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recovering files from hard drives ???

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2016 1:57 pm
by voxel
Hello ^^)

I got a hard drive that has been modified from Amiga FFS2 DOS7 (long files names) to SFS02 and quick formated in that new SFS2 format.

problem is that some important files has been forgotten on this drive before the change of format :-( and should be recovered.

This is on X1000 with AmigaOS4.1 Final edition, hard disk is 1 partition (full disk).

I've changed back the dostype to FFS2 DOS7 but after reboot it appears as (expected) "HDD:SFS2#?" unformatted disk.

before FFS2 I would have used Quarterback tools for that salvage but it is not compatible with DOS7 FFS2 disk :-(

what can I do to recover the files that are still on the drive ?
Thanks.

Re: recovering files from hard drives ???

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 12:15 am
by tonyw
I'm afraid that you are out of luck (unless someone can point you to a suitable tool).

The sort of tool that you need is one that understands the disk format of FFS2 and can find and use remaining clues to find your files (if they have not been over-written). AFAIK there is no such tool.

You could search OS4Depot or Aminet, but I don't think any suitable thing has been written.

Re: recovering files from hard drives ???

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 11:46 am
by ZeroG
Well, there is PartitionWizard, but it is missing in OS4.1 on the x1000...

Re: recovering files from hard drives ???

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 2:21 pm
by thomasrapp
If quick format was the only operation while the dostype was SFS, it should be possible to repair the FFS partition quite easily. Just put DOS\7 back into the very first block of the partition. The root block of FFS is in the middle of the partition while SFS stores its in the beginning. So the quick format did not do much harm to the FFS directory structure, if any at all.

You could try this program for example: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=886749#post886749

killpart hdd: 444f5307

Re: recovering files from hard drives ???

Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 11:04 am
by voxel
@thomas : I read your answer too late...

BTW : I've repaired it by hooking the drive to my AmigaOne G4 @ 1.27 GHz and partition wizard in unformat mode found all the files there was on it in good shape except one that was damaged ^^) that took some time but the job is done.

the only problem I've stumbled upon was when the drive was validating his bitmap at the end of the repair and it freezed at 48%... (only 512MO in that AOne).

too bad that partition wizard is not maintained anymore :-((((

Re: recovering files from hard drives ???

Posted: Tue May 10, 2016 12:01 pm
by RussellB
An updated version of Partition Wizard is in A-eon's Enhancer Software Pack.