undo create partition primary on external hard drive

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pelte
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Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2023 12:24 am

undo create partition primary on external hard drive

Post by pelte »

Hello, I'm not a tech savvy person at all. I was running some issues with my external hard drive lately it was being responsive while copying files. I gave it a try to a random tutorial not knowing what I was doing and I entered the "create partition primary" in diskpart for my external hard drive on windows. I didn't specifically delete or format the disk unless it did it itself but there was no warnings. Now ofc cannot access my files back and disk is not being functional without a format atm.

How can I undo this process or how can I recover my data back safely? Disk is around 5TB but the files in are less than 1 TB. Should I go to a data recovery services for this or can I handle it at home with a software?
fzabkar
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Re: undo create partition primary on external hard drive

Post by fzabkar »

Did you find a solution?
lcoughey
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Re: undo create partition primary on external hard drive

Post by lcoughey »

Weird, I'm sorry I missed replying to this. Oddly, I had to approve it for the post to even show. I hope you were able to find a solution without further data loss. If not, feel free to follow up with a comment and we'll see what we can do to help.
pelte
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Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2023 12:24 am

Re: undo create partition primary on external hard drive

Post by pelte »

Well there isn't any updates yet. I wasn't able to find much help around.
Seems like the disk was starting to have early issues before I accidently caused the logical error. And just a few days later my older second external hard drive also died with fatal error while trying to copy some files that I lost with the first drive. Before that C drive died on top. (This is a work machine) So there is small chance that the machine I am using may have some faulty usb port or not. A gamepad also died randomly a few months ago. And Western Digital drives are not longer reliable I suppose.

At the moment I am on hold.
I tried using ReclaiMe on the first drive and I was able to detect some files. But the process was extremely slow. (1% discovered out of 1-2 hours) But I have been recommended to not damage the drive further and instead clone the disk first to another drive using HDDSuperClone. But I do not have a machine with linux.
So I talked with some data recovery places but they seemed very phishy to me. I called two places, but they refer me to a different location twice (I suppose the lab is in a different location?) Then another person said it's hourly instead of a flat rate..) I didn't feel comfortable with leaving my drives away for days and not knowing what's happening. And the other only place sounded reliable was the most expensive one at 650$
lcoughey
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Re: undo create partition primary on external hard drive

Post by lcoughey »

What is the model of drive and where are you located?

If the drive has more issues than just a partition loss, you may very well be better off getting professional assistance before it degrades to a very expensive case or become completely unrecoverable.

If you insist on DIY, getting a clone (hddsuperclone) is definitely the first thing you will want to do. After that, you can try to use DMDE on the clone to find and restore the partitions, assuming you were able to clone with little to no errors. Otherwise, you will want to run data recovery programs to save the data to another drive.
pelte
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Re: undo create partition primary on external hard drive

Post by pelte »

These are 2 Western digital external hard drives, first one is 5 TB regular my passport (around 3.5 years old) and the older one is Western digital my passport ultra 2TB (probably 5+ years)
I would probably have to go with a professional assistance when I find one that is reputable as likely I may make things worse myself.
I'm currently in California
lcoughey
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Re: undo create partition primary on external hard drive

Post by lcoughey »

I suggest you take a contact a lab from this Data Recovery Professionals group that we are afounding member of.
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