How to recover exFat partition?

Question

I'm trying to recover a single 4 TB ExFat partition made in Maverick's Disk Utility.

This single partition on the disk has storage files shared between Windows and Mac.

It became inaccessible after a Windows performed a repair reboot on the main hard drive.

Here's what TestDisk has found:

1) Disk selection

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2) Quick scan finds MS DATA. Is the size correct for a 4 TB drive?

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3) Deep scan finds another identically sized partition. Which one should I choose?

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"Write" is the last option and I lack any other backup for this hard drive.

Doing it right the first time is a must.

Please advice.

Before you attempt any repair, first make an image of the disk. If your repair goes awry, you have recourse to the backup. — DrMoishe Pippik, Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 18:13
I do not have any other 4 TB hard drive, so I must be absolutely sure if what I'm doing is right. — Gabriel, Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 18:14
If you care to operate without backup, it's a risk you take. You could use a friend's disk, or even free cloud storage [1mtb.com/top-10-best-free-online-cloud-storage-services mentions Tencent Weiyun offers 10 TB]. Or live dangerously... — DrMoishe Pippik, Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 18:20
Anyhow, the question is about taking the correct steps to recover an ExFat partition. A risk is a risk, but only after being sure I'm on the correct path. — Gabriel, Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 18:28
Golden rule - never let Windows play with bootcamp partitions. I see klanomath has got your dupe in Ask Different. He's good at this kind of thing. — Tetsujin, Commented Mar 20, 2015 at 20:54

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-13 12:45:29Z

5

I found all the necessary steps in the TestDisk guide.

With the P key I was able to see all the files, and proceeded to Write the partition table.

For future reference, select rDisk instead of Disk, it's the raw format and reads the partition much faster.

A big thank you to the developers behind TestDisk, without it the solution would have been much harder!

CommunityBot

1

answered Mar 20, 2015 at 21:42

Gabriel

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1

Worked for me, even with my HD partitioned as NTFS and exFat! Thanks for the guide!
– Adauto
Commented Dec 3, 2017 at 19:47

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