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TLDR: Accidentally deleted partition on storage drive and created EFI partition. Drive is now one big EFI partition. Did not quick format. Any ideas on how to restore the original partition?

I accidentally deleted the partition on a secondary storage drive in my PC while distractedly setting up a clean Windows install on a new drive, and when I asked a more techy friend for help, there was a bit of a miscommunication. He ended up creating a new EFI partition instead of restoring the old partition (apparently thought that I had deleted a boot partition in the install process) - says he used command prompt to do this.

Luckily, he didn't go beyond creating the new partition (didn't even quick format the drive), and I have taken care not to change anything else on the drive, but a few quick attempts at using DMDE to scan for deleted partitions came up empty.

I'm currently trying teskdisk to see if that yields any better results, but if not, is there anything else I should try to restore the old partition? Should I delete the EFI partition before attempting further scans? This is my first time trying my hand at using any data recovery software, and I only know as much as I've managed to google so far, so hand-holdy instructions would be greatly appreciated!

I do have the majority of the data backed up, but I'd like to restore everything if possible.

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  • “Did not quick format.” – But then what did happen? Was it formatted or not? Quick format or “long” format is also relevant. What was the filesystem before? NTFS?
    – Daniel B
    Apr 17, 2021 at 12:41

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Hiren’s boot CD/USB is the general “first aid kit” in such situations.

Download and create a bootable CD or USB with this collection of software.

See this article specific about harddisk partition recovery.

Word of caution: read first. Then think what you are doing. Think again. And only than act.

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