I have a weird issue here...

So, a friend was toying with a usb stick, which was giving him a hard time, cause it was sometimes working, and sometimes it was not...and he decided to clone the info on the hdd on the D: partition, C: being the one with windows XP and files...
He used Winhax or something like that to clone in onto D: , and now all the data from D: was erased, and the stick info was not copied...
Can he get his data back from D: somehow? If so...how?

This is all the info he told me ...

 

Winhex was the tool he used...

 

There are file recovery tools if the partition is still there.
But try searching the forum - there was one person who had a deleted partition and needed files.

One thing you could try (on another computer first) is "Recuva" - its from the same "company" as CCLeaner...

I take it the files were just deleted, or was the drive formated?

 

There is nothing left on the partition but empty space and the usual "drive files" about size and such, you know, system files.
So not the whole drive , just the partition files were wiped off...

 

Ok, by the sounds of it he copied the USB sticks partition, not to a file, but to the disc itself. This will have overwritten the boot block, index, partition table etc etc... Basically the words "Royally Shafted" spring to mind.

What he should have done is copied the USB partition to a file and then used WinHex to recover the files from this image file.

I don't know of any way back from what has happened as all the index info, drive description and file location data has now been overwritten.

 

WinHex itself is a Forensics and Data recovery tool. The indexed table file was probably being manipulating as to lose the information.

Can only suggest paying to get HandyRecover, or get the trial version, and see if "something" shows up.

cheers ...

 

I'll try those and post back if there any results...

 

Neither Recuva nor HandyRecover could find anything ...
The data on both the USB stick and the hdd is crucial...so I`ll try any method to recover it...

 

The last resort is letting a specialist company do the recovery - but that will cost at least hundreds, possibly a few thousand...

 

TestDisk is worth trying.
Check this post, the OP had a problem where partition tables were erased, he managed to recover all files using the linked program.
Also, check the step-by-step wiki on this not-too-UI-friendly program.
Cheers and good luck.

 

I managed to make a copy - image of the USB stick with WINHEX, saving it as .img
As for the HDD...it`s pretty much SOL..