DDRescue-GUI

Restoring files from ovewritten destination partition

Asked by Claudio Pighin

I started a DDRescue activity writing on an external HD. I did not realize that previous files stored in that HD were been ovewritten! Now I know!

After three minutes of activity I had a doubt and I stopped ddrescue.

Is there any chance for recovering files which were stored on the external HD before the ddrescue activity?

Claudio :)

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Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty
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Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb) said : 		#1

Hi,

That's a difficult situation! It depends on how much data was overwritten, and where the partitions with the data were on the drive. There are free open-source tools called photorec and test disk that may be able to help you get your data back.

You can find more information on those programs here http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

Hope this helps,
Hamish

Revision history for this message
Claudio Pighin (cpighin) said : 		#2

I would like to know if DDRescue formats tehe destination partition before writing on. I imagine that in this case there are no chances for recovering files.

Thanks :)

Revision history for this message
Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb) said : 		#3

Hi,

No, it doesn't format. It literally overwrites the data up to wherever it got to, so you may get some of it back, but whatever was overwritten is probably gone .

Hope this helps,
Hamish

> On 27 Oct 2016, at 10:58, Claudio Pighin <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> Question #403528 on DDRescue-GUI changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ddrescue-gui/+question/403528
>
> Status: Answered => Open
>
> Claudio Pighin is still having a problem:
> I would like to know if DDRescue formats tehe destination partition
> before writing on. I imagine that in this case there are no chances for
> recovering files.
>
> Thanks :)
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are subscribed to
> the question.

Revision history for this message
Claudio Pighin (cpighin) said : 		#4

Thanks!

it is normal that tehe result of a Gpart analyse of the disc gave "no known file system found"?

Claudio :)

Revision history for this message
Best Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty (hamishmb) said : 		#5

In this situation, yeah, cos the data that tells it which filesystem the disk uses has probably been overwritten. You can probably use photorec to read the whole surface of the disk anyway if I recall right.

Hamish

> On 27 Oct 2016, at 13:43, Claudio Pighin <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> Question #403528 on DDRescue-GUI changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ddrescue-gui/+question/403528
>
> Status: Answered => Open
>
> Claudio Pighin is still having a problem:
> Thanks!
>
> it is normal that tehe result of a Gpart analyse of the disc gave "no
> known file system found"?
>
> Claudio :)
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are subscribed to
> the question.

Revision history for this message
Claudio Pighin (cpighin) said : 		#6

Thanks Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty, that solved my question.