I had healthy NTFS partition. Due to mistake, it was formatted to EXT4 and partially overwritten. Naturally, many files are lost. But photorec is able to retrieve separate files, unfortunately without the proper structure (name, date, and other details).
Is there a tool that would allow to at least browse NTFS records on such partition, or ideally, a tool that would allow to reconstruct this partition, removing new data (EXT4 & new data), replacing lost fragments (just to make it readable/mountable), and allowing to browse/view/copy alive files from non-overwritten part of drive?
Thank you!
Best Answer
First off make a bit copy of the partition, unless you've done that already. Then you may try running ntfsfix or perhaps even Windows' very own chkdsk on it. If you're lucky enough, a backup copy of MFT may still be intact. Chances are very low though, don't hold your breath.
Next step is advanced forensics. If the (meta)data is valuable enough for you, give it to a data recovery company, they will have the necessary tools and expertise but it won't come cheap. Chances of recovery will however still be very low.
Also you should learn from this mistake and make regular backups from now on :)