we shot literally the day before.

The recovered files appear to have plenty of information in them, but can't be played.

The recovered files had plenty of information (as seen in their sheer size) and even the file path of the camera (.../PRIVATE/M4ROOT/CLIP) was recovered. As the files it recovered wouldn't play, i tried using untrunc in combination with a working file to see if it would fix the issue. The clips became playable, but only displayed black and a very annoying, computer / mechincal pattern of sound that blarred over everything else, tho sometimes bits of our voices could be heard through (some hope?). I'm totally lost and ive reached the ends of what I know...

I'm hoping that some of you are the wiser and know how to help me (or quite frankly all of us) out here. Your help is very greatly appreciated, may you have a wonderful day!

Hi, I’m having a serious problem with one of my HDDs and I’m trying to understand whether the drive itself is failing or if the problem could be related to the SATA cable, power, motherboard/controller, etc.

My PC has 3 internal drives:

• Disk 0: Crucial CT250MX200SSD1 — 250 GB SSD
• Disk 1: Samsung SSD 860 EVO — 500 GB SSD
• Disk 2: OOS1000G — 1 TB HDD
• E: is the partition on Disk 2

The problem started with files on E:. I could access the drive normally, but some files/programs on E: suddenly stopped working. For example, running an .exe from E: gave errors saying that the program could not be executed / was not a valid application.

I then tried copying an executable from E: to C::

Copy-Item "E:\Téléchargements\ChatGPT Installer.exe" "C:\ChatGPTTest.exe"

This returned:

>“The specified device does not exist.”

The file was not copied.

I also tried:

chkdsk E: /scan

but Windows couldn't even execute CHKDSK properly and returned:

>“Access is denied.”

Interestingly, chkdsk.exe itself exists and works from C:, and notepad.exe launches normally from C:.

Windows still reports the HDD as healthy:

Disk 2 — Online — Healthy
E: — NTFS — Healthy — OK

I also checked the physical disk:

Get-PhysicalDisk

and it reports the HDD as Healthy / OK.

However, when I checked the Windows System Event Log, I found many repeated Event ID 7 errors from Disk:

>“The device \Device\Harddisk2\DR2 has a bad block.”

These errors occurred repeatedly over several minutes.

At the same time, an NTFS event reported that the E: volume was healthy and that no action was required.

I also checked the Storage Reliability Counter. There weren't obvious read/write error counters reported, although the maximum read/write/flush latency values were quite high.

The important part

I had a very similar problem with another disk before.

That's why I'm not sure whether I should immediately assume that this 1 TB HDD is dying.

Could this instead be caused by something common to the PC, such as:

• SATA data cable
• SATA power connection
• motherboard SATA port/controller
• PSU/power delivery
• another hardware/controller issue

Or do the repeated Event ID 7 “bad block” errors strongly indicate that the HDD itself is failing?

I have not deleted or formatted the files. I’m mainly concerned about preserving the data now.

What would be the safest next step? Should I avoid chkdsk /f and other repair operations until the data is backed up/cloned?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I have a SATA SSD that is not detected by computers. It does not have the obvious power supply problems (e.g. shorted caps). I sent it to a popular and reputable mail-in data recovery company recommended on the forum but they were not able to recover any data. They said there are no obvious faults detected with the chips but they can't access the data. Likely cause is dead controller, corrupted firmware or degraded flash that tools like PC3000 doesn't support yet for the particular SSD model.

So, more advanced data recovery process is required but it's unclear what are the specific things that could be done. I would appreciate specific examples of more advanced data recovery processes. For example, would unsoldering the flash chips from the PCB enable data recovery? Or it's likely the end of the road.

TIA

Hi everyone, I’m a photographer and I’m freaking out a little, so I’m hoping someone knowledgeable can help me figure out what happened.

I have a 16TB WD Elements external hard drive and an external SSD that I use for my photography files.

I had a main Photography folder on my SSD that was approximately 900GB and contained individual folders for different shoots/weddings, with a lot of RAW files.

I copied that entire Photography folder from the SSD to the WD Elements. After copying, I opened the WD Elements and verified that the photos were there, including RAW files. Everything appeared normal.

Because I thought the backup was successful, I then formatted the original SSD so I could reuse it.

Afterward, I went back to the WD Elements and discovered that entire folders are now missing. I can only see 3 folders inside my Photography folder.

The WD Elements is showing:

* Capacity: 16TB

* Used: ~473GB

* Available: ~15.53TB

* Expected Photography folder size: ~900GB

* Approximately 500GB appears to be missing

* The missing data consists of entire folders of photography/RAW files

I have NOT written anything else to the WD Elements since discovering this.

I also have no second drive with enough free space to use for recovery right now.

My biggest question: Is there a realistic chance that these missing folders/data can still be recovered from the WD Elements?

And what should I absolutely NOT do right now?

I was about to use Disk Utility and noticed a “Restore” option, but I have not clicked it.

These are important client photography RAW files, so I really don’t want to make the situation worse.

Please tell me what the safest next step is. Thank you!!

Odd request I know.... That said, I'll ask just the same.

I am working on a software recovery tool that can reconstruct Sony video footage. The tools works with XAVC S (typically SD cards) and XAVC HS MP4 (typically CFExpress) - but it does not work with MXF (typically XQD cards). To finish the project I've been hunting around trying to find a 1:1 image of a XQD card - but I've not had any success.

I'll likely cross post to video - but wanted to see if anyone here had performed a recovery and could create / share an image. I can provide upload details. Thanks!

And yes, I am aware of the Sony erase in a camera and everything can get nuked. The tool is not designed to recover video from that scenario.

My daughter's old digicam uses an Olympus XD card. We just tried to get her holiday photos off and got a card corrupted notification. She's really upset so I'm hoping there's some kind of open source or free data recovery software out there that we could use.

Can anyone help with recommendations please? I'm running the latest version of Windows.

Hi, im new here..

I dont know if I do it right to post here.

I have an external Hard drive WD Elements. Once a long time ago Ive locked it with a "key?" Or bit locker.. but you can guess, lost it, or dont know where it is...

Is there a way to enter it? Do i need an IT guy or hacker to open it?

Thanks for the help

My Lacie (2018) external hard drive has suddenly stopped connecting to my macbook pro and I desperately need to get access to work files stored on there.

The hard drive itself is making all of it's usual noises and the light is on as normal but when I've checked disk utility and system data it's not showing up. I've also tried plugging it into other usb ports and even tried a different wire but still no luck.

I've used it for years so it's had a good run (if it has just had it) but as I said above I really need access to what's on there and not really sure what companies are worth going to.

Thanks!

I have an iPhone 15 that belonged to my dad. After he died, my mother deleted a bunch of text messages and photos, then hid the phone (she wasn't well). She's also since died and I found the phone.
It powers on and I can unlock it (he used the same code for EVERYTHING). I don't have his iCloud password and he probably didn't do cloud backups.
Is there a chance I can find and recover the photos and messages that were deleted? Is there a good option to back things up so I can deal with it all some time in the future? It sat powered off for about 2 years.

Any advice is appreciated.

I was in a pretty bad domestic situation, and my iPhone 13 (which had all of my photos from the past 12 years on it) was smashed. I thought that my photos were being backed up to my iCloud, but when I get a new phone , I figured out that apparently they were not, and apple could see nothing on their end (even though I had of course backed it up before in order to transfer everything to that phone a year or so earlier when I upgraded...). They recommended 3rd party data recovery, so I sent it the phone in to iPadrehab for data recovery, but they need my passcode to back up the data.

The issue is that when this phone was smashed and broken, I had been frequently changing my passwords out of fear that the person who ultimately smashed the phone, would get in it. I have some ideas of what the password might be, but I'm afraid of leaving iPadrehab to type all of them in since it would lock the phone permanently....

What do I do...? What would you do? I have like 20 possible codes but only 10 tries apparently. Are there any alternatives here? TYIA 🥺

The scenario: My approximately 18-month old Seagate Expansion 26TB external drive started locking up while I was accessing files on it. It eventually caused my Macbook to also lock up, so I did a force quit to shut everything down. When I started the Macbook up again, it wasn't recognizing the Seagate.

I tried Disk Utility and Tech Tool Pro but neither could find it on the system. Eventually, using Terminal, I saw that the drive was still being recognized, despite it not showing on my Macbook's desktop or using disk repair tools. Then, I tried using Test Disk on it. It also saw the drive and even got it to start up again, although it couldn't read any files on it, much less fix any possible partition issues. I spent hours with Claude trying to troubleshoot the problem, but all possible solutions failed.

As it stands now, I have the bare Barracuda drive removed from the Seagate case, and in a Sabrent USB-to-SATA docking station. It will start up and run (after about five long minutes), but the Macbook isn't recognizing it, and I get the dreaded "This drive is not recognized. Do you want to Erase, Initialize or Ignore?" Oddlly, Terminal sees the drive as "Sabrent 26TB" not as the original Seagate or Barracuda drive, which makes me think something else might be going on other than the drive has been wiped clean, or is dying.

Any help here would be much appreciated.