Noob mistake 😪😪

[salehelio]

Greetings guys , I'm new here  , i accidentally turned my 1tb external hard drive worth of 15 years of data and files to a bootable USB (windows 11) without knowing what would.happen if i did so , and I'm panicking right now , is there any way i can  revert it back to it's normal capacity  , and most importantly recover my files thank you !

[TukangUsapEmenq]

Plug it off, and probably just hope that data recovery service can recover the data for you.

I wouldn't even risk to DIY it if that data is important enough.

[RONOTHAN##]

You can definitely get back to its normal capacity through the partition manager in Windows, you just need to reformat the drive.

 

As for the files, that's a bit more tricky. There are pieces of software out there that can recover files as long as tey haven't been too overwritten, but they're always a crapshoot as to whether they'll actually work. A quick google search says that Recuva could do what you want, so it's worth a try.

[salehelio]

35 minutes ago, TukangUsapEmenq said:

Plug it off, and probably just hope that data recovery service can recover the data for you.

I wouldn't even risk to DIY it if that data is important enough.

Im an interior architect , I've been working on projects and freelance for the past years , and my external is the holy grails of files 🥲

[salehelio]

36 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

You can definitely get back to its normal capacity through the partition manager in Windows, you just need to reformat the drive.

 

As for the files, that's a bit more tricky. There are pieces of software out there that can recover files as long as tey haven't been too overwritten, but they're always a crapshoot as to whether they'll actually work. A quick google search says that Recuva could do what you want, so it's worth a try.

Thank you for your reply , but i feel like all the online softwares out there are all gimmicky and would not really do anything! I will send it to a repair shop and hopefully they can recover everything  

[xAcid9]

1 hour ago, salehelio said:

i feel like all the online softwares out there are all gimmicky

I use R-Studio Data Recovery, it worked for me. Just make sure you do not do any other unnecessary write to the drive to prevent further loses.

[salehelio]

1 hour ago, xAcid9 said:

I use R-Studio Data Recovery, it worked for me. Just make sure you do not do any other unnecessary write to the drive to prevent further loses.

You mean after rearranging the partition , i use R-Studio ? Or its built in the software everything?

[xAcid9]

13 minutes ago, salehelio said:

You mean after rearranging the partition , i use R-Studio ? Or its built in the software everything?

No need, R-Studio will automatically try to detect your HDD past partition configurations.
Don't do anything to the drive anymore or you chances to recover these files will be lesser. 

 

Some data might be unrecoverable because it already overlapped with new data. 

Also make sure to recover the files to a different drive. 

[Kilrah]

If it's really important just don't attempt to DIY, go to a professional with a good track record. 

And you've hopefully learned by now that you never store anything important on a single drive, you need backup copies.