59 replies to this topic

[Jimbo1]

@ Jimbo I have checked the drive and didn't see any other folders, hidden or unidden with the files and there were no backups.

Hummm, Going to let Lee or Terry or someone run with this, kinda stumped me on that one I am out of options of this.

Jimbo1

[terry1966]

ok lets start from the beginning and try and find/backup those files, we'll work on getting your old pc up and running after all the files from both of your old hard drives have been saved to the new pc. we won't use puppy yet(if at all, and yes puppy will run with no hard drives connected, it runs from memory and whatever medium you use to boot it from, of course you'd need hard drives connected if we were going to use photorec, 1 to search and 1 to save to, but that's something i'm hoping you won't need anyway) because windows on your new pc should see and be able to copy any files from the external enclosure. so first take both old hard drives out of your old pc, put them into the enclosure(do 2nd after all files have been copied from 1st) and connect them to your new pc. if windows doesn't see the external hard drive when connected then it may have failed so try the next one, anyway now you should just be able to drag any files from the external hard drive onto the new pc, once that's done put the 2nd hard drive into the enclosure and copy the files off it, with any luck on 1 of those old hard drives you should of found the files your looking for. keep a note of everything you do,especially any errors/problems you may have and post them in your next repy, with any luck you'll find the missing files and copied them without any problems and we can proceed to get your old pc up and running again.

[leader2]

Thanks for your reply terry. I tried searching the 2nd hd from the old comp and the files weren't there. It was an old 6 gb. that had much of nothing on it and definitely not the files I needed, which I didnt't expect. The other drive I previously mentioned isn't showing the files I need. Just the old files before the problem occurred and before I did the reinstall. Thanks for any help you can give

[terry1966]

ok if you've backed up all files from both drives you need and nothing is on them that matters if lost(especially the 6gb one) lets put both drives back into the old pc, but before you do, i want you to check the jumper settings on the back of each drive, i'm assuming they are ide drives and not sata drives. you should see a diagram on the bottom of the drives that show which pins the jumper(it's on the rear of the drive) should be connected to, to set them as master/slave or cable select, now make sure they both are set to cable select, now when you connect them back in the pc put the 6gb drive on the connection in the middle(slave) of the long ribbon cable and the large drive on the end(master) of the same cable(i have a feeling it was connected to the middle connection last time and was why it only showed up as slave) fingers crossed it will now boot as normal, if not then try putting them the other way around and try booting again, if still no boot place them back so large drive is on the end connection and you will need to do a repair or clean install of your os to get it booting again, but i'd prefer doing that after we have searched the drive with photorec for the files, the less you write to the drive the more chance you'll have of finding them again. now i need to download puppy and refresh my memory on how to use photorec so it might be a long while before i post a how to guide(couple of days at least, am a bit busy at moment) on it's use to find your missing files. to be honest i'm not having a great feeling of successful outcome here, because from all that you've said windows should of been able to find them if they were on that drive in the first place. how many partitions are there on that drive? if you don't want to wait for my instructions you can always use google and search for guides on puppy and using photorec to find lost/deleted files off a hard drive(finds them even after a drives been formatted), i'd suggest saving any found files to the 6gb drive.

Edited by terry1966, 28 September 2011 - 11:01 AM.

[terry1966]

going to be longer than i first thought before i give detailed instructions leader2 because i was trying to do it in a virtual machine but for some reason puppy won't mount my virtual hard drives so means i'll have to set up a dedicated machine with 2 real hard drives in, and i don't have the hardware free at moment.

anyway if you want to try on your own, first start puppy then after installing a browser go to this site:- http://www.cgsecurit...stDisk_Download and save the linux file for testdisk 6.12

next click on the file icon on the desktop and navigate to the folder(root probably if you changed nothing so will need to hit the green up arrow to go up a level and see the root folder then click on it to enter) where you saved the bz2/zip file, just click on it and extract them all, this'll create a new folder called testdisk-6.12

now mount both hard drives sda1 and sdb1 if they are not mounted already, just click on each of them in turn, should see them at bottom left of desktop.

next open a console(you'll see an icon on the desktop just click it) and type in(or copy and paste if you have this page open in puppy) this command(if you extracted it in the root folder, if not then you'll need to alter the change directory path to the correct place)

cd ~/testdisk-6.12

and to run photorec type(or copy and paste)

./photorec_static

this'll start photorec and now you just have to follow the on screen instructions(use arrow keys,space bar and enter keys to navigate), tell it:-

what drive/partition to search(should be sda for first drive, be interested to know exactly what options it gives you because still don't know how many partitions are on each of your drives, sda, sdb, sdc etc are the drives and the numbers are the partitions on the drives, sda1, sda2,sda3 etc.),

what files to search for(i'd search only for .mp3 files to start)

where to save any found files(save to the 6gb drive should be /mnt/sdb1 for first partition on 2nd hard drive)

once it's found and saved all the mp3 files(could take a long time/hrs searching) turn off the pc take the 6gb drive out and connect it to your new pc in the external enclosure and see if the found mp3 files are the ones you lost(they won't be the same name, you'll have to play them and see what they are then rename them to what you want).
if they are, it's good news, just copy them to the new pc, then clear the 6gb drive and put it back in old pc and search for the video files you've lost.
if they are not the ones then i'm afraid no point going any further because you'll only get the same result if you searched for your video files, and i've no idea what you did or where you saved them in the first place because i seriously doubt they were on that drive.

let me know how you get on or if you need detailed instructions on photorecs use and i'll figure out a way to get a test pc up and running.

Edited by terry1966, 01 October 2011 - 04:05 AM.

[leader2]

Thanks for that reply Terry. It was very detailed and I appreciate your help. I hope I will be able to get it right. Now are you telling me to take the Linux puppy disk and put it on my old computer and then boot up from there with the two hard drives in it? Will this work Terry since the computer wouldn't boot up properly due to that error I told you about? Are you absolutely sure the puppy can bypass this error? The drive is in the enclosure now and I didn't want to have to put it back in the old comp unless you are sure it will work. So please let me know your thoughts on this. And hooray! This is my 100th post here btw! I just want to let you guys know I appreciate being a part of this forum. I think it's great and appreciate all the help I've been given. Regardless of how things go with this thanks guys for helping me. I appreciate it.

Edited by leader2, 01 October 2011 - 06:54 AM.

[terry1966]

yes puppy will boot from your cd drive and work on your old pc(as long as the only problem was to do with the windows os) also where i said to take the 6gb drive back out after using photorec to copying the files to it, you don't need to do this, you can just check the found files using puppy, i was have a dim moment. also i got everything to work in my vm finally, so if you do need more detailed instructions with pictures, i can create a step by step guide for you. when you search for mp3 music files also x the riff files to look for .wav music files.

Edited by terry1966, 01 October 2011 - 06:41 PM.

[leader2]

Thank you so much terry you are always so helpful. Please do make a step by step guide with pictures. I'm afraid I'm going to need it since I've never done this before and don't want to make any mistakes. Thanks again for your help. I appreciate it.

[terry1966]

i've started working on the guide but have been busy so just wanted say i haven't forgotten you but it'll be another day or so before i get the time to finish it and post it here.

[leader2]

No problem terry. I really appreciate you doing this and taking your time out to help me. I'm a patient person and your efforts are much appreciated. Thanks again!

[terry1966]

thanks for your patience leader2 now this guide was written with you in mind, i assumed both your hard drives only had 1 partition and were in the old pc connected as i suggested in an earlier post with the master (sda1 drive with lost files) on the end cable connection and the slave(sdb1 empty 6gb drive where the files will be saved) on the middle connection. sda1 should show up as the largest drive and sdb1 should show up as the 6gb drive when your in puppy, if they don't show up like the guide please post any discrepancies in your next reply before going any farther, last thing we want is for you to use/write to the wrong drive/partition. i only searched for mp3 and wav music files because they should fit onto your 6gb drive from what you've said, if you do find your lost music files then we're going to need to connect the search drive to your new pc and run puppy on there with some changes to the search/save, drive/partitions because i doubt the 6gb drive will be big enough to save your video files to. just had a thought while writing this.. your 6gb drive is that an actual physical hard drive or was it just a hard drive that showed up in your windows os when it was working? anyway i hope this helps..

[terry1966]

formatted/deleted a partition/drive then realized you had files on it you needed? then this guide may help you recover them.

first download and burn the latest version of puppy linux to a bootable medium, such as a cd or flash memory stick/drive then restart your machine using the medium as the first boot option to start running puppy linux.(maybe oneday i'll write a guide for this too.)
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setting up puppy:-
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when puppy starts up you'll see this screen,

do nothing and it will boot to a puppy desktop in a few seconds.

now the first thing you will see is a welcome notice followed by this personalize settings box,

change your time,language, keyboard setting by clicking the down arrows and choosing from each dropdown box.
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setting up a web browser:-
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now before we can download and run photorec we need to setup a web browser, so click on the browse icon on the desktop, this will open a browser installer menu..

just click on your browser of choice(i use firefox) this gives me a choice of 2 versions, just click on the newest one to start the download.
when it's finished downloading, you'll get a confirmation box open up, just click the "ok" button to install,
when it's installed you'll get a success box open up, again just click "ok" button.
now it'll install and update everything.
click on the browse icon button again this time it will start the firefox web browser.
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getting photorec:-
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goto this site http://www.cgsecurit...stDisk_Download and click on the latest linux version to start the download..
a box will open up..

we want to save the file so click on the save file option, then click the "ok" button
this box will open..

we are not going to change any of the defaults, and as you can see the file is going to be saved into the root folder, so just click the "save" button. when it's finished downloading the file just close the firefox web browser.
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installing photorec:-
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click on the "file" icon on desktop to open the file manager..
now click on the green up arrow to change the parent directory, here you will now see the "root" folder where we saved photorec, click on it to enter.

now you'll see the zip file called "testdisk-6.12.linuxx26.tar.bz2"(yours may be a different version) click on it, this will open a new window..

click the green tick to select all, then click the "extract" button, a new box will open asking where to extract the files, we're not going to change it from the root folder so just click on the "ok" button, when done extracting another box will open saying so, just click "ok" now you should see a new folder in the file window called "testdisk-6.12"(depends on version you downloaded), close both the open windows to finish.
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mounting all your partitions:-
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now before we go any further we need to mount all drives/partitions(or at least the one you want to save any files to), you should see them on the desktop near the bottom left, just click each in turn, this should put a little green dot on the bottom corner of the drive icon and also open a file manager, so you can see what if anything is on that drives partition.


i can't stress this enough, you need to KNOW(not think you know) the layout of your hard drives and any partitions other wise you run the risk of overwriting any lost files.
here's a quick explanation:- linux sees hard drives in the order they are connected to the motherboard as shown in your pc's bios and not in the order they may appear in your windows operating system, don't assume the c drive in windows is the first partition on your first hard drive, it may well not be.

linux names hard drives sda, sdb, sdc etc(used to be hda, hdb, hdc etc) for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc hard drive as seen in bios.
logical partitions on those drives are shown as numbers 1,2,3,4. if your hard drives have extended partitions then those numbers will start at 5 (so for an xp system with an 1 os partition and a 2nd data partition on it's first drive you'd probably see "sda1" and "sda5" where the "sda5" is the 2nd partition, not that there are 5 partitions on the drive and for some reason 2,3,4 don't show.)

as you can see from above picture, i have 2 hard drives, each with a single partition on, sda1 and sdb1, and both are mounted shown by the green dot.
sda1 is the drive/partition the lost files are on and sdb1 is the drive/partition where i'm going to save any found files.
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starting photorec:-
-----------------------
click on the console icon on the desktop to open a console, now type in

cd ~/testdisk-6-12

and hit the enter/return key. notice "testdisk-6-12" is the name of the folder that was created in the "root" folder when we extracted photorec yours may be different depending on the version of testdik you downloaded so type in the correct name of your folder.
now type in

./photorec_static

as soon as you hit enter key photorec will start running.
before hitting enter/return key the console should look like this..

after hitting enter/return key, it will look like this with photorec running..

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using photorec:-
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start screen as seen in above picture, shows all detected drives in your machine, in this test system you can see i have 2 hard drives, /dev/sda 10GB and /dev/sdb 6GB along with a cd drive /dev/sr0.

now in this guide i'm going to search my first hard drive /dev/sda for some music files and save them to the 2nd hard drive /dev/sdb.

NOTE:- you MUST have enough storage space on the drive/partition you're going to save the files on,
usually i'd recommend having an empty drive/partition at least as big as the drive/partition you're searching, just to be sure.
but if you know how much space your files used you can get away with using an empty drive/partition at least 15% bigger than that amount.

highlight the hard drive you want to search, using the up down arrow keys on the keyboard
"/dev/sda" and "proceed" are both highlighted and i just have to hit the enter/return key to carry on to the next screen.

on this screen you have to specify the partition table type, for most people(all windows users regardless of operating system) this is going to be the first already highlighted "Intel" choice, so just hit the enter/return key to go to next screen.

now here you can see the hard drive i'm searching listed along with the partitions on it(there is only 1 partition on this test system, yours may have more partition choices)

i'm going to search all the hard drive so, i use the up arrow key to highlight the "no partition [whole disk]" choice
next i'm going to change the type of files to search for (if you want to search for all file types then just jump to next post)
use the right arrow key until the "file opt" is highlighted,
should now look similar to this:-

hit the enter/return key to see next screen.

hit the "s" key on your keyboard to deselect all the choices, you'll see this removes the x from next to all the file types.
now i only want mp3 and wav music files,(here you'll make your own choices on what file types you want to find, video, documents, etc)
so keep tapping(or just hold it) the down arrow key until "mp3" is highlighted then hit the spacebar to select it(shown with an x )

i also want wav files so i carry on tapping the down arrow key until "riff" is highlighted(now this adds the wav type files but as you can see below, this will also add any cdr and avi files it finds) hit the spacebar again to select it.

now hit the enter/return key to return to last screen.

[terry1966]

use the left arrow key to highlight "search" (if it's not already highlighted) and hit the enter key


here you need to know how the drive/partition was formatted, only linux users will probably have an "ex" type drive/partition so most people will use the already highlighted "other" and just hit the enter/return key

you only see this next screen if you chose to search the partition and not the whole drive earlier.

now you have to choose whether to search the [whole] partition or just the [free] unallocated space on that partition(in other words space that would show as empty if in your windows os) i'm going to search the whole drive, so hit the down arrow key once and hit the enter/return key


this is a very important part, choosing where your going to save the found files, please get this right, other wise you may overwrite any lost files your trying to find.
as you can see from the picture the Directory it's going to use at the moment is /root/ testdisk-6.12.
we need to change this, so hit the left arrow key twice until the Directory shows "/" ..
now use the down arrow key to highlight the "mnt" choice(and why we needed to mount all drives/partitions earlier)

hit enter/return key

now use the down arrow key again to highlight the partition where we are going to save the files, for me this is sdb1

now hit the enter key


here you will see any folders you may have on that partition, just leave the top choice highlighted and hit the "c" key on your keyboard to start the search.

the time it takes to do the search depends on your pc and how big the drive is.
when it's finished searching you'll get the results:-

you can see it found 293 files and saved them in a folder called "recup_dir" (not bad considering there were no music files on that drive except xp system ones)
now tap the "q" key until you get back to the console.
and close it to finish.
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now comes the time consuming and boring part.
but if the files were important enough for you to need to search for them then you shouldn't mind it.
click on the sdb1 icon on your desktop to open the drive/partition,

here you will now see the recup_dir.1 folder, click on it to enter.

you can see the found files are all numbered and don't have the original file names, they do have the file type at the end .wav .mp3 etc.

you need to manually open/listen/watch each and every file(a lot are going to be unwanted system files, all 293 in my case. ) deleting any unwanted ones and renaming the wanted ones as you go along.

you can do this either in puppy or you can exit out of puppy and do it using your windows operating system.

hope this guide helps at least one person find those very important file/s that got lost by deletion or hard drive format anyway.

Edited by terry1966, 05 October 2011 - 04:08 PM.

[paws]

Great tutorial Terry. when you have done with leader 2 perhaps we could use your tutorial as a "sticky"....? Regards paws

[terry1966]

still polishing it paws but yes i hope so too, and one reason i wrote it.