Free Partition Recovery Software?

Hello Geeks!

I have an issue where a Hard drive "Volume" has been deleted.
Obviously being unintentional that wasn't a good thing.

The PC is Using Windows 10 and has auto updates active so assume its current to the latest updates if that makes any difference.

I've had a look at several, but these are all "free" except for the part where after waiting quite some time, there's the hook! Pay to do what you need, and you can see all the found files.

Drive wasn't corrupted or damaged etc...

I can probably work my way through the software side, if only i can source the Free software to recover the "volume" which is 1One TB NVME drive that was very full.

So i'm asking for a software solution without the pay [part that can recover a volume.

Its not that i'm broke ,its that im not broke because i dont have a credit card to go purchase stuff randomly online. So any replies of just pay well thats impossible 0 credit card option. No paypal none of it.

 

have a look at this page
https://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/sortdate/partitioning.html
i would think something there would work,
but since i have not used any of them, i could not tell you which one to try.
good luck with it.

 

Thanks for your time ^

This is how my horror story played out to victory.

For anyone following up or linked to this for whatever reason, wanting a free version.
To recover a Volume that was accidentally deleted on a perfectly fine Hard drive.
(Note it was a single partition in my instance in that volume)
Think of Drives "Volume" as the first level and all partitions are made within that volume.
So remove "Volume" in disk management screen and all partitions also vanish.

Using Testdisk create a log File follow what AI says and interrogate what it tells you.
Proceed using AI as guide through the app "What risks / Will that suggestion in the last reply potentially make the recovery harder" etc

Here's the about Testdisk wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TestDisk

TestDisk download from here
https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

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WHATEVER YOU DO - DO NOT DO ANY FORMAT the drive with "Volume" deleted. Do not touch it, other than at best >>
You may have to, at least i did, give that hard drive a Drive letter so Windows (10 )can see it have it appear.
I gave it the same drive letter again using the disc management tool.
of that drive or you may not have any chance or harder.
Any options nope opt out dont select just give the drive a letter.
Do nothing else to the drive at this stage.
Do Not Panic and think you scuffed it or the drive is unrecoverable, if Disc management reports the DATA as RAW on that drive with no volume.
At least if all you have done is put a Drive letter to it.
Again do not format that drive or anything else to it assign a Letter / Name Only! so it can be recognised and appear for recovery.

Firstly, you'll want to make sure
Make sure the drive is cloned backed up or you have used data recovery software on it.

"Testdisk" App worked for me and its free, but slow for file recovery.
To copy the files I used and External Hard disc drive with the free capacity, i suspect its 5400 rpm spin with 90% full of data 1TB nvme drive.
This may have added to the time for recover which went from 11pm one day till around 3-4pm the next day.

Note
The interface of Testdisk is not clean as paid for versions of data recovery and its similar to command line looking in appearance.
If you have accidentally deleted the "Volume" of a perfectly functional disc drive the data is there, what is missing is the file structure the records to find them.

Think of your data is still there, but its some what like a library without a index to find where everything is to find the books and the books now have no name either. So windows goes huh what and lists the contents as RAW. This does not = F and not there to be recovered so don't panic.
I was stressed this entire episode free wheeling it, eventually thought smarter and with some AI assistance in how to proceed with using the "TestDisk" app was able to recover all but about Majority of data that were videos, sad but you know i got most it back and for free, apart from bonus grey hairs.

Anyhoo on with the story.
Once your files are recovered to another drive, for me that External USB Disc Drive that had free capacity.
The you're good your data is safe.

Well not so much.
There were some "Gotchas'
Some files may not have been recovered correctly.
I may have even had some files that were partly recovered, tacked onto the part of another video.
Random and not entirely sure why maybe they shared the same cells data spot on the nvme, no clue.
Some videos would only partially play back. I tried using two different players (VLC and Potplayer) using hardware and software modes in potplayer.
Typical scenario is a video file would open and then play approximately 10 seconds and end, despite showing a much longer run time of several minutes.

For the most part images would be fine, perhaps due to the smaller size.
Having to discard / Delete some that seemed to save the top part of the image but the low 3/4 for example would be corrupt a single color.
I didnt have a great deal of those so it wasn't much of an issues.

The other downside is, the files that are recovered have no details.
They are raw recovery of data from that deleted Volume drive.
The recovered files will be a in a Folder on your backup drive.
The recovered folders appear at the root of your recovery drive and are auto generated seemingly.

Within these folders are your actual files.
All jumbled together, there's no names as they were formerly stored with on the other drive so no way to identify them quickly if per se it was a text document you needed it could prove an arduous task to find specific files.
Only thing you will see is letters and numbers attached to files
There are no original date created etc...

Note:- I encountered something that said about security permissions on the files, but i didnt chase that rabbit hole to far, I was glad just to have a majority backup before proceeding and trying to restore the original partition.

Next step
Testdisk and try to recover the partition.
Now i wont word salad it much more than i already have.
Use AI for advice, ,make sure you question its outcomes and advice and tell it to search the net in long search mode (30 seconds for me).
Always Question what risks its AI advice may have on a safe out come.
For example i was resigned to trying one thing that it advised at one stage, as AI was advising me to use a Chkdsk command or something. So i asked could that cause further issues or data corruption of the raw data on the drive that have the volume deleted.. .blah blah. better dodge that ide to be safe. I can try the testdisk partition recovery and then use that as a last ditch attempt thing.

So end of the day the NVME 1tb drive that got its Volume deleted, was a storage drive not one with windows on it.
It was also a NTFS drive originally.
NTFS drives store a copy so there's two of the same partition information still there.
But windows doesn't know about them to access it, as access to the info was removed with the volume delete.

I was very lucky with that scenario as i had messed around and tried a few things, backed up the drive with missing partitions structure, tried good 7-10 other "free to try but pay to restore or limited data restore 2gb smthn.
Either way the original data of the partition table turned up Corrupt.
By the time i had messed around trying to back it up and file recover it wouldn't surprise me. many hours later
Using the backup of that, recovered the drive and quickly.

Again to much wording to explain and i'm not getting paid for this, ask your AI how to use Testdisk, i used the one in Microsoft Edge browser top right currently. Its not my regular browser. Just used it for free AI. Interrogate its answers when you are set on a course of action.

However and this isnt on me, if you just want to think, bruh im not waiting 15 hours to back up data and blah and read and do all of that.
Then ask AI and as it to be precise and explain in detail skipping to the partition recovery part.

Me I kinda fumbled through it and got there in the end, maybe even got lucky, but i could've saved myself a week of messing around.
Looking for free apps and trying them backing up a Raw drive doing file recovery. The partial small limited recovery apps were the most troll.
However the files were Irreplaceable, and i couldn't just download them again and adjust settings like a games drive would be.