How to recover data from bootable external hard disk?

[praveengautam]

Hey guys
Sorry I not as technical as you people.
I am in bad state. This is what I did:

- Cut paste all files from T410 thinkpad to an external hard disk
- Used the same external hard disk for rescue and recovery such that the hard disk now has become a bootable drive

Have I lost all my data?

[dr_st]

Welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear about the trouble.

Did you let Rescue & Recovery format the external drive and copy the installation files onto it? If so, you might be in a bad situation.

In that case, if there was important data there that you must try to recover, I would:

* Disconnect the external drive and not use it (to prevent further damage)
* Find a data recovery company near you and use their services (probably expensive)

[praveengautam]

Welcome to the forum.
Did you let Rescue & Recovery format the external drive and copy the installation files onto it? If so, you might be in a bad situation.
In that case, if there was important data there that you must try to recover, I would:
* Disconnect the external drive and not use it (to prevent further damage)
* Find a data recovery company near you and use their services (probably expensive)

There was no prompt nothing about formatting. It did not even say that all data will overwritten etc.
It just went ahead. The process took several hours and I am guessing that the disk has been formatted.

Someone give me a clue why didn't the process ask me about the permission to format/overwrite the external HDD?

I feel like a moron frankly speaking.

[dr_st]

What process did you do? Did you intend to do something to the external HDD?

[praveengautam]

What process did you do? Did you intend to do something to the external HDD?

ok.

1. Cut pasted all data from system (docs, movies etc, not the exe files) into external HDD
2. Ran the rescue recovery module on system
3. Selected back up
4. Selected the option of external hard disk for back-up- I vaguely remember that there was an option of 'do not overwrite existing data' which I checked.
5. After hours and hours, got the 'back-up successful' message.
6. In my computer-> In external hard disk drive, the earlier files which I cut pasted in step 1 cannot be seen, only some boot reboot files exist.

I haven't restored the data from external HDD yet in fear.

I know about companies that recover drives, but am I really supposed to go through that?

[dr_st]

I am not familiar with the how Rescue & Recovery works and what the options are. I don't like it and never use it.

If it really formatted the drive and copied content from your system onto it, there is a very high chance that the original files have been overwritten and nothing can restore them short of a data recovery process (and even then, chances are not high).