Accidentally wrote a retropie image on External Hd.... :((

Ornitorick

Hi guys, i know everybody here use a lot win32DiskImager... and i had one problem that maybe some have experienced it.
I have Accidentally wrote a retropie image (using Win32DiskImager) to my external hard disk instead in my SDCard.
5s after i start have canceled the win32diskimager.
Now it reads 55MB as a partition is established on that.
Any one had this problem? And the most important, there is any way to recovery the DATA that was in my external hd.
Oh god... i had so much important stuf there.....

I think this is a problem that can happen with peaple on the comunit.... that why i make this post.

BuZz

You have no backups of your important stuff ? Disks fail - you should definitely keep backups.

You might find a NTFS recovery tool that can recover the info, but it would need to workout the original partition data and filesystem etc. Depending how much data you wrote over etc you might be able to get some stuff back - but it sounds like you should find someone locally who can help. You could try some data recovery forum - eg https://forum.hddguru.com/viewforum.php?f=1

glennlake

@Ornitorick The first thing I would do is disconnect the external drive and don't try to read it on from a windows machine. What I would try, and I don't know if it will work, is to download a copy of linux live cd and burn it to a cd. Then boot up in linux (don't install on your windows machine!) and then plug in your external hard drive. If you are lucky you will be able to mount the drive and see both partitions. It's a long shot. I hope it works for you.

BuZz

@glennlake it won't be mountable if the partition table has been overwritten (with the Raspbian one). Recovery tools will be needed.

Ornitorick

I was just making the backup to my hd of the important Stuff.... and this happens.... im so sad....:(
The image make a readable partition in the windows.

So i did what this site say, and formted the drive.
http://www.howtogeek.com/170794/ask-htg-how-can-i-reclaim-the-full-capacity-of-an-sd-card/

And right now im using Wondershare. It found the folder, but the scan will take 12 hours.
Lets see if i can get the folders back.

If ti works, i'll make a tutorial.

After this desastres i definitely will look for a 1T cloud service to make backup. :(

herb_fargus

@Ornitorick google drive is only $2 a month for 100GB

tomhackth

@Ornitorick

Hello Ornitorick,

Scanning time usually depends upon various factors: bad sectors in hard drive, hard size, algorithm used by software and several other factors. 12 hours is not a big time for scanning as I have experienced, scanning is running from last 20-30 hours. Still there are some software that use very advanced scanning algorithm for quickly scan the selected hard drives. Stellar Partition recovery is one of them. As I have used this previously, it had shown better result for me. I recommend you to give it a try.

RetroResolution

@Ornitorick good luck with the data recovery. I've been in this position (admittedly, attempting to rescue other people's drives) several times over the years. I've had decent success rates.

There's a good chance you can get much of the data back, as the image you accidentally wrote cannot have overwritten the entire external hard disk (unless you have a very large SD Card and a very small external drive).

As others have written, the drive's index has been overwritten, which is a bit like ripping the index out of a book; you may have lost a chapter or two as well (to extend the metaphor), but the rest should be intact.

The recovery software basically works through the drive looking for structures that it can recognise as data. It's not a fast process as the recovery software has to determine where files start and end, and try to deduce what they are (as the external disk is now lacking the indexes which hold all the file metadata).

lilbud

@Ornitorick Be careful what software you use, I wiped a Hard Drive by accident and the software I used would only find the files and let me view them. I would've had to pay to recover my files. Unplug hard drive while burning image, or keep retropie images on External Hard drive, Win32 Disk Imager will give you an error if you try to write an image to the drive where it is stored.

Ornitorick

Thank you guys, im working realy hard on it right now.

I have successfull take back majority of my folder using "HDD RECOVERY PRO" that my friend gave me.
But some folders are lost( at least the huge majority is safe in a new drive now).
So i'm trying "DMDE" who look like be a awesome software. And right now i'm scaning it.

A guy from the forum that @BuZz indicated ( Thanks a lot mate! :) is helping me.

But Each scan is taking around 20 hours as @tomhackth said. So the resolution of the problem will take a while.

@herb_fargus i'll definitly make a 1t plan to make everything secure. External drive are so dumb... and we have the cloud to keep it safe. :/

After all this nightmare i will make a tutorial how to recovery it for the forum, its a dumb error , but any one can accidentally make it .

RetroResolution

@Ornitorick Glad you've been able to retrieve some of your files, and fingers crossed you are able to recover more. Please let us know how you get on in the end

brianmanee

check this one to know more about....data recovery

brian