Storage
Storage

Hard Drive Recovery Problem

Here is the problem:

- I have a 200gb hard drive, of which about 30gb was being used.
- I believe the prior format was NTFS
- It was all one partition (I used it via a USB external enclosure)

I bought a Netgear Storage Central Network Hard Drive Enclosure (Model: SC101), which requires you to "setup" your drive. I was going through the wizard, and accidentally allowed it to create a "new drive" -- that's what the software called it, though i believe it was just partitioning off a portion of the drive and assigning a drive letter to it. Either way, this process did some sort of quick format, because my drive was no longer readable, as it used to be. I can't see any of my files.

I know:
- My files are there, and in tact (I've seen them in hard drive recovery softwares)

My problem:
- Hard drive recovery softwares don't preserve the original filename or folder structure

What I'm looking for:
- I want to be able to restore all of the files and keep the original folder structure and filenames. Am I dreamin'? Is this possible?

I don't want:
- Links to hard drive recory software that won't provide me with the folder structure and final names.
- To pay a ton of money to someone to restore it for me -- surely there is a great piece of software or method that I just haven't heard about yet, or maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

Thanks!!!!
Dustin

LVL 1

dustinbussAsked: 2006-11-20

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LVL 11

jimbecherCommented: 2006-11-20

http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/

I think I know what you are talking about. Microsoft recovery asks you to supply yhe first letter of the file name and completely destroys the directory structure. On track recovers about as well or better then anything I have seen ...

LVL 14

yessirnosirCommented: 2006-11-20

Your best bet may be to try to a partition undelete tool. Could try BootIt NG http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html or any of several tools on the Windows Boot CD http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/. These should be able to restore the partition table with filenames intact if no new data has been written to the drive.

LVL 88

rindiCommented: 2006-11-20

Getdataback should keep the folder structure and filenames intact. Test it first and if I'm correct pay for it so you can actually copy the data off.

http://runtime.org

LVL 9

sda100Commented: 2006-11-21

RecoverMyFiles will also preserve the folder structure. Again, a trial version which requires paying for eventually, but it's not a lot.

http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

Steve :)

LVL 3

MetropolitenCommented: 2006-11-21

Getdataback has recovered data for me, as well as Disk Director (recovered whole partition! ! !)
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/
anyway, if those doesn't satisfy u, have a look to this free recovery utilities
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Search/recovery.html

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LVL 1

dustinbussAuthor Commented: 2006-11-21

I ended up going with Recoverer 2000. It was great - it let me select as few or as many files that I'd like to restore, and it totally retained the folder structure and original filenames.