Ok I just finished this 5 days nightmare from dropping my laptop, but at the end, I'm happy and need to speak to you people in data recovery forums. I'll tell you my story.
Yes the PC was ON when I dropped it but I wasnt using it so I guess it could be reading/writing files only in my main partition where Win10 was, which was a 100GB part from the beggining of disk to like 30% of it (From now on Part A), since it was a 500GB(465GB really), from that point, it was my big, personal data partition like 345GB with like 330GB full (From now on Part B), mostly by videogames and downloads that didnt matter, my personal data was 87GB, I know now the exact amount because I RECOVERED THE DATA AND THE DISK. So, yes i though like, the disk needle couldnt have damaged Part B bc I wasnt using files from that partition at the time of drop, I guess I only make the needle read/write files from Part B when I looked at my pictures, listened to my music, etc, otherwise, windows files were in Part A.
I read your response that "Im screwed" and in another forum but I LOVE TO DREAM AND NEVER GIVE UP HOPE, I tried solution after solution, TestDisk in linux was USELESS, it just kept saying "the following partitions cant be recovered" which listed ALL partitions in my disk, incorrectly tho, it showed a big partition in Mac format, I have never used other than NTFS and Ext4 for linux. And after reading you in forums I was terrified but kept on.
Used EaseUS, MiniTool Partition Wizard and AOMEI WinPE builder with their partition and file recovery wizards, MiniTool and EaseUS were useless bc with "quickscan" of disk it only showed my Part A, actually twice and along with other 10 small partitions I didnt recognize at all, everything messed up, and with full scan they hanged shortly after starting, less than 1% progess, I assume bc cant read a bad sector so app would hang, which to me sounds stupid in the way those apps are programmed, how come a BROKEN, DROPPED, SCRATCHED hard disks recovery software IS NOT programmed to SKIP broken damaged sectors? I tried EaseUS Data Recovery and full scan started listing files, specially from Part A, the part I believe was mostly damaged with files I didnt care, windows and program files (it would start from the begining of disk, I couldnt chose what part of the disk to scan or skip), fullscan was taking godly forever and I also thought the file recovering was going to be without original file names and folders organizations, which would also have been catastrophic for me in case I recovered my 87GB of mostly pictures bc names help me organize them, IDK if they were going to have original date of capture or modification, and read in EaseUS's website an article that read there is just no way to recover data from RAW disk with names and folders organization, that is was just impossible, and I STILL didnt want to believe that, I didnt lose hope and I FOUND IT.
I must have looked at a dozen lists of "Top best partition and data recovery softwares" and they all listed Recuva, EaseUS, MiniTool (Btw I ran Recuva from the AOMEI Win10PE enviroment AND IT DIDNT EVEN RECOGNIZE MY HDD), but NONE of those lists mentioned "ActivePartitionRecovery" http://www.partition-recovery.com/
I downloaded ActivePartitionRecovery, made bootable and it came with everything, partition, file recovery, bootable builder, everything, in the settings it has an option of like "Skip dead sectors when found" you can customize how many, minimum 1 sector, SO SCANS DONT HALT FOREVER, WHICH THEY WILL, THESE ARE DEAD HDD, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? THIS SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN ALL PARTITION AND DATA RECOVERY SOFTWARES, LIKE MINITOOL. It even let you scan for partitions, a specific area of the disk, in sectors, megabytes, etc, I didnt care it scanning the first 30% of the disk bc it was all dead windows and programs files, so I told it to scan from like after the first 90GB to the end of the disk, and it went smooth.
I scanned and IT FOUND MY PART B I WAS LOOKING FOR, THERE IT WAS, 345GB, IT SAID "STATUS: EXCELLENT", but it appeared twice as well as Part A and many other unknown partitions, like 15 partitions, idk, software suggested something I did not read in ONE SINGLE FORUM or ANYWHERE, in other program, nothing, it was MBR Table was corrupted (probably what happened when I tried to delete Ext4 partition when originally trying to install windows 10 in a 26GB partition at the end of the disk (From now on Part C), that all of a sudden all partitions dissappeared all disk showed unallocated, I think Win10 broke my disk by some bugging between Linux and Windows messing in the same disk), so, I didnt find how to fix MBR in ActiveRecovery (I know it can be done but didnt want to find out) so went back to EaseUS bootable, bc I saw that option in there, I did delete MBR in EaseUS, went back to ActiveRecovery, quickscan showed all my partitions correctly and quickly, Part A, Part B, and Part C, and some unallocated space like 450MB at very beggining of the disk, used to be a recovery partition. ActivePartition let me restore partitions and I was able to install Win10 to the Part C, I noticed installation was a bit slow but I understood but anyway, I was happy and glorious, when disaster striked again, a couple hours of installing Win10 the sys was extreeeemely slow, disk was failing, I could hear it by a soft looped sound emitted by HDD, I had heard it before, it was taking like 3 mins to open a window. rebooted PC but it was dead again, Part C was dead. Sys tried to boot recovery partition, nothing either. And I hadnt had the time to backup, it was fear again but in bootable AOMEI Win10PE enviroment, I was able to use ActivePartition Data Recovery to copy all my 87GB to USBs and phones to another computer, actually the windows explorer in AOMEI WinPE was able to open my Part B and its files and everything fine.
I was happy, if I had to change HDD at least I recovered everything, and with the correct file names and folders organization, even beyond the opinion of data recovery forums people.
SO, in EaseUS Partition Master I deleted and formated and WIPED with zeros all parts, except for the Part C, it wouldnt let me, idk why, didnt show option to delete nor wipe format nothing, that part was like bugged, I tried Win10 ISO installation from USB again and it let me delete Part C too, no problem, formatted deleted all partitions, disk was again unallocated, created 80GB part, I assume from the beggining of disk to about 25% of it, and another big part for the rest of disk (just like I used to before), went back to use CHKDSK /F from the Win10 recovery options on both partitions, part A gave many errors, I think it fixed them in stage 1 and 2 of CHKDSK but stage 3 I think is trying to recover dead sectors, it gave error, I didnt care, I knew at least some unrepairable scarring was going to happen to my disk, did CHKDSK to part B but said no errors.
Installed Win10 to the 80GB part and it went smooth, couple hours after using Windows and no trouble, formatted and chkdsk again the big partition, went smooth, it said no trouble. Now a couple days using the PC, seems fine. Today I have noticed the "death loop noise" from the HDD a couple times, during which nothing really loads, but they are a couple seconds long, hope they go away.
I just want to say a couple of things, linux is great and everything and its the base of android but god, once you lose windows, I felt like in hell before I borrowed my GFs Win laptop, the job that TestDisk did was completely useless compared to the Windows-only apps I used, my top picks were EaseUS Partition Master for fixing MBR and chkdsk, and specially Active Partition Recovery for all the recovery deeds.
CONCLUSION: If you have a dead HDD which had Win, any version, GPT or MBR, I would personally strongly recommend NOT INSTALLING LINUX in any partition you so happen to get to work in the HDD, that Ext4 filesystem used by Linux will mess with the Win NTFS stuff, one way or another. Besides, Linux and its data recovery softwares were totally useless for me. Unfortunately the windows softs I mentioned dont have a Linux version but its better you find another PC, make a bootable of those softs and go from there (I dont really recommend Minitool, I think it pretty much sucked. And everybody recommends it in forums, I think its crap) AND HEY, THOSE MINITOOL, EASEUS and others are CRAZY expensive, like 40-80 dollars while ActivePartitionRecovery is like 5-15usd depending on version, I used Unlimited.
Most importantly, BACKUP YOUR DATA, I KNOW I SCREWED UP FROM BEGGINING BY NOT DOING SO but I learned the hard way, fortunately didnt lose my data, but if you end up in my situation. DONT TRUST A COUPLE OF WORDS SAID IN A FORUM, TRY YOURSELF, not all droppings and HDD damage are the same, if you have hope and try hard, just give your best and you might as well get back all your data and maybe also your disk. DONT LOSE HOPE and BACKUP and if during windows installation all your partitions disappear, I think that you should start from restoring MBR of disk. THAT is where my initial trouble was from the beggining.
That thing about TestDisk that "the cylinders, sector, heads," mismatch, check label and bla bla, just dont waste your time, go straight to a bootable WinPE where you could use Win apps. Only portable ones as you cannot run an installation inside those WinPE, or maybe you get a Windows To Go in a USB, I didnt have the opportunity, which is a windows already installed and ready to use inside a USB drive, I didnt have the opportunity because with Win 10 you have to have ENTERPRISE edition to make that, you make it with Rufus from a Windows.
In case you are still wondering "what is that WinPE?" its sort of a Windows to go, but usually like more simple and with very basic features. The AOMEI WinPE only had a couple features but was less thab 100mb, I read there are others more like a full Win installation, over 1GB, like a Linux Live, mostly complete with everything, maybe in those you can even install applications with installers and everything I dont know, you burn these WinPE to bootable USBs.
CONCLUSION OF CONCLUSION: BACKUP YOUR IMPORTANT STUFF but if disaster strikes: D O N T G I V E U P and START BY RESTORING THE DISK MBR using EaseUS Partition Master, then you should be able to find your lost partitions and recover them.
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