Recover harddrive data

DDrescue is designed to get data off in situations like this. Then try mounting the image, and if files are missing give testdisk and photorec a chance on the image.

Since you are Linux savvy, try running both Testdisk and PhotoRec on the drive. Or even better, try to get a dd image of the drive and have them crawl through it. Hard drives that make noise tends to have serious problems and not last long after the noises begin.

TestDisk is a free open source partition scanner and data recovery tool. It is very useful in recovering lost partitions. PhotoRec is another free commonly used data recovery tool.

TestDisk is a lot more efficient than PhotoRec. The problem with TestDisk is that it doesn't always recover all deleted files. If you accidentally reformat a partition, TestDisk can recover thousands of files without missing a single file, but if you deleted a file by sending it to the Trash and then emptying the Trash, TestDisk can't always recover it.

So use TestDisk first, and if you recovered all of the deleted files with TestDisk, then you're done. If you recovered most of the deleted files with TestDisk, you can decide whether you're done or not. If you're not done after running TestDisk, you can try recovering the deleted files using PhotoRec. PhotoRec can't recover deleted files that have been completely overwritten (for example, with the dd program). In some cases, the filename is stored in the file itself. PhotoRec tries to recover the filename in this case, but most of the time PhotoRec can't recover the filenames.

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Recover files based on filetype using PhotoRec

It is preferable to boot from a Linux live DVD/USB before following these steps, in order to avoid using the operating system in which the deleted file is located.

1. Install TestDisk if it is not already installed in your OS. In Linux distributions, installing TestDisk will also install PhotoRec along with it.

2. Launch PhotoRec (launch from a terminal in a live CD/USB or launch as root).

3. Select hard disk.

4. Select partition type.

   If your hard disk has Linux partitions, then select [Intel].

5. Select filetype option.

   Move to [File Opt] and press Enter. Here you can disable all file types by pressing s. Use space to toggle the check button. Select filetype(s) to recover.

6. Select options.

   PhotoRec also has a list of different options. Under normal circumstances you don’t need to modify them.

7. Select partition.

   Move the selector to the partition from which you have removed the file. Then press Enter on [Search].

8. Select filesystem type.

   If you are using Linux, it's going to be ext2/ext3/ext4, so the default selection is ext2/ext3. Otherwise if you are recovering files from a partition formatted as FAT or NTFS select Other.

9. Select space for analysis.

   Select Free if you didn’t write to that partition after removing the particular file, otherwise select Whole.

10. Select a directory to recover files.

    Now select the path where the recovered files will be stored. Then press Y.

PhotoRec will show how many files it has recovered.