Data Recovery Forums - Help & Discussions

simobk · Joined: 24 Feb 2010 Posts: 2 Location: France

Hi all,

I have got a new WD Elements 1TB 2 weeks ago to replace my dying 500GB drive.

I transferred all the data to the WD and then formatted my old drive. Means I then had my data in a single location, the brand new WD...

3 days ago, out of nowhere, after plugging the WD to my laptop, I got an error message from Windows 7 :

So I check my computer management, and indeed, the drive appears as raw :

I then run Data LifeGuard from WD and select the quick test. It pops an error right at the beginning and then stops :

I KNOW the drive can be "fixed" by just formatting it, but that is not what I WANT. I need to recover 5 years of data that were stored on it and for which I have no other copy.

I have access to standard Windows 7 tools. I also have an OnTrack EasyRecovery Pro license.

I can download any freeware tools and/or buy licenses for software if it is not too expensive...

I really need this data. I am almost sure I could just "rewrite" the partition table, but I wanna make sure that I am not taking any risks before doing anything.

Thank you,

Simo

PS: There was a single partition on the drive, taking the whole space.