[Solved] Copy Unallocated Drive Data To New Separate Drive?

I need to transfer (copy) data from an unallocated HDD to another separate physical drive.
I used Test Disk to try and recover this data but the program reports that the drive is too small to accommodate the recovery. The drive is 250GB but Test Disk reports that the data is 308GB large.
Ideally I wish to recover (clone, migrate, or copy) the entire drive to a new separate physical drive (over 465GB capacity partition) and then recover the data from within the new drive.
If this is not possible then I would like to selectively choose what I wish to save between the four resident partitions within that same 250GB drive that will fit back within it. Unfortunately, the program is sparse in details on how to do this, if at all, without screwing up the process and losing valuable data.
Is anyone familiar with Test Disk, or similar data recovery tools, enough to walk me through either of the processes above?
I would greatly appreciate any help!

Thanks!

Tachyon

 

Hi and welcome to Computer Help Forums.
Buy a new drive larger than the data and quick format the new drive.
Then copy and paste whatever data to the new drive you wish.
Personally I wouldn't try and copy and paste 308 GB's of data in one hit but rather portions of the 308GB at a time.
Then move data from the new drive to where you wish.
Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for your reply but as I mentioned the drive's data I want to copy to my separate larger physical drive is a separate, formally 250GB UNALLOCATED drive. The data is not accessible until I am able to recover the data with a third party data recovery program. And I am unable to recover that data on the resident drive because the data recovery program that I am using (Test Disk) says that the resident drive (250GB) is too small, since it reports that the recoverable data is 308GBs. This may be due to previously deleted data that I voluntarily deleted long before (that also is recoverable) but no longer want.
Alternatively, as mentioned before, if I can selectively choose the data I want to recover, I would do that, and sacrifice the remaining data I don't need anymore, so that the desired data I want to keep will fit on the drive (less than or equal to the 250GB capacity) of the resident drive.
In the UNALLOCATED drive, using the third party data recovery program, it allows me to see the recoverable data file names that you cannot normally see on an UNALLOCATED drive, which doesn't even show up in the "My Computer" screen of Windows. It does show up however in Windows Disk Manager as an UNALLOCATED drive only, but not its (hidden data). Only a third party Data Recovery program can show you the still recoverable data. And that data cannot be copied or transferred to another disk (as far as I know?) until the data is recovered by that program on the resident disk (250GB drive).
The problem is, is that I don't know how to do that, if, what I mentioned above, can be done without recovering the whole 308GBs, which is too large for the 250GB capacity of the resident drive.
Does any of this make any sense?
Thanks again!

Tachyon

 

Sorry I misread your initial post.

 

Before trying to go further with the third party recovery program you have, I would try a different data recovery program. Recuva being one I know of, however I have never needed to use one so can't advise about how. It's worth a look on Google for data recovery programs as there are quite a lot, some free, some paid for.
How did the drive become unallocated and therefore the equivalent of deleted data?

Nev.

 

Yes, I should have called the "resident" drive the source drive.
I'm not sure how the data recovery program came up with 308GBs on the 250GB capacity drive, except, as I mentioned, that it was also reading recoverable files I deleted - on purpose - some time ago. But yes, it still doesn't make sense, since the old purposely deleted data would have, at the very least, been corrupted and, presumably, unrecoverable. Another more probable reason is that the data recovery program was calculating new indexing space for all of the recoverable data - at least that's the best reason I can surmise.

I installed Windows on another new larger drive (the destination drive) that had a previous installation of Windows on it. I wanted to make a clean install on the new drive (because I suddenly had to replace and installed a new MoBo) and wanted to create new partitions for it, thus deleting it's old partitions. I stupidly neglected to disconnect the old 250GB drive, and naturally, I was in a hurry and accidentally deleted the 250GB drive's partitions along with the new drive's partitions - and voilà - one new unallocated drive!

Thanks for your speedy responses and suggestion to use Recuva. I was hoping to continue to use Test Disk, since it is already installed on my computer and has proven to show the data can theoretically be recovered, albeit, in a round about way that I am seeking. I'll look into it, and other programs as well.
However, if anyone is familiar with using Test Drive and can come up with a work-around, as described, I would be most grateful for your help!
Thanks again guys!

 

Hey guys/gals!
Just wanted to thank you all for your kind help in trying to finding a solution to my unallocated disk recovery dilemma.
I found an outstanding program called EaseUS Partition Recovery 8.5. It worked like a charm and appears to have recovered all my partitions and data. And it was FREE! I highly recommend it. It was fast too with no glitches.
For future reference, the correct name for such a program - what I was calling unallocated disk recovery - is called, as the program name suggests, "partition recovery". "Data recovery" is recovery within a disk/partition(s) and not the disk/partition(s) as a whole - which means an "unallocated" disk/partition(s).
It was a valuable, distressing, and unnecessary learning experience, but that's life!
Talk to you all again at my next catastrophic disaster!

Thanks again guys/gals for all your kind help!

Tachyon

 

That's good news, and thanks for posting the FIX, as it will no doubt help others in a like situation.