Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - L. Da Vinci

I start my laptop, log in, try to open a file on my external USB drive, Can’t find it. Wierdly!! can’t find any of the other files either. Just didn’t know what was going on!! For a second, my mind went into a spin. The thing I most dreaded happened. I had lost it all!!

I re-imaged my PC and left the USB hard drive connected. That’s what caused it!! 100 things were going through my mind, What have I lost, Do I have a backup on other drives (PC, CD), Can I recover any of it!! Just felt like my ass has lost it’s hole, How am I going to shit now??

In a frenzied state, I started to search for data recovery softwares thru Google and Download. Being a miser, I searched for Free ones first; but wasn’t satisfied. Then found some commercial shareware ones, Virtual Lab, R Studio, Disk Director by Acronis, Undelete Plus, NTFS Data Recovery, etc. Downloaded & installed all of them.

Virtual Lab worked for me, It found my files!! I was overjoyed, My ass saved!! Well, that’s what I thought, but not yet!! I still didn’t have the files. So I checked out the price for Virtual Lab… 200 USD. I didn’t know what to do!! I mean, my data was so precious (because of all the porn files kidding) that I cud pay much more. But then I didn’t wan’t to pay that much either. I knew there would be cheaper ones, that will do the job. Started searching again and tried R Studio.

R Studio had all that I needed (NTFS & partition restore) & much more. I scanned the full Hard Drive. It found stuff, but
initially, it showed the files and folders, not with their original names, but with names like $$$54132$$$. And I was like, what do I do with those $$$? But when I previewed the files, it magically got all the correct names and folders. Yipee!! I was absolutely delighted. Finally after a whole day of strugglin n fiddling , I got all my stuff back, intact. So will share a few learnings from this experience!!

Learnings

• Disconnect all external drives, before formatting or re-imaging your computer
• If by mistake, your data has been lost. Don’t panic!! Even if you do, Do NOT save or write to the affected disk. Disconnect it immediately
• If the disk is making noises, probably the head has been damaged. Disconnect the power immediately. Do NOT power it up again as that can cause further damage.
• Try a few different data recovery softwares and find the one that best suits your needs. The price can range from 40 USD to 200 USD, of the ones mentioned above.
• Always have a 3 point backup plan (i.e. Your crucial data backed up at 3 different locations). That will save you most of the pain