Hacking Help Recovering a WBFS Partition?

[VampDude]

After removing a bad dump of a game from my external hard drive using WBFS Manager today, the partition no longer works.
It will not load on any USB Loader, I can't reload it in WBFS Manager, and when I click it on the My Computer Screen, I receive this:
"Data Error (Cyclical Redundancy Check)"
I had nearly 100 games on this drive and have tried many different recovery programs with no results. I'd prefer not to reformat it because I don't have many of the ISOs.

Any ideas to restore the partiton or transfer it to another drive?

 

[PsyBlade]

try wiimm's wwt

 

[Stigmatic]

The partion will never readable from "my computer".

If You could also try another game manager.
Wii backup manager is the most popular one.

If it can read it, move all games to somewhere else as .wbfs files.
Then format your drive and transfer them back, or use the other you transferred it to if it's external.

If that doesn't work, wimm's tools is probably your best bet.
edit: link to his tools.

 

[Kittymat]

When you have no options left, the final thing you can try is Format the drive to Fat32 (I use swiss knife - its free and effectively does a quick format) this changes the indexing part of the drive and does not write over the main partition - takes 2-3 seconds for a 500gb drive. With the drive in fat 32 it will be blank, however the data is still there, now google for free recovery software (most are free to look but you have to buy to recover, however there a few completely free ones out there). Use the program to recover the information. In future use Fat32 or NTFS as when you do have issues there are far more recovery options out there

 

[PsyBlade]

When you have no options left, the final thing you can try is Format the drive to Fat32 (I use swiss knife - its free and effectively does a quick format) this changes the indexing part of the drive and does not write over the main partition - takes 2-3 seconds for a 500gb drive. With the drive in fat 32 it will be blank, however the data is still there, now google for free recovery software (most are free to look but you have to buy to recover, however there a few completely free ones out there). Use the program to recover the information. In future use Fat32 or NTFS as when you do have issues there are far more recovery options out there

DO NOT DO THIS - THIS WILL DESTROY YOUR DATA
there simply is no recovery software for wbfs other than wiimm's tools

 

[Kittymat]

orbed7

Feb 26 at 2:43 PM

before realizing that the wbfs partition on my external hdd must use a program called "wbfs manager" to add backups, etc., i added an .iso backup to my wbfs drive via drag-n-drop on windows vista. now i've noticed that the file system says "ntfs" and not "wbfs" like it used to. the shitty part is that neither the wii nor my computer can view the files on the partition.
but i know the data is still there because I haven't fully formatted it, even though windows now tells me that I must format and that I cannot access the partition.
Anyway to undo this and get my games back? the partition has 10.7GB free out of 1.66TB
and if you haven't already noticed, then yes: i'm n00b and no, i did not do the original format.



orbed7

Feb 26 at 10:51 PM
my plan is to use r-studio to recover the files to a backup hdd; will post, if it works.



orbed7

Mar 3 at 8:02 PM
IT WORKED!


As I said Last Chance - I have done it and it worked - I used a free recovery software but also confirmation from someone else!

 

[PsyBlade]

then please tell us which software you used

and why in hell would I want destroy more data by formating to fat
before throwing the recovery tool at it

formating to wbfs again MIGHT make sense in exterme circumstances
but something else makes NO sense at all

 

[Kittymat]

I tried loads, but they all retrieved the data - they just wanted to charge to recover it, hence I cannot remember which one was totally free

A quick format of a hard drive does nothing to the data/partition, it formats the header/indexing part of the drive to allow windows etc to see what is on the drive, like a book index, if it cannot see the index it cannot see the information so assumes it is not there. The data however remains intact until you overwrite it, if you are into criminal activities you should realise that any data you deleted is still recoverable, for how long depends on the size of your hard drive and how much data you write to it but several weeks of information are usually recoverable (so smash the hard drive next time you take a computer to the tip - AND NEVER sell a second hand machine with the hard drive unless you know how to destroy the data). A decent shredding program writes garbage over the information to be deleted so overwritting it.

As a side issue I proved this to a friend who was selling his PC by recovering passwords, personal letters etc after he thought he had deleted it all.

If you format your hard drive (even to a different format) reinstall windows then put it through a recovery program it will still find about 90% of the data


- if you have a 2TB hard drive and want to copy it to another 2TB hard drive it takes hours (over 28 with my laptop) but to format it takes about 30 seconds - the data is not disturbed. However never assume that a format will help, use it as the last resort, putting the drive into Fat32 or NTFS allows the computer to see it, so allowing the recovery programs to start / access the drive

 

[VampDude]

The partion will never readable from "my computer".

If You could also try another game manager.
Wii backup manager is the most popular one.

If it can read it, move all games to somewhere else as .wbfs files.
Then format your drive and transfer them back, or use the other you transferred it to if it's external.

If that doesn't work, wimm's tools is probably your best bet.
edit: link to his tools.

Is there a guide somewhere on how to use those tools? I don't have much knowledge of using command-line programs.

 

[nunavat2010]

if you are into criminal activities you should realise that any data you deleted is still recoverable

I have no help to OP, but I like this part. If you into criminal activities and don't know how to wipe your hard disk clean, you shouldn't be in it in the first place!. But then again over here only kiddie porn fans are that stupid.

 

[Lucif3r]

if you are into criminal activities you should realise that any data you deleted is still recoverable

I have no help to OP, but I like this part. If you into criminal activities and don't know how to wipe your hard disk clean, you shouldn't be in it in the first place!. But then again over here only kiddie porn fans are that stupid.

You cant make an HDD completely clean. There is always ways of recovering at least parts of the data, no matter how trashed the HDD is, no matter how many times youve rewritten it with 0's.
Ok, if you turn it into dust it might be tricky to get any info out of it, but you get the point.