How can I recover files from Unallocated Space partition?

I was trying to create recovery media on a 16GB USB stick for my new laptop but for some reason it wasn't working. I kept trying it and eventually it worked. A while later I came to access my 3TB USB HDD but it wasn't showing up in My Computer. I checked Disk Management and found my 3TB USB HDD had a 32GB RAW partition and a 2.7TB Unallocated Space partition.

So it looks like the recovery media application was, at first, trying to write to my 3TB USB HDD instead of my 16GB USB stick. It obviously didn't write anything to the 3TB USB HDD as the 32gb partition is a RAW format.

I have tried two pieces of partition recovery software, MiniTool Partition Wizard Professional 9.1 and EaseUS Partition Manage 10.8, but they only find loads of little partitions, I was expecting it to find one big 3TB partition.



I haven't tried any file recovery software yet. I was hoping I could use partition recovery software to just restore the HDD back to its original state.

Could anyone help me out?

My eyes might have missed it, have you tried a Puppy Linux boot stick to first recover the folders and files off of the RAW-written partition?

Hello there, many thanks for the swift reply.
I have not done that. I have been focusing on the 2.7TB partition.

I am now trying file recovery software, its only 20% of the way through, but its only picking up thousands of 32kb files. This doesn't look to good.

OK, Continuing, if your 3TB external drive was initialised and formatted as a GPT drive , it becomes a little more difficult and we will be in an uncharted area. We have to examine the last few sectors of your 3TB drive and ascertain the back up of the original GPT structure is in tact. Your 32GB has been written as a GPT or so it looks like from your DMDE screenshot.. Where has it put the backups? Has it put them in the last few sectors of the 32GB partition or has it put them in the last few sectors of the 3TB overwriting atleast in part the original backups?

On the whole we may have to go through a lot of investigative procedures and try to reconstruct the partition structure. There is no easy solution.

Now you have to ask yourself: Is this marathon and long winding process worth taking? Or would you just spend USD69 and get done with it? I am ready for the game :). Are you? No results guaranteed as with all Data Recovery procedures. It is only going to be a best effort based upon logic and reasoning. Your case is one of a kind not encountered by us before..If successful you smile or else .... The only saving grace will be, we are only trying to write a few sectors that define the partition structure and that will not affect/alter your data in any way. If our attempt fails, you can still get your data back with Getdataback simple since we will not be touching any of the sectors where your data resides.

I have long been advising in this forum: Know your drive - whether it is an MBR drive or GPT drive. Save the important sectors of the Partition structure (just sector 0 in case of MBR drives and for GPT just a handful of them each a miserly 512bytes, the normal physical sector size ) When diaster strikes, just restore these sectors from the backup. In most cases that should immediately bring the drive back alive. Even if it doesn't, that makes data recovery much easier and reliable.

My posts here:
Benefits of GPT vs MBR Primary and MBR Logical Partitions ?

Benefits of GPT vs MBR Primary and MBR Logical Partitions ?