First allow me to apologize because I realize this isn't directly related to linux but since linux is god in my book I believe there will probably be a solution for me in the linux OS.

So first i'll start with my problem.
I have an external harddrive that has a fat32 file system on it that is around 30 GB. It also has a NTFS partition that is 930GB. The 30GB is just music and crap that is unimportant. The important stuff is the 930GBs. I tried Active@ partition recovery. It found both file systems and even allows me to browse the Filesystem through the program but not open any files. I couldnt recover the 930 because it told me there were other partitions that need to be dealt with. I tried testdisk and was only able to recover the fat32. I went back to Active@ Recovery and got the same results... I can browse the file system in active recovery. even preview image files so i know that it has to be possible...

My question for you is... Is there a linux program that will actually get the job done rather than just tease me. Please any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. As much as id like to get my data back i would also really love to learn a process of data recovery that works.

Some things that you might need to know is that i started with both drives gone and windows asking me to format... I believe the problem is with the MFT

You can try Photorec, which is a part of the Testdisk package, to get your documents back. But rather to learn a process of data recovery you should at first learn to backup your important data, that is a much more useful skill.

Thanks I will definitely try that. Will that work in recovering images as well? And I thought it was backed up on my external harddrive until windows broke it :P I will most likely use a raid configured linux server next time.

Any other ideas from anyone else?

Photorec currently knows more than 390 file formats, it is likely that you can recover all files you are searching for, if they are not overwritten or fragmented.

A RAID setup is in no way a backup system, it is intended to keep downtime low in case of failure. It will not prevent data loss in case of malware, bugs in the file-system drivers, bugs in the controller driver, a controller that is running amok or simply user error. If you accidentally delete a file it will be gone and would be even harder to recover. Photorec (or similar programs) normally don't work on RAIDs, AFAIK.

For those attempting to do this. After using photorec this link was very helpful for sorting

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/After_Using_PhotoRec

2 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for that link, some nice scripts there.