Mini Tool Data Recovery query

[Weebarra]

Firstly, apologies AGAIN if i am posting this in the wrong place. I was just wondering if the above software that MT are doing as a giveaway would help me. After being advised to back up my system, files etc, i managed to wipe everything off of my external hard drive (mainly because i don't really know what i'm doing half the time)

After doing the back up, it has split my external drive into 3 partitions (hope that's the right term) Anyway, what i am asking is, would this tool help me to try to get my stuff back ..... can it be used for an external hard drive and if i need help would someone be able to talk me through it.

 

[Arequire]

can it be used for an external hard drive and if i need help would someone be able to talk me through it.

I believe all you have to do is plug in your external drive, click undelete recovery, select your external drive and click scan. I haven't actually used the product yet so I can't say for sure if it will work but I'd suggest doing that and hopefully it will find your data and it will be recoverable.

 

[Weebarra]

Many thanks Arequire , i have downloaded the tool so i will have a look at it later and see if it looks easy enough, i suppose i have nothing to lose by trying it.
Thanks again and for the wee video link.

 

[Arequire]

Many thanks Arequire , i have downloaded the tool so i will have a look at it later and see if it looks easy enough, i suppose i have nothing to lose by trying it.
Thanks again and for the wee video link.

No problem. Hope you're able to recover your data.

 

[Myriad]

Many thanks Arequire , i have downloaded the tool so i will have a look at it later and see if it looks easy enough, i suppose i have nothing to lose by trying it.
Thanks again and for the wee video link.

I would be cautious about where I installed it .

During the install sequence I got a dialog box saying " Warning ! - do not install to the same drive where files are lost "
so I canceled .

Then I looked at installing to a USB drive or a CD , but that is a different tool with a separate license .
And it says " do not download to the drive where files are lost "

I contacted their support , hoping that someone would talk sense to me , but so far it has been mostly unsuccessful .

On the positive side , they have written to tell me that when they say " drive " , they actually mean " partition "
.... Hmm

 

[Amelith Nargothrond]

I have used the software some time ago, successfully.
I was recovering files from an external HDD of a friend, he had 2 partitions, everything vanished (can't really say how it vanished). As far as I know, almost everything was recovered (except maybe a movie or something similar, big file, can't really remember).

But, it worked. And I made somebody really happy (well, actually it was Minitool)

But he called me immediately after he discovered his cleaned up HDD. So he didn't try anything, no overwrites, no other unsuccessful recovery attempts that could overwrite data on the HDD.

 

[Winter Soldier]

I would be cautious about where I installed it .

During the install sequence I got a dialog box saying " Warning ! - do not install to the same drive where files are lost "
so I canceled .

Then I looked at installing to a USB drive or a CD , but that is a different tool with a separate license .
And it says " do not download to the drive where files are lost "

I contacted their support , hoping that someone would talk sense to me , but so far it has been mostly unsuccessful .

On the positive side , they have written to tell me that when they say " drive " , they actually mean " partition "
.... Hmm

Simply it should be installed immediately after a Windows clean installation, and before the addition of the files we can delete for error or for various causes.
When we delete a file, it is still present in the hard disk, but the sectors occupied by it are made available for overwriting, then if we install a software after deleting this file, this operation may eliminate the possibility to recover the file itself.

 

[Amelith Nargothrond]

Simply it should be installed immediately after a Windows clean installation, and before the addition of the files we can delete for error or for various causes.
When we delete a file, it is still present in the hard disk, but the sectors occupied by it are made available for overwriting, then if we install a software after deleting this file, this operation may eliminate the possibility to recover the file itself.

Great minds think alike, one said Thinking and writing the same thing at the same time

 

[Winter Soldier]

Great minds think alike, one said Thinking and writing the same thing at the same time

LOL yes you're right, I did not realize

 

[Myriad]

I wasn't thinking of deleted file recovery tools in general , I was pointing out the inconsistent use of terminology
on Minitool's own website .
They say drive when they mean partition , and download when they mean install .

 

[Winter Soldier]

And it says " do not download to the drive where files are lost "

About "download" the motivation is the same I said, downloading a file means to save the installer on the disk and then writing to the disk.

 

[Myriad]

I think we are at cross purposes here

 

[Weebarra]

Well, i have no idea what most of that means except that @Amelith Nargothrond got someones files back, lol.

I would be cautious about where I installed it .

During the install sequence I got a dialog box saying " Warning ! - do not install to the same drive where files are lost "
so I canceled .

Then I looked at installing to a USB drive or a CD , but that is a different tool with a separate license .
And it says " do not download to the drive where files are lost "

I contacted their support , hoping that someone would talk sense to me , but so far it has been mostly unsuccessful .

On the positive side , they have written to tell me that when they say " drive " , they actually mean " partition "
.... Hmm

The way i read that@Myriad is not to install the software to the external hard drive, where the files were lost from so it's installed on my pc, i didn't have any of the lost files on my pc so i'm hoping i have done it right and if it can recover them then i will transfer them to a dvd or various usb's


I am not good at explaining things and i don't know the correct terminology but what happened with mine was i was attempting to back up my system and files using Aoemi backer upper and i already had lots of music & digital files backed up to the same external drive but i clicked "clone disk" rather than system image back up and when i looked at the hard drive, it had split it into 3 partitions whereas before i just had 1 large space on my drive so it looks like it has overwritten all my stuff because there is still about 400 GB free on the drive.

I am giving it a go now and will update if i am succesful ....... if not then i will too ashamed to show my face again but it looks like it takes a few hours so i will just leave it to do it's thing.

 

[Weebarra]

Just a little update, with partial success, i left the recovery tool doing it's thing last night as it was rather lengthy so i just went to bed but when i looked in the morning, the log thing had disappeared so i had to do it all over again (the log might have been there and i just couldn't find it) anyway, i managed to get about 40 movies back which was a surprise as i had forgotten they were even on the hard drive and i got a few of my digi-kits back (these are for my hobby) i was over the moon to get all my zipped folders back too but when i actually went to open them, they were empty for some reason and it didn't recover any of my music either but at least i tried and considering i don't know what most of the names for the types of files i had were, it may well have managed to recover them if i was more computer savvy but c'est la vié as they say.