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Audio recorded on inaccessible partition (microSD)

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 4:05 pm
by paparologist
I'm trying to recover files from a microSD partition I cannot access with the Explorer.

Here's the full situation in detail:

I was using my audio recorder (Zoom H1) for a whole day until the recorder's card was full. Once I saw the warning on its monitor I took out the Micro SD card to replace it. However, I realized that I didn't have another card on me so I decided to keep the same card in the recorder and switch the file format to MP3 instead of WAV, in case there was some space left.

The H1 started recording normally in MP3 and I was glad.

Then I tried to unload the recordings on my PC (win 10), using a card reader for the MicroSD. As soon as I inserted the card, I got a warning for the E: drive not being accessible (the wrong parameter warning). The card was 16GB in capacity. There was a drive with 13GB that was accessible. I realized that the card was split in two partitions.
The accessible partition worked perfectly but did not contain the recordings. I couldn't see the size of the inaccessible partition until I used the MiniTool Power Data Recovery 8.1 which showed me that the partition was somewhat less than 2GB and it was full. It makes sense to me, since for the time I calculated that I recorded, a sum of 2GB was realistic. So all the data I need is in the second/inaccessible partition.

Up to this point, I had no luck in recovering the WAV & MP3 files from that partition. I used Stellar Phoenix & MiniTool. I tried chkdsk but I get a warning that it cannot chkdsk since its a RAW partition.

ANY suggestion is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much for your time.

Re: Audio recorded on inaccessible partition (microSD)

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 7:33 pm
by lcoughey
It is funny how so many people use programs like Stellar and MiniTool without success before asking for advice. Yet, those same programs market themselves as being the solution for everything. Anyway, I digress, but will just say...those programs stink.

I'm not familiar with the recorder and what file system it would be using to save the recordings to the microSD card. Assuming that it is FAT32, you can try to run a full scan with R-Studio or GetDataBack and see if you have any better luck.