"Unallocated" on main hdd

Hello to everyone!This is my first time posting so forgive any mistakes about thread placement(mods please move/delete if there's something wrong with my post).The reason i'm writing this thread is that it's the 3rd time that one of my hdds malfunction and everytime i'm in a situation like this i'm trying to find someone who knows what he's doing(always qualified technicians) and end up trying not to pay a fortune to retrieve my data.This time my main hdd (WD 1.5 TB) could not be detected from my system and when i got to the disk management i had a windows message which i didn't read(first time that i didn't and i still regret it) but it didn't say anything about delete/format as i run throught it very fast before clicking "no".The drive disappeared and i only could find it on the bottom of the disk management window with the sign "Unallocated".I've taken it to a technician(didn't want to risk it) and he told me that the disk's partition has a problem and he has to check it's condition further.First of all:How worried should i be?And second if he suggests a data recovery what is the best data recovery programm for the price?I want to buy one and do it myself if the price he asks is too much.Sorry for the long post!

Welcome to the forums. You need to try connecting your hard drive to another system first.
If your partition table is messed up, then this is how I recovered mine:

This should work for version 7.0 of this program just like it did for version 6.14 I used before version 7 was released:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download


• To recover a damaged partition table:

1. Start testdisk_win.exe

2. Create a new log file

3. Scroll down to drive which contains the damaged partition table > Proceed

4. Intel > Analyse > Quick Search

5. Should TestDisk search for partition created under Vista ? > Y


6. If the lost partition was a primary partition, move arrows to change * to P and press Enter.
[P may already be there, if it is, still go to the next step to 'Write partition table'.]

7. Move arrows to Write and press Enter.

8. Write partition table, confirm ? (Y/N) > Y

9. You will have to reboot for the change to take effect.




• To recover individual files / individual directories from a hard drive which cannot display them in Windows because of a damaged partition table:

1. Copy Testdisk to hard drive with enough space to recover the lost files/directories
then start testdisk_win.exe

2. Create a new log file

3. Scroll down to drive which contains the files/directories to recover > Proceed

4. Intel > Analyse > Quick Search

5. Should TestDisk search for partition created under Vista ? > Y


6. Instead of moving arrows to get to the letter P, physically press key P on your keyboard.
This lists the files and directories

7. Now use arrows to move down to select any file or directory and press C on keyboard to copy selected file or directory.

or

To copy all files and directories, move the arrow to the top marked with one dot: .
Then press C on keyboard and all files and directories will be copied to the location where you ran TestDisk from.



• Use instructions above to recover files/directories from a hard drive with a damaged partition table.
If partitions already exist, it may be recovered to an image file. To create an image of the entire partition:

0. Copy Testdisk to hard drive with enough space to store the image of the partition

1. Create a new folder inside which you want to save the image.dd file then start testdisk_win.exe

2. Create a new log file

3. Scroll down to drive which contains the partition to copy > Proceed

4. Intel > Advanced > Scroll down to partition to recover

5. Use right arrow to get to Image Creation > Enter

6. Select where to store the image.dd file > Press Enter then press the Y key on keyboard.

7. File image.dd will contain the recovered partition.

You can use freeware such as OSFMount to mount image.dd files to access files inside them directly.

Thank you for the quick reply!I will definitely start trying what you suggested once i get it back.I'm hoping that the tech might be able to do those things for me before he returns it if things aren't too serious.Were you able to retrieve all of your data?Was there any damage?

If it is just a matter of restoring the partition table then you may be able to get it back.
When people delete files, it depends how much writing is done to the hard drive after the event.

Get a large external drive, connect it to a power cord with an on/off switch. That way you can just turn it on, and backup your files onto it periodically, then turn it off.
Anything that is not backed up is at risk of being lost at any time due to a hard drive failure. Hard drives fail all the time unfortunately.

Funny you should mention that because that was the use it was intended for.My most important documents were on that drive and i only turned it on when i had enough things gathered to be stored there.So you can imagine my frustration when a barely used disk with so much valuable data crashes for no reason.Thank you for the advice!I'm also gonna need some recommendations though on a recovering programm anyway because these things keep happening when least expected and i want to be prepared for the next time.If anyone could give me any advice between the most popular of the kind (stellar,recuva,r studio,data rescue) based on their experience i would be grateful!

I've used the free version of Recuva for a long time to reclaim all kinds of data , pictures , etc. with it. The paid version has more functionality (obviously) and I'm sure it is more effective on damaged drives , but I haven't needed that much. Seagate offers data recovery for thier products , but I've heard it is pricey. I think WD does the same but I'm not positive.

I've heard good things about the free version of recuva,i'll give it a try.I 've only used Get Data Back but i'm rarely able to retrieve videos.

As c627627 said , how much data is written after an event is key to a lot of retrieval. I try to keep all my videos and pictures in one folder (now on a seperate drive) and excluded from defragging. Sadly I lost a lot of stuff before using multiple backups of irreplaceable items. It eats up a lot of storage space , but that's why I have it.

I have learned this thing the very very hard way,so everytime something like that happens i avoid even starting the drive until i get help.But this is getting ridiculous!Considering how careful and cautious i am about my hardware,these things shouldn't happen that often.I now have started storing important documents and pictures or other little space demanding stuff on dvds and keep them away from scratches.I don't know what else to do!