How to create an image of my hard drive?

Laz123

I've gone as far as I can as I'm not au faux with NAS systems.

It might be worth to pm Deleted_User.

[Deleted User]

@Langtang

This is the bit where I have limited experience (which is why I deferred it in my comment and hoped that WD would do a good job for you), last time I recovered files from a formatted hard drive was a decade ago and it wasn't ext4 (Linux) format either so things are a bit different in your case - but not impossible so just steady yourself for some learning.

So the best I can refer you to is a recent problem I know QNAP NAS owners had when some nasty malware encrypted all their files, the recovery tools of choice was "PhotoRec" - it is far more than just recovering photos but importantly is free open source software with a good reputation.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

Another good one I've seen regularly recommended is:

https://dmde.com/

I think what is important at this stage is you have your backup copy should WD fail to recover anything, personally I'd be tempted to let them have a go with your original disks to see how they get on and tackle your backup copies if they fail.

If I get some time one weekend I'll have a go at simulating your scenario with an EXT formatted disk and one of the tools above to see if I can recover some test data to give a better idea of what needs doing, but I do have to admit I'm out of practice at this stage.

Hopefully another MSE techie expert will come along with some experience in the meantime.

Langtang

Laz123 said:

I've gone as far as I can as I'm not au faux with NAS systems.

It might be worth to pm Deleted_User.

Thanks for your help in pointing me towards the cloning programme, it was very useful indeed. For now, and in the future.

Langtang

[Deleted User] said:

@Langtang

This is the bit where I have limited experience (which is why I deferred it in my comment and hoped that WD would do a good job for you), last time I recovered files from a formatted hard drive was a decade ago and it wasn't ext4 (Linux) format either so things are a bit different in your case - but not impossible so just steady yourself for some learning.

Thanks for your help so far, it is very much appreciated.

[Deleted User] said: 

@Langtang


So the best I can refer you to is a recent problem I know QNAP NAS owners had when some nasty malware encrypted all their files, the recovery tools of choice was "PhotoRec" - it is far more than just recovering photos but importantly is free open source software with a good reputation.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

Another good one I've seen regularly recommended is:

https://dmde.com/

Thanks for those links, I will check them out whilst on holiday next week.

[Deleted User] said:

@Langtang

I think what is important at this stage is you have your backup copy should WD fail to recover anything, personally I'd be tempted to let them have a go with your original disks to see how they get on and tackle your backup copies if they fail.

Yes, that's what I intend to do now. I've packaged up the enclosure, and will mail it to Ohio next week. As you say, if they fail I'll have a crack at it myself. If I fail, I have some new drives for my PC!

[Deleted User] said:

@Langtang

If I get some time one weekend I'll have a go at simulating your scenario with an EXT formatted disk and one of the tools above to see if I can recover some test data to give a better idea of what needs doing, but I do have to admit I'm out of practice at this stage.

That would be great, thank you.

[Deleted User] said:

@Langtang

Hopefully another MSE techie expert will come along with some experience in the meantime.

I think what I will do is make another thread next week, and ask the question(s) there.

Langtang

[Deleted User] said:

@Langtang

I think what is important at this stage is you have your backup copy should WD fail to recover anything, personally I'd be tempted to let them have a go with your original disks to see how they get on and tackle your backup copies if they fail.

Just a quick update to say that I received a passport drive back from WD a few weeks ago and it would appear that they've managed to recover most, if not all, of my data (all files have been generically renamed, so I need to sift through everything to see what's what) 

I now feel that I am safe to wipe the clones that I created just in case WD failed in their efforts.

 You mentioned that the cloned drives were in Linux format and may need certain things done to them to be able to reuse them as blank drives - am I correct in thinking that?

If not, can I just format them using the disk management tool within Windows?

I cannot thank you enough for all your (and others) help during this process.