I'v accidently "ghosted" my external Hard disk

[Mobobo]

I was trying to restore my harddisk using an image I previously made with "Norton Ghost" as I'v done many time before, but this time I forgot to turn off my external harddisk and by mistake i choose to apply the "ghost"-image to the external harddisk insted. I used it as a backupdisk and it was almost full (250 GB) but now it's almost empty (10 GB used) exept for at few folders and files resembling my desktop a little.
I'v tried 6 different recoveryprograms but without any luck. Any hope for me if I try "Recover my files"?


The not quite so great dane.

[GDH]

Hi,

From what I understand from your post - you wrote a GHOST image the wrong drive.

A GHOST image is laid down sequentially on the disk, so if the GHOST image was 10gb in size, then the first 10gb of the contents of the drive has been overwritten and destroyed, but the remainder should still contain the old data (unless you played with the default GHOST settings and asked it to wipe the remainder of the drive).

As a quick test, download Recover My Files and run a "Complete File Search" on the drive letter for the default file types. Whilst the search is in progress, click on the files found to see if they will preview. Do you see any files?

If you do find files with the above test, then you should be able to get most files back. However, as it sounds like you have written 10gb on new data to the start of the disk, then you have probably overwritten and destroyed the Master File Table for this disk, which contains the file and folder names of all your files.

To search for the Master File Table, you need to follow the instructions for the "Format Recover" which here: How to recover a formatted hard drive.

If you don't find it, then your only option is tro run a "Complete File Search" which will find the files but give them names like "Recovered_JPEG_1" - which you will have to rename once saved.

I hope this helps.