Setting proper expectations

[Kerfuffle]

I have a 500G external USB drive that somehow lost its format. I downloaded and installed the software and started a recovery. I let it run for 84 hours and it seemed to get stuck on the analysis phase. Before I start over, I want to make sure my expectations are correct.

1. How long should it take to recover 450G on a 500G drive?
2. If it is successful, will it recover file names and revision dates?
3. Is there an option to just "replace" the format that was lost?

Thanks.

[GDH]

Hi,

It should be possible to get all your data back within about 4 hours. Please follow these instructions: Recover a Formatted Drive with Recover My Files v4, particularly the bit in green which talks about speeding up the search.

Yes, you should get full file and folder structure and dates.

Recover My Files is a data recovery tool, not a drive fix tool. You must save the files found to another drive.

I hope this helps.

[Kerfuffle]

I let it run for 12 hours and then I stopped it. When it finished, the folder view showed a lot of random folders. It doesn't appear that it found the directory structure or the majority of the files. Is this to be expected? Have I lost the majority of the data?

Thanks

[Kerfuffle]

I did a search to find a particular file and I found that my whole folder structure was found under a Root folder. This seemed odd to me because there were a bunch of folders in the base list that are also being found under the Root folder - but seemingly just random folders. I've begun a restore of the Root folder and I'll see what the result is. It looks like it sees everything.

[GDH]

Hi,

Yes, this can sometimes happen if your partition is damaged.

Sometimes the easiest way to identify the files that you are looking for is to

• go to File Type View
• Click on the JPEG file type
• Click on the 'size' column header to sort by size
• locate your digital photos
• look at the path to see where they have been found
• put a tick in the box next to some of the ones you want to save
• then change back to Folder view, locate the selected file by finding the tick
• look in that location in Folder view for more releavant files and if you find any, select and save them.

[Kerfuffle]

I think I got all the files I needed. The drive was last backed up about 3 weeks ago. I did a search by date and saved everything that changed during that period. Looks good.