Help! Deleted external harddrive by accident

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cgb78

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Apr 12, 2013
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Hi.
While I was in Disk Utility I accidentally hit erase on my 2 partitioned external drive which I didn't intend to. I realised right away and cancelled it straight away, but it had erased the partitions already.
It was literally processing for a few seconds so I can't imagine it had wiped all of the contents. Any ideas on how I can get them and the data back?
Any help appreciated!
Thanks
 
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mbreslin1954

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Nov 27, 2010
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A partition delete, format, or file delete, does not actually over-write any data, it's still there, marked as unused space. It's important that you don't write anything to that drive until you've recovered the partitions.

What I use to recover from formats and deleted files is Recuva, made by Piriform, the same guy who makes ccleaner. I think it will work for partition deletes. If not, there are plenty of other free programs out there. It's free. You can get it here. Install it, run it, and then point it at your external HDD.

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

 
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JamesSneed

JamesSneed

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Oct 26, 2009
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When you say Disk Utility are you on a Mac? Can you provide some more details? If it is a MAC you may try the free trail of data rescue to see if it can be recovered albeit the free trail wont do the recovery.

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
 
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cgb78

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Apr 12, 2013
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Yes, it was on a MAC. As soon as i'd clicked it I realised and cancelled the action but the partitions were gone. I've not copied anything onto the drive since, just left it trying to find the best (and cheapest) solution.
 
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cgb78

Honorable
Apr 12, 2013
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Thanks, I've not copied anything onto the drive since. I've been looking for freeware to recover it but don't seem to be able to find anything that sounds like it will work. Ive heard of Recuva, not sure it its a program I've tried in the past. I did use a free progam a couple of years ago (may have been Recuva) but it didnt yield great results. I'll have a look at Recuva, can you recommend any others that are worth a try before looking into recovery software which I need to purchase?

Thanks
 
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JamesSneed

JamesSneed

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Oct 26, 2009
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See the link in my initial response. You can try it before you buy it. It does work on a MAC.
 
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