What steps can I take to try to recover lost or inaccessible data from any storage device?
Answers:
We have separate questions covering common problems with USB flash drives in greater detail:
Answer
Pray, it will help as it calms you down. :-)
Get direct access to the data.
When recovering files from an external drive it's important to have the shortest connection possible.
This means that you want to get rid of any extra USB cables, USB hubs or equipment you don't need.
If you are recovering from an external hard drive, try to get it out and connect it using a SATA cable...
If you are recovering from an USB stick, try to connect it to the back of your computer, try different ports.
Downloading and burn an Ultimate Boot CD needed for further steps.
Most tools used in this post are all available on the Ultimate Boot CD.
Download the Ultimate Boot CD at the bottom of this page: Click on the
icon next to a mirror.Optionally, to ensure quality, run a checksum with this program against the checksum listed here.
Burn the ISO to a CD using ImgBurn on Windows, LiquidCD on Mac OSX or Brasero on Linux.
Optionally, to ensure quality, make sure it verifies the CD.
Take a backup (EASEUS Disk Copy).
As we'll try to recover the file system and/or recover the data we are going to tamper with the disk, for this reason you might want to take a preliminary back-up to ensure that if things go wrong you still have a back-up available. If you suspect disk failure you might even want to consider to exercise the back-up instead so you can still send your hard drive to forensics companies if you really need the data...
Start the Ultimate Boot CD.
Go to HDD --> Cloning Tools --> EASEUS Disk Copy.
Do a disk copy to another device that has enough space free.
This will copy the data exactly at a sector-by-sector level.
Check if a hard drive is still in a fine state (SMARTUDM).
Before we tamper with the drive we want to be sure we aren't making its state worse, so let's first check the state:
Start the Ultimate Boot CD.
Go to HDD --> Device Management Tools --> SMARTUDM.
Check if any of the S.M.A.R.T. attributes has a ***** that is in yellow or red, this denotes a bad state.
If the state isn't fine, try to recover in case of mechanical issues.
If the state is fine, then we'll do an error scan to be aware and get rid of issues:
Start the Ultimate Boot CD.
Go to HDD --> Diagnostic Tools --> ViVARD.
Let it perform an error scan, note how much errors are found and how many remaps are done.
Identify the file system.
Covered by How do I identify the file system used on a partition?.
Try to repair (TestDisk).
Prior to doing the actual recovery, you might sometimes have the need to repair the partition(s) and file system(s) first. This is where TestDisk comes into play, I would recommend to take a look at what it does.
This is how to get to it:
Start the Ultimate Boot CD.
Go to HDD --> Data Recovery Tools --> TestDisk.
Read the documentation at the bottom of this page and try to repair your data.
Use recovery software (PhotoRec).
Now that the preliminary stuff has been done, this is how you can start recovering:
Start the Ultimate Boot CD.
Go to HDD --> Data Recovery Tools --> PhotoRec.
Read the documentation at the bottom of this page (example: step by step) and recover your data.
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