Wrong hard drive accidently ghost imaged over

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Guest

Hi,

I was recently reinstalling a "ghost" image back onto my hard drive. I didnt
format the hard drive, I simply selected the partition and proceeded to
install the ghost image I had.

Only trouble is I have a backup hard drive on the system and accidently
selected that drive to re-image instead of the main system drive. I realized
this quite quickly and cancelled the re-image about <10% of the way in.

Well, after re-imaging the correct drive and restarting window, windows
detected errors on the backup drive and corrected the files.

Once I got into windows all my backup data was gone, and the image files
where on the HD, but most couldnt be opened since i cancelled it early on.

I suspect I can recover most, if not all my original files. My questions is
what program/software can I use to do this? (something that is free)

I have heard spinrite 6 is excellent, buts its 89 and im on a students
budget.

Any suggestions would be great, thanks
 
stoperrorman said:
Hi,

I was recently reinstalling a "ghost" image back onto my hard drive. I didnt
format the hard drive, I simply selected the partition and proceeded to
install the ghost image I had.

Only trouble is I have a backup hard drive on the system and accidently
selected that drive to re-image instead of the main system drive. I realized
this quite quickly and cancelled the re-image about <10% of the way in.

Well, after re-imaging the correct drive and restarting window, windows
detected errors on the backup drive and corrected the files.

Once I got into windows all my backup data was gone, and the image files
where on the HD, but most couldnt be opened since i cancelled it early on.

I suspect I can recover most, if not all my original files. My questions is
what program/software can I use to do this? (something that is free)

I have heard spinrite 6 is excellent, buts its 89 and im on a students
budget.
Click to expand...

Spinrite 6 is great for hardware problems with a disk drive but will not
fix user errors. It sounds like you wiped out the file directories on
the backup drive when you wrote over them. You might be able to get an
undelete program to recover some of the data but I would not count on it.
In the future you might want to make DVD copies of the backup drive when
you make changes to it to prevent this kind of problem or where the hard
drive dies.
 
Im sure the files are still all ok, I just need advice on what program in
particular I should use (a free one).

I tried "GetBackData" .... it found several GB's of data, most of which
looked like the file types I lost, but with file names that were not the same
as the original files and no sign of any directories I use to have.

1. I imagine the file directories and the original file names are something
I can never get back??

2. Is there any program that can search, find and rebuilt the original file
and directory structure?

3. What would be the best free program to recover as much (and quality)
files that I can?

Thanks a lot.
 
stoperrorman said:
Im sure the files are still all ok, I just need advice on what program
in
particular I should use (a free one).

I tried "GetBackData" .... it found several GB's of data, most of
which
looked like the file types I lost, but with file names that were not
the same
as the original files and no sign of any directories I use to have.
Click to expand...

Hi!
Whatever programme you use, will not give you back the original file
names.
You will have to open the files after recovery and rename them
accordingly.
Also some of them will be just fragments (they can still be useful)
because the file structure is damaged.
I used "Recover my files" very successfully, but it is not free,
although there is a trial version which lets you recover small files,
and show what can be recovered.
Hope it helps Cheers
 
Why would you think the files are OK?

You likely overwrote some, if not all of them. A file recovery program "may"
be able to get back some of them. If said program does not work, it is time
to send the drive to Drive Savers, OnTrack or a similar recovery
organization. These services do not come cheap. Most START at about $500 and
go up to a couple of thousand. Only you know what your files are worth.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Basically thought the files would be OK because the accidental ghosting only
made it a few percent in before I realized and stopped it, so I imagined that
only a few megabites of the ghost image were written.

One question is, after recovering a file, say named "23JSAD.avi" that doesnt
work when opened by media player, would that point to the fact that it might
not be an avi file, but rather say a doc, or htm or mht etc or just corrupt
and not recoverable?

I ask because a lot of the recovered files open in the correct "recovered"
format, while many others don't.

And lastly, those data recovery firms, what exactly do they do to recover
the data (that cost 500 and upwards)? Is it better recover, with more success?

Thanks all! -appreciated
 
stoperrorman said:
Basically thought the files would be OK because the accidental ghosting
only
made it a few percent in before I realized and stopped it, so I imagined
that
only a few megabites of the ghost image were written.

One question is, after recovering a file, say named "23JSAD.avi" that
doesnt
work when opened by media player, would that point to the fact that it
might
not be an avi file, but rather say a doc, or htm or mht etc or just
corrupt
and not recoverable?

I ask because a lot of the recovered files open in the correct "recovered"
format, while many others don't.

And lastly, those data recovery firms, what exactly do they do to recover
the data (that cost 500 and upwards)? Is it better recover, with more
success?
Click to expand...


The .avi extention is most probably correct however the file itself has been
destroyed.
If you get any of your files recovered...consider yourself lucky...
but I would not expect you to get all your data back .
 
Hi,

I'm pasting a list of programs that I got from here a while back. I wish
I would have kept the original posters info too. I do know it was one of
the regulars here that posted it though.


http://www.restorer2000.com/r2k.htm
http://www.hddrecovery.com.au
http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz
http://www.runtime.org/ (GetDataBack)
http://www.runtime.org/ (has a trial version)
http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/filerecoverysecdownload.html
www.acronis.com (RecoveryExpert)


---==X={}=X==---

Jim Self

AVIATION ANIMATION, the internet's largest depository.
http://avanimation.avsupport.com

Your only internet source for spiral staircase plans.
http://jself.com/stair/Stair.htm

Experimental Aircraft Association #140897
EAA Technical Counselor #4562
 
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