Fuming !! My PS4 deleted all my partitions on my external Hd , please help me to recover them..

[MINUS12]

I’m really peed off right now , I have an 8tb external hd with 3 partitions . 2 NTFS were full of music and precious photos of marriage family , One of the partitions was EXFAT for PS4 Games as my internal PS4 drive was full..so I thought it would just format the one ex fat partition but it formatted the whole bloody drive .. I used a recovery program to scan the lost partitions and it found them after a 24 hr scan but it wouldn’t let me recover the partitions and look inside them ? I’m now currently using recuva to scan the drive again ..Can I recover these files as I read Sony PS4 doesn’t use partitions? Also I read even if a drive is formatted multiple times the data can be recovered .. Please help guys as I’d really appreciate it ..nice one

 

[ic1male]

I’ve had moderate success with Recuva in the past, recovering about 75% of a wiped drive. You don’t even need to let it run for the total time, stop the scanning after a few minutes and see whether most of your stuff is recoverable.

As for the PS4 wiping the whole drive, I think that is something you should have been aware of. It does warn you twice about it from what I can remember.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

Photorec has worked miracles in the past, definitely give it a go.

 

[Armageus]

https://www.easeus.com/partition-recovery/index.htm
Used to restore partitions in the past after I accidentally "cleaned" the wrong disk.
Hopefully it can just restore the filestructure, as the data should physically still be on the disk.

Recuva is terrible imo - other than recovering deleted files it isn't technical enough to deal with much damage to the filesystem.
https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm works well for actual data recovery in my experience, but is only free for 2gb.

 

[mid_gen]

Wowsers, you plugged your only backup of a bunch of important files into a device to perform a format operation without checking first what it was going to do?

Been a long time since I needed to recover data, but Easy Recovery Pro did a good job, was 10+ years ago though so probably other options out there...

 

[MINUS12]

Basically my PS4 just showed the 1.5tb partition off my 8tb drive which was assigned for my PS4 in exfat ..so I assumed it wouldn’t wipe the whole driver.. I have tried some recovery programs to restore the partitions but after a deep scan it’s only showing one 4 Tb ntfs partition and not the other exfat extended partitions .. I really don’t want to give up but I’m loosing hope ..right now my drive is just Unallocated space in GPT ..if I format this drive does it make it more difficult to restore the partitions .Also what does the PS4 do to the drive when it formats as it’s now Unallocated space ..it not like it performed a full format ..it did it seconds so I assume the 4 partitions are still there ?

 

[Rannoch]

I would try and recover the partitions. Don’t you have a backup on that hard disk?

 

[Mobius 1]

Maybe get in touch with a professional to have a look at recovering all your lost files if you’re having no luck ? Very unfortunate.

 

[ricky1981]

I'd second the above, find a professional company if the data on the drive is very valuable (financially or personally). I've only ever had limited success with recovery software. A bit late now but this is why backups are so useful, where possible I keep a physical backup as well as using a cloud service.

Best of luck recovering them, I'd be devastated if I lost all the family photos I have taken over the years.

 

[Dano]

Testdisk is my go to for partition recovery, has always served me well: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

 

[KompuKare]

And I'd third the advice about professional data recovery.
Professionally will cost of course, but if the files un-replaceble...
Anyway, my general advice for doing data recovery yourself where the physical drive isn't suspected* is:

1. STOP!
2. STOP! Do nothing with the drive itself except clone it (4. below)
   
3. Buy yourself / or make space a drive with at least the same space or more.
   1. In this case that means buying a 8TB+drive
4. Use a program too clone the whole drive in raw mode
   1. And make 100% triple sure that when cloning you are 100% sure which drive is the destination and which is the source (might be a good idea to get the 10TB in this case so it's obvious )
5. Put the formatted drive away somewhere safe.
6. And after doing all of that, only ever work from the clone - do not let any programs write to the old drive.

* Where the physical drive is in any way suspected, the best thing is to not even power on the drive and immediately evaluate whether the data is worth paying a data recovery specialist. If doing any recovery attempts yourself, always work with the assumption that the drive might totally fail any second: so have a very good idea of where in the file system stuff is and priorities your files: there's no point spending the remaining drive life recovering commercial stuff like MP3s or videos and finding that the drive has finally totally died when you get around to your family snapshots or that important document.