Re: [Bug-ddrescue] I screwed up my gf's PC... please advice

[Thodoris Charalabidis]

Hello list, 

Thank you very much about all your replies. It's really nice to see people trying to helping you and giving you advice !! The feeling is great.

I didn't do any actual recovery, I haven't tried that just yet... I read in one of your replies that "your data is there... there is no need for panic...". I can't agree more. Preparing with knowledge is my 1st priority.

I have printed AND read about 200 pages I found on forums and mailing lists about ddrescue usage, parameters, testdisk and photorec usage, foremost etc etc etc and generally about recovering data.

And also I bought 5 brand new HDD of 160 GB each, and one HDD of 500GB for my tests.

I have to say that I'm stuck in the whole workflow I must follow !!!

My main concern is to save my photos. One technical problem is that after screwing the 120GB HDD running
ddrescue /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2 (from C (windows) to D (data)),
my D (2nd partition) is now recognized from Windows with only 17GB (just like C).
It used to be around 90GB in total. 73GBs are missing. At least my OS thinks that.
And here relies my "workflow-to-follow" problem. This is what I understood as possible scenarios (workflows)

1) ddrescue the whole 120GB -> to another 160 GB HDD -> run testdisk on the new HDD to find the missing GBs -> data carve the "fixed-size-90GB" D partition

2) ddrescue the whole 120GB -> to an image (.img) -> make copies of the image -> run testdisk on the image to find the missing GBs -> save the "new" image with "fixed-size-90GB" D partition -> mount 2nd partition inside the image (calc offset, mount via loop) -> data carve 2nd partition

3) ddrescue the whole 120GB -> to an image (.img) -> make copies
of the image -> data carve the WHOLE image -> collect/compare
recovered data

4) ddrescue the whole 120GB -> to another 160 GB HDD -> data carve the WHOLE 160GB drive for recovered data

(The 2nd plan seems strange to me... I admit)
Do you have a workflow to suggest? I'm not concerned about time. 

Thanks for your time and all your replies.

Theodore