I had a 2TB disk added to my PC. The disk had 1.5TB of my data.
When I booted my system, chkdsk said it found errors, and started working on the disk. It deleted 100k's of orphan id's and deleted just as many (I don't remember the exact wording of the message).
When my PC loaded at the end (Vista) to my surprise (and horror), almost ALL of my data was gone from the disk.
It now has only a small portion of the data, almost 1.4TB of data is now missing.
Is there a way I can undelete the data?
Appreciate any help.
3 Answers
According to Microsoft:
Chkdsk corrects disk errors only if you specify the /f command-line option. Chkdsk must be able to lock the drive to correct errors. Because repairs usually change a disk's file allocation table and sometimes cause a loss of data, chkdsk sends a confirmation message similar to the following:
10 lost allocation units found in 3 chains.
Convert lost chains to files?If you press Y, Windows saves each lost chain in the root directory as a file with a name in the format Filennnn.chk. When chkdsk finishes, you can check these files to see if they contain any data you need. If you press N, Windows fixes the disk, but it does not save the contents of the lost allocation units.
The above is for XP but I expect it also applies to Vista.
2You have to go to folder options and deselect "Hide protected operating system files".
Then you will see a hidden system folder FOUND.000 in the root folder.
Inside that are the recovered file fragments. Open with hex editor or whatever and try to put the fragments back together.
I ended up purchasing a commercial software that gave me access back to my files.
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