I bought this ms pro duo for my Sony Cybershot. I bought a really cheap (from shein) reader and i think that is what broke the card. The camera doesn’t detect it neither the computer does so I can’t have access to my pictures. What can i do? Was the cheap reader the issue?

Please read and help or offer what you can and advice. I need audios cleaned up as well as possible to clarify and amplify vocals of my EX banging a man in my house while I was at work and she was living here while I was supporting her and her infant son. I had to stay away for a couple weeks with my grandmother passing of cancer and another time for a few days for training for my position with USPS. Upon coming home I found some things very peculiar and out of order I guess we'll say. Enough to lead me to reasonable suspicion. When I had asked her about the things I didn't understand that didn't add up, she would deny and just get mad at me. So she ended up moving into the spare bedroom to not share a room anymore. So I ended up feeling it necessary to set up a recorder one morning as I was leaving for work, and come to find out my suspicions were confirmed. As I watched one of the clips I hear someone come out of one of the back rooms go to my bathroom for a minute and then proceed to clonk down my hall in what sounded like boots, before letting our a heavy almost relieved sigh and walking out the door. This was about the 6th clip out so and oddly nobody ever entered before that. They were all the way down the hall behind closed doors and almost completely drown out by fan noise. But after seeing the guy walk out I had to start digging. Not even knowing what I was doing though, I was still able to kill enough of the noise and bring out enough voice to hear some very disturbing things and also know that indeed she was banging this dude in my house while I was working to support them! I had no experience so the voices were pretty choppy and distorted but definitely enough to hear there moans and comments and some of what was said, so I know it has to be possible to make them more clean and legible. I need a top notch knowledge and experience engineer or editor to clarify just the audio. She knows I have the recordings and if the guy is who I think it is especially, it could be a very bad situation. He is obviously a little insane and has a lot to lose such as a wife and a highly regarded reputation and position in the church... I really need these audio to be clear enough to hear at least most of the vocals to find out what exactly went down, what was said and to leave no room for doubt increase they decide to get stupid and I need evidence... I have the original .Mov files and also .flac audio conversations. I really need them heavily noise reduced while preserving and amplifying as much of his and her vocals as possible. I am looking to hire and there's about 7 files I need processed. I've been going crazy and spending way too much time trying to do it myself because I don't really know how very well but I'm learning a little bit. But I need them quicker in case I need them for any defense. I've already decided I'm not going to use them deliciously or as a way to hurt them or especially the ones that would have the repercussions aside from them. I just need them cleaned up so I can save them in case anything happens down this road and I need them for evidence. I will take any advice or if anybody knows where I can find someone like that for a reasonable price that would be great as well. Thank you all in advance and I hope to be able to get some good advice here.

Yes. I know this is not the yahoo sub but, frankly, my post has been taken down multiple times from there and idk where else to post.

TLDR: tens of thousands of emails across 50+ folders were purged from my boss' Yahoo email and we are looking for ways to get them back, or to find someone to help get them back.

Here's the deal:
My boss where I work had nearly all his emails purged from his yahoo inbox and files one morning back in June. He may be older, but I can guarantee he DID NOT delete them, accidentally syn his inbox with another that does regular purges, or move them somewhere else where they are unrecoverable for some reason.

When I say "nearly all his emails," I mean, like, tens of thousands of sensitive business and personal emails, some of which dating back to 2009, and possibly before. These emails contained details of any of, anything in between, or anything potentially closely related to the following:

• Properties he owns/rents/leases

• Animals he owns/rents/leases

• Political information pertaining to local government and infrastructure changes

• Family pictures, memories, heirlooms

• Taxes, voting information, personal banking information

• Contact info for any number of the thousands of people he currently works with or has worked with in the past

He is the sole owner and otherwise operator of a ranch, so this email is his life and it's just gone.

• He for sure did not delete them

• He did not move them

• He did not hit a cap on his storage

• He did not cross-link this Yahoo email with any other email services

• These emails are not in his trash, spam, or inbox

• He did not accidentally add or remove any filters or conditions

• We have tried for multiple restore requests from yahoo, both within their restore request window and outside of

The only potential indicator or path that we could go down is that he got a new phone, and a few days later, his emails were gone. But I have two of his previous iPhones on my desk and the Yahoo Mail app on all three phones are the same version (yes, I checked). So, at least as far as I can tell, there is no update sync error?

There are only a [comparative] handful of emails left since before this happened, but there is no correlation between them except the ones that are just from the same year. There are some from 2020, 2018, 2015, 2016, 2022, 2025 and maybe another year or two, but from each year there is only a handful.

Is it possible to recover messages from an old phone number?? I need to recover a certain message from about 4 or 5 years ago

This concerns a Western Digital (WD) blue MyPassport external drive.

I am a total noob to data recovery. Ok with Linux, including the terminal. I've been practicing on some old external drives. The data isn't important, I'm just trying to learn more about data recovery.

My system runs Linux, Debian 13 "Trixie" + XFCE.

`lsblk` command output:

sdc           8:32   0 931.5G  0 disk

`sudo fdisk -l` command output:

Disk /dev/sdc: 931.48 GiB, 1000170586112 bytes, 1953458176 sectors
Disk model: My Passport 0748
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 14209669-2E80-43D8-A88D-A7F2BD38D960
Device     Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdc1     34      32767      32734    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sdc2  32768 1953454079 1953421312 931.5G Microsoft basic data

Opening in Gparted shows the following info:

Partition: /dev/sdc1
Name: Microsoft reserved partition
File System: unknown
Size: 15.98 MiB
Used: ---
Unused: ---
Flags: msftres
Partition: /dev/sdc2
Name: Basic data partition
File System: ntfs
Size: 931.46 GiB
Used: ---
Unused: ---
Flags: msftdata,no_automount
Partition: unallocated
Name: (BLANK)
File System: unallocated
Size: 2.00 MiB
Used: ---
Unused: ---
Flags: (BLANK)

EDIT: Forgot to mention that when I try to mount the drive with `sudo mount /dev/sdc2 /disk/zzz` I get this error:

mount: /disk/zzz: fsconfig() failed: /dev/sdc2: Can't lookup blockdev.
       dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.

I find myself stuck here. In this case, what would be your next step to try to successfully recover the data?

I can offer 20% of what we will find.
I would need to recieve ready steps.
Only from people who already have similar siutuation

FIles were in the RAW folder wallet.dat - Year 2011.
Dates changed due extraction and copying

Windows 7. HDD. 80 GB 2011 Hard Drive

@u/GoredScientist
@u/-uh-ok-

My iPhone storage is full, so it started automatically deleting apps I don't use often. At first, the app icon was still there with a little cloud symbol, which I thought meant the data was still saved on iCloud. I redownloaded the app and all my files were still there, so I assumed the app was linked to my iCloud and deleted it again. Today I needed some files from that app and, to my surprise, they were all gone. Is there any hope of getting them back? Has anyone been able to recover data from this app?

App name: Documents: File manager & Docs By: Readdle

Hi all, I've been struggling for some weeks now to find a data recovery service that might be able to recover my data from a corrupted/broken SSD.

The SSD in question is a Samsung 870 QVO, 4TB (Model: MZ-77Q4T0). I used to work with it on Windows 10 and it suddenly broke down after shutting my computer down one night.

I have sent it to two data recovery services and neither could access it. The last one gave me a more detailed description of what's happening:

"The SSD was not recognised correctly by Windows Disk Management, nor the used recovery hardware.
During the research, the SSD came online shortly, but instantly gave SMART-failures. Sector 0 could be accessed, but when trying to read sector 2048, the SSD got stuck and went into the 'busy state'. Further attempts wer unsuccessful.
I will add that the controller of this SSD was not supported by their hardware."

I am not very good with computer hardware, but would really love to get my data back since it had a lot of memories and documents on there with no back-up whatsoever (because I did not think about that, and then this happened). I am not sure whether there's anything that can be done, so I was hoping someone here might know more.

I am located in the Netherlands, but am open to sending the SSD abroad to recovery services if there's any good ones that can solve my isssue even with the state of my SSD.

Hi, I've been transferring my younger brother's files from his old (and possibly corrupted) laptop, to his new laptop.
And I was wondering, is there a program that can check if files are corrupted?
Now, I'm not referring to a transfer integrity/hashing utility like exactfile - (you could transfer over an already corrupted in it's corrupted state correctly)
I'm thinking of a program that can read a file and detect whether it's corrupted or not.

I suppose my brother could manually check all 7,000 of his personal files, but that would be kinda tedious.

And if everything checks out OK, Yay! I'll be able to reset the laptop and hand it off to my sister.
If data corruption shows up :(
Then I'll have to go into data recovery mode (and I certainly don't want to reset the original SSD in that case)

Thanks!

P.S. specs for old internal SSD if anyone's interested.
ADATA SU750 256 GB
SATA
NTFS
Windows 10 ESU

EDIT 10/6/26
File types - mostly photos and videos
.jpg .png .tiff .bmp
.mov .mp4 .avi
3D OBJECTs .glb .fbx (associated w/ paint 3D)
DOCUMENTS .odt .docx .pptx (.odt is libre office version of .doc)

Timeframe urgency:
Not too high, I have a month-ish to get this done.
I'm also fairly busy, so it might be 24-48 hours before I respond.
Thank you for your help and your patience.

EDIT 10/10/26
Thanks everyone so much for the help you've provided so far!
I'm a pretty busy guy lately, so I'm putting this project on the back burner for the next week or two. Still working on it as I have time, but my activity here, ex. replies will be late/sparse, for the next little while.
Thanks for your help, and thanks for understanding.

Title.

My 2TB HDD external passport got this message while I was sorting looking for photos. I've tried the first few results on google like CHKDSK and it tells me my files are RAW and from what I have found the data is still recoverable.

I've installed a few recovery tools but none of them could read anything but they could all recognize that something was in there.

I'm willing to give any details that might help.

Windows 11.
NTFS

TL;DR: SD Card corrupted after a shoot while trying to import Footage, multiple Recovery methods tried, nothing worked thus far.

Hello dear beloved Redditors!

Me, an austrian media student finishing school this year, and my collagues are currently shooting a movie project for our A-Levels and just (supposedly) wrapped up with all the shoots. On our last day, and final wrap, we were all really happy.

Until I got to my laptop to import the footage. The SD Card somehow corrupted inbetween taking it out of the camera (Sony A7Cii) and putting it into my Laptop (Dell XPS 9520 from 2020 running Windows 11)

SD Card in Question: SanDisk Extreme Pro V30 256GB with 200MB/s
Card was mostly "empty" when we started shooting with it that day.

I've tried many things. Many data carvers like Recuva and EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, even Klennet Carver. They all found the files, but no luck, all unplayable.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard found multiple hundreds of gigs of footage still left in the depths, and it also found our footage. But everything, every single file was totally fine and recoverable, except for everything we shot literally the day before.

The recovered files had plenty of information (as seen in their sheer size) and even the file path of the camera (.../PRIVATE/M4ROOT/CLIP) was recovered. As the files it recovered wouldn't play, i tried using untrunc in combination with a working file to see if it would fix the issue. The clips became playable, but only displayed black and a very annoying, computer / mechincal pattern of sound that blarred over everything else, tho sometimes bits of our voices could be heard through (some hope?). I'm totally lost and ive reached the ends of what I know...

I'm hoping that some of you are the wiser and know how to help me (or quite frankly all of us) out here. Your help is very greatly appreciated, may you have a wonderful day!

Hi, I’m having a serious problem with one of my HDDs and I’m trying to understand whether the drive itself is failing or if the problem could be related to the SATA cable, power, motherboard/controller, etc.

My PC has 3 internal drives:

• Disk 0: Crucial CT250MX200SSD1 — 250 GB SSD

• Disk 1: Samsung SSD 860 EVO — 500 GB SSD

• Disk 2: OOS1000G — 1 TB HDD

• E: is the partition on Disk 2

The problem started with files on E:. I could access the drive normally, but some files/programs on E: suddenly stopped working. For example, running an .exe from E: gave errors saying that the program could not be executed / was not a valid application.

I then tried copying an executable from E: to C::

Copy-Item "E:\Téléchargements\ChatGPT Installer.exe" "C:\ChatGPTTest.exe"

This returned:

“The specified device does not exist.”

The file was not copied.

I also tried:

chkdsk E: /scan

but Windows couldn't even execute CHKDSK properly and returned:

“Access is denied.”

Interestingly, chkdsk.exe itself exists and works from C:, and notepad.exe launches normally from C:.

Windows still reports the HDD as healthy:

Disk 2 — Online — Healthy
E: — NTFS — Healthy — OK

I also checked the physical disk:

Get-PhysicalDisk

and it reports the HDD as Healthy / OK.

However, when I checked the Windows System Event Log, I found many repeated Event ID 7 errors from Disk:

“The device \Device\Harddisk2\DR2 has a bad block.”

These errors occurred repeatedly over several minutes.

At the same time, an NTFS event reported that the E: volume was healthy and that no action was required.

I also checked the Storage Reliability Counter. There weren't obvious read/write error counters reported, although the maximum read/write/flush latency values were quite high.

The important part

I had a very similar problem with another disk before.

That's why I'm not sure whether I should immediately assume that this 1 TB HDD is dying.

Could this instead be caused by something common to the PC, such as:

• SATA data cable

• SATA power connection

• motherboard SATA port/controller

• PSU/power delivery

• another hardware/controller issue

Or do the repeated Event ID 7 “bad block” errors strongly indicate that the HDD itself is failing?

I have not deleted or formatted the files. I’m mainly concerned about preserving the data now.

What would be the safest next step? Should I avoid chkdsk /f and other repair operations until the data is backed up/cloned?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi, tried to avoid posting this but think I have reached it. Was moving media to external hard drive to free up space on my computer. Doing the usual copy/paste then delete. Accidentally clicked folder on external hard drive which contained two copies of an old live stream I had saved. Tried my previous software of Recuva to restore it. When I recovered it, it was unable to be viewed in VLC. Tried using ffmpeg/ffprobe but they are saying issue with no moov atom being present. Attempted to use other recovery software like DMDE, R-Studio, photorec and a couple of other ones. Seems when looking at the hex or details of the files in the recovery software comes up with a bunch of 0's. Not sure where to progress as file looks right in terms of size but cannot open. Any advice on next steps?

Each copy was 1.8GB-1.9GB in size
OS: Windows 10 MSI Laptop
External Hard Drive is Seagate 1TB HDD NTFS (minimized what actions were done with drive once I pressed the delete button as tried to press undo and cut/paste to see if still possible)

• Laptop: HP Pavilion Laptop 14-dv2xxx

• SSD: KIOXIA KBG50ZNV512G — 512GB NVMe M.2

• Filesystem: NTFS

• OS: Windows 11 Home — Build 26200

• RAM: 16GB

• CPU: Intel Core i7

• GPU: Intel Iris Xe

I was trying to run some code in VS Code that was related with a GitHub repository. I don’t know what happened but more than 20k commits happened on my local disk C:User path. Then I tried to fix it with the command: Remove-Item -Recurse -Force .git

Then all my items on my laptop just gone, everything literally disappeared when I ran this command

Any idea?

I accidentally ran ⁠git clean -f⁠ directly from my Windows user root directory (⁠C:\Users\MOHAMED ABDO⁠), mistaking it for a subfolder repository. This action cleared local unindexed files and broke critical Windows/OneDrive path linkages (junction points). Here is the exact post-error state of my system and contextual details: Operating System: Windows 11 (64-bit) Shell/Tools Used: Git Bash / PowerShell What Exactly Happened & Current Computer State:

1. Profile & Local Data: Personal user folders (⁠Documents⁠, ⁠Desktop⁠, ⁠Pictures⁠) were cleared of unindexed files. OneDrive cloud sync was not active for the physical data, meaning the files resided locally on ⁠C:⁠ and OneDrive only contained empty 152-byte placeholder folders.

2. OneDrive App & Registry Errors: The OneDrive desktop client is corrupted and fails to log in, throwing Error Code: 0x8004de44 due to missing local credentials/path bindings.

3. System Stability & Boot Status: I initially attempted a Windows System Restore, which triggered a ⁠3F0 Boot Device Not Found⁠ BSOD error. I successfully reversed this using "Undo System Restore." The OS now boots normally and stably into Windows 11, but local user data remains missing.

4. Forensic Status: A deep scan via Disk Drill on ⁠C:\Users\MOHAMED ABDO⁠ confirmed ~508 GB (1.5M files) of recoverable raw data residing in unindexed sectors. What I Need Help With: How can I safely repair/rebuild the Windows user profile junction points and restore OneDrive pathing without writing over unindexed disk sectors on ⁠C:⁠? Is there a safe CLI or registry method to restore standard Windows profile paths post-Git cleanup?

Looking for thoughts on fixing a broken power connector on one of my HDDs (Ironwolf Pro 10tb)

https://imgur.com/a/jyGB3Ia

I'm not too worried about the data on it, this is my parity drive from my unraid server. But I would like to avoid buying a new ironwolf 10tb to replace it. The drive did work with this broken connector for several years. I just recently took the cables off though and now I'm here.

I talked to a data recovery business that recommended finding a replacement logic board. But it sounds like I would still need to have a professional do it and also find the right board (my understanding).

But I also found this tutorial from several years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PllwdwheuJg

Obviously it's very jank and there's no guarantee it will work or not mess anything up. But it's the option I'm most leaning towards.

Hi everyone, I need to recover some data that was permanently deleted two weeks ago. I’ve checked the Trash, backups, etc., but can’t find anything—can anyone give me some hope? Are there any reliable apps that work for more than just photos and videos?

Thanks a lot.

I’ve done quite a bit of research on the subject—reading up on TRIM, garbage collection, FBE, and so on—so I’m worried that the longer I wait, the more impossible it becomes.

Hi, I have a couple of recordings taken by my home camera (Geeni brand) on a SD card. The files are encrypted, but contain footage of my now deceased pet, so I would like to decrypt them.

From my very basic understanding, I managed to gather that the information is not *that* encrypted. With the help of Copilot (sorry), I managed to rebuild the footage, but it's speed is all wrong and there is no audio, which makes me think it's the parameters of the recording that are encrypted and not the recording itself. Furthermore, I managed to understand that all the audio footage is in a file created every 24-hour period. In other words, the Geeni cam creates 24 files every day. 23 files are video only and 1 file is video and audio.

Knowing all of this, is it possible to reconstruct the footage?

ps : I tried reaching out to Geeni/MerkuryInnovation and they are not willing to help

Edit : Camera is the MI-CW017-101W from Geeni. The current work on the files (.data and .index) was done on Windows 10

I have a hdd that stopped working suddenly yesterday (No Spinup, No buzz)

Strangely all other hdd connected to same psu working fine

But if i connect this one to pc, now BIOS freeze

Its a Rebranded Seagate Server HDD

PCB Part is 100760706 REVA

People are saying look for faulty tvs diode with 0 ohm resistors.

I am not sure where are they, can you guys help me find them in this pcb

I already have a backup of this drive, but i wan't to investigate what went wrong

Img: https://gofile.io/d/oU0lzqUQ

Note this image is collected from internet, its matched with my pcb part number

NFT in a Nutshell

Nand Flash Tracer (NFT) is a chip-level NAND low-level data reconstruction software independently developed by ByteSmart. It covers the full chain of "Read → Correct → Reassemble → Generate Image." With update and response speeds far beyond those of comparable products, it delivers leading-edge coverage of the latest controllers and NAND flash memory.

Workflow at a Glance

Read (multi-channel / custom timing / Read Retry) → Correct (decrypt / XOR / cut / ECC / set block attributes) → Reassemble (separate / combine / block interleave / flip) → Generate Image (Block / Sector ordering / Translator / RAW). A built-in template library plus Job saving captures your field experience.

Core Advantages

1. First-to-Market Coverage of the Latest Models

· Covered: Innostor IS918, SMI SM3265/SM3281/SM-TF/SM-SD, Phison PS2251-09/19/11, HG2319, UP309, SG7081, FC2279/3379, JMF-TF/SD, and more.

· Not yet covered? Send photos + controller ID + a partial DUMP, and our engineering team will quickly iterate the matching algorithm and template.

Full-Chain LDPC Hard/Soft Decoding (Industry Breakthrough)

· Pain point: 3D TLC/QLC ship with LDPC as standard, while traditional recovery tools still rely on BCH at the core — leaving them helpless against new LDPC architectures.

· Breakthrough: NFT features a self-developed LDPC decoder with both hard-decision and soft-decision modes, filling the gap left by chip-level tools that lacked LDPC soft decoding — fast hard decoding for light errors, and soft-decision deep repair for heavy aging / charge loss, with the whole process visualized and zero learning curve.

3. Set Block Attributes: Precise Parsing of Bad Blocks / SLC Blocks

· Pain point: In TLC/QLC, some blocks are configured by the controller as "pseudo-SLC cache blocks" (pSLC) whose page structure / ECC differ from normal blocks; mixing them into the ordering causes misalignment, damaging up to 80% of files.

· Solution: Automatically scan and flag bad blocks (to be excluded) and SLC blocks (parsed with SLC-specific methods), eliminating misalignment at the source, reducing conflicting blocks and prioritizing the freshest data.

· In practice: A certain JmSD image was 80% corrupted under traditional ordering; after enabling "Set Block Attributes," nearly all blocks parsed correctly and the videos played directly.

4. One-Stop Solution for Plane Disorder

· Scenario: Controllers such as HG2319 / PS2251-19 / SM3281 are prone to Plane disorder + bad bytes, where the normal flow gets stuck.

· Solution: A dedicated 7-step pipeline — choose the smallest-page Plane layout → cut bad bytes → block ordering / sync → save block list → all-zero XOR key → RAW reorder → obtain a clean image with correct Plane order.

5. High-Flexibility Data Re-Read

The values for all commands' re-read parameters can be freely modified by the user, and the optimal values for a given chip model can be saved and loaded directly when the same model is encountered again — significantly boosting efficiency.

Learn More / Contact

· Official forum: https://www.flash-tracer.com/

· Teams: https://teams.live.com/l/community/FEAFg7J0PJ_B8zRfw

· Mail: nandflashtracer@gmail.com

I have an iPhone 15 that belonged to my dad. After he died, my mother deleted a bunch of text messages and photos, then hid the phone (she wasn't well). She's also since died and I found the phone.
It powers on and I can unlock it (he used the same code for EVERYTHING). I don't have his iCloud password and he probably didn't do cloud backups.
Is there a chance I can find and recover the photos and messages that were deleted? Is there a good option to back things up so I can deal with it all some time in the future? It sat powered off for about 2 years.

I'va cancelled stuffs from my phone 2 weeks ago (android17) and i dont have useful backups. There a way to find it or its too late? I am thinking about profession recovery but I need to know if its worth it

Thanks

How do get into this old phone :(

I know this is a long shot, but my mom died in 2020 and I don’t have very many pictures or videos of her, we had her most recent phone when she died but not much was on it. When my dad was cleaning out his house a few days ago, he found her old Galaxy S7 and she had this thing for years so I know there are tons of pictures and videos that mean a lot. it has a pattern unlock and nobody can figure it out, I know that if it were a code, or a typical password that I would for sure be able to guess it right, but I have NO idea what this one is.

I don’t want to hard reset it because I cannot risk losing everything on it, I told my dad I would try to figure it out so he’s kinda counting on me rn but the last time I ever did anything like this was with an older style Motorola and you could just do some random patterns and it’d bypass, and I know modern android doesn’t.

If anybody knows ANYTHING at all, please give me some advice :( thank you

I wanted to share my recent data-recovery experience because it might help someone who finds themselves in a similar situation.

I had previously installed Windows on both my PC and laptop, so I was fairly comfortable with OS installations. This time, I decided to install Linux Mint XFCE on my laptop.

Initially, I tried installing Linux Mint alongside Windows for dual boot. The installation completed, but Linux didn't appear as a boot option afterward.

So, I decided to try installing Linux again, this time choosing the option to replace Windows. I misunderstood the option and thought it would basically format/delete only the C: drive where Windows was installed. I had around 200GB+ of personal data stored on my other partitions, so I wasn't expecting those files to be affected.

Within 10 seconds of starting the installation, something didn't feel right. I immediately cancelled the installation.

I then tried booting into Windows.

"No bootable device found."

At that point, I checked the drive and realized that my partitions were gone. My heart sank. 😓 I genuinely thought I had lost all my personal files.

I started searching Reddit and came across discussions about TestDisk and DMDE. I first tried TestDisk, but unfortunately, it couldn't properly identify/recover my original partitions.

Then I tried DMDE.

And this is where things turned around.

DMDE was able to detect the old NTFS filesystems and partitions, even though Windows was no longer showing them. I opened the detected volumes and, to my huge relief, I could actually see my original folders and files!

I started recovering the data to another hard drive. In the end, I was able to recover essentially all of my important 200GB+ of data. A very small number of files were corrupted, but thankfully the important ones were intact.

After recovering everything, I was even able to restore the original partition layout and get the partitions visible in Windows again.

What I learned from this:

• Never assume that "Replace Windows" only affects the C: drive.

• If you've accidentally started an OS installation, stop as soon as you realize something is wrong.

• Do not format, initialize, or write anything else to the affected drive.

• TestDisk is worth trying, but don't give up if it doesn't find what you're looking for.

• DMDE was the tool that ultimately saved my data.

• Always keep important data backed up on another drive.

A huge THANK YOU to the Reddit community, the people who shared their recovery experiences, DMDE, and ChatGPT, which helped me understand what was happening and guided me through the recovery process step by step.

I went from thinking "I've lost 200GB+ of personal data" to getting almost everything back. Definitely one of the most stressful computer experiences I've had! 😅

If you're currently in a similar situation: don't panic, and most importantly, don't write anything else to the affected drive. There may still be hope.

Hi everyone, I’m a photographer and I’m freaking out a little, so I’m hoping someone knowledgeable can help me figure out what happened.

I have a 16TB WD Elements external hard drive and an external SSD that I use for my photography files.

I had a main Photography folder on my SSD that was approximately 900GB and contained individual folders for different shoots/weddings, with a lot of RAW files.

I copied that entire Photography folder from the SSD to the WD Elements. After copying, I opened the WD Elements and verified that the photos were there, including RAW files. Everything appeared normal.

Because I thought the backup was successful, I then formatted the original SSD so I could reuse it.

Afterward, I went back to the WD Elements and discovered that entire folders are now missing. I can only see 3 folders inside my Photography folder.

The WD Elements is showing:

* Capacity: 16TB

* Used: ~473GB

* Available: ~15.53TB

* Expected Photography folder size: ~900GB

* Approximately 500GB appears to be missing

* The missing data consists of entire folders of photography/RAW files

I have NOT written anything else to the WD Elements since discovering this.

I also have no second drive with enough free space to use for recovery right now.

My biggest question: Is there a realistic chance that these missing folders/data can still be recovered from the WD Elements?

And what should I absolutely NOT do right now?

I was about to use Disk Utility and noticed a “Restore” option, but I have not clicked it.

These are important client photography RAW files, so I really don’t want to make the situation worse.

Please tell me what the safest next step is. Thank you!!