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Question

recovering data from HDD

Apr 5, 2020 5:18PM PDT

Hello, so I have put my self in a pickle. I used a hdd from a old laptop (Windows 7) as an external memory drive to save and back up lots of files. I was bored so I fixed the old laptop and tried putting the original hdd back. There was issues right away so the laptop tried to fix disk errors without affecting files. This led to not able to boot up anymore. I removed the hdd and plugged it via usb into my current laptop (Windows 10). All the files that were added externally are gone. Still contains files from original laptop. Is there any chance those files are still somewhere ? Any advice on how to recover them? I have looked at some software recovery programs like Testdisk, but I rather get some advice before I start attempting things.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Try this app.
Apr 5, 2020 9:06PM PDT

RECUVA.

Why? RECUVA does not write to this drive. It only tries to read.

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Answer
Most of the Recovery Tools Only Read Hard Drives
Apr 6, 2020 11:54PM PDT

You can try any data recovery software which you want to, as all the data recovery tools only read the drive for recovering data and before saving recoverable files asks to save them at desired location. I would suggest you to try Stellar free data recovery software. It is easy to use and shows preview of recoverable files at free of cost.

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Testdisk?
Apr 7, 2020 10:02AM PDT

It's been a few months but Testdisk could write to the drive.

As to Stellar I never tried it since since RECUVA was free and worked fine.
Also Stellar seems to be spammed a lot. I can't tell why.

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Answer
so far
Apr 7, 2020 1:40PM PDT

Recuva seems possible but I have to set some time aside to do deep scan. Might give stellar a try as well. Do you guys have any experience with ubuntu live cd. I was told it views files differently compared to Microsoft .

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Yes on Linux.
Apr 7, 2020 1:44PM PDT

I noted to try that a few years back at http://tips.oncomputers.info/archives2004/0401/2004-Jan-11.htm

Very nice as you don't learn Linux, just boot and use a file explorer to see what you can see to copy files out.

HOWEVER you could end up writing to the drive so RECUVA is your safest bet if you opt not to clone the drive before you try to repair the file system or OS.