Help Needed with Format issue on Seagate Barracuda 3000GB Dr

[Tomengland32]

Hello,
I would be very grateful for any help that someone can offer me with the following problem;

I have a Seagate Barracude 3000GB HDD, which I have formatted using Windows 7 Disk Management as a GPT Drive. I then placed the drive in an external USB cradle and have been using it to store photographs and some videos I am doing for a project as I am working between two machines. Till today I have no problem with either machine or the drive itself. Both computers have recognized it as 3000gb GPT drive, and I have been able to store, add and amend data as normal.

This morning whilst working we had a power cut and the computer went off with the drive, when powering up I did not disconnect the drive from the USB port, and whilst in startup mode Windows identified a possible fault with the USB drive and ran the check disk programme it runs at startup, and has reset the the drive as a 760gb drive, thus removing the GPT ID. I have tried both computers and neither will read the drive saying that the disk needs to be formatted??!!??

I am assuming the data is still on the drive as the programme check lasted all of 2 seconds, but how to I re-access it? Do I use Windows 7 Disk Management to say it is a GPT drive or will I lose all my data.

So far I have done nothing except switch off the power and unplug the drive, and I am hopeful that someone can offer a simple solution that will allow me to re-access my data.

Thanks for any advice.

Regards

Tom

[mr_spokk]

Hi, you can use a program called R-Studio, use google to find.
Take the drive out of the cradle and plug it in to the mainboard via Sata connector and then scan the drive for lost data.

[Tomengland32]

Hello,

Many thanks for your comment.

I placed the disk drive within the computer cradle connected via sata connector and downloaded R-Studio. Maybe I am missing something but R-Studio is very complicated and I have been unable to get anywhere.

I have tried proprietary recovery programs but they only seem able to locate around 60-70% of the original data, so where has the other 30-40% gone. As I understand it Windows Chkdsk would have changed the FAT Table and maybe done a quick scan which should not have dumped a large portion of the data.

I cannot believe that this has not happened to someone else, I am sure there has to be an easier solution to this problem and one that recovers a higher portion of the data.

All comments thoughts greatly received.

Thanks again.