Killdisk Nightmare

[dbnoll03]

Hi all, it has been quite a while since I've posted here (nearly 5 years I think), but I have got myself into quite a pickle that warrants a return to the best tech support community IMO.

Recently while preparing to dispose of two of my computers, I wiped the hard drives of both using the free version of Active Killdisk. I executed a "one pass zeroes" wipe after backing up nearly 200 GB of files to my external hard drive.

This afternoon I turned on my new computer and plugged in my external hard drive intending to restore my files to my new computer only to be shocked with the message "The disk in drive X is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?" While my I admit my heart jumped, I didn't break out in a full fledged panic (yet) because I had seen this before and was able to fix it. Well this time I was not so lucky...

I scanned the disk with Active Uneraser with no success. Blank. In fact, a look at the sectors indicated mostly zeros....hmmm. So now I am officially panicking. My only guess is that I inadvertently wiped the external hard drive along with the other two, although I'm still not sure how that happened. The backup contained my only copy of nearly 10 years of personal documents, music, and photos (I don't even want to talk about the business QuickBooks files.)

What can I do (if anything)? Is it even possible to recover files after executing a "one pass zeroes" wipe? Is it worth hiring a professional for the job? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Steve R Jones]

The Pros will charge you a couple thousand dollars...

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!
Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File Recovery - Home

[dbnoll03]

Does Recova restore files from a hard drive that has been wiped with a program such as KILLDISK?

I will give it a try, but I have a feeling it will require more than consumer software to recover files from a wiped hard drive.

[BipolarBill]

You should be concentrating on restoring the *external* drive. Try this fast.

TestDisk - CGSecurity

I fear that you created a dynamic volume when you added the external drive. If that is the case, woe is you. Still, it will be easier to recover from the dynamic disk than the zeroed drive.

What's the Dynamic disk? Data Recovery from dynamic disk.

[BipolarBill]

Interesting read:

How to non-destructively convert dynamic disks to basic disks « My PKB

[dbnoll03]

How would I know if I created a dynamic disk on my external hard drive?

[BipolarBill]

If you have XP Pro, it tries to create a dynamic disk by default. If you remember being walked through a "wizard" when you connected the new external drive, then you created a dynamic disk.

No matter. Whatever is wrong with your external drive, TestDisk is the right tool to start with.

[uethello]

Dude, DoD mandates three passes. So you did one third of a DoD destructive wipe. The commercially available programs, as far as I know, just pick up "deleted" files. Even a formatted disk just erases the areas of the disk that provide addresses for the real data. You (probably) wrote 0s to those actual addresses. I believe that even a pro data service will be hard put to get back your data (despite what TV crime dramas may claim).

I encourage you to try anything at your disposal, just... don't be disappointed when nothing works.

[dbnoll03]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I think I have ruled out the scenario that I inadvertently wiped my external hard drive. I am continuing discussion on recovering my files in this thread: Files corrupt after restoring with EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Thanks again!