data lost by partitioning external drive

Hi

Following bad advice from an underaged 'expert' on a YouTube tutorial who's declined to respond, I made a grave error by adding a (233Gb) partition to a (465.8Gb) WD external drive, which seems to have erased the data (45Gb) already on it. I'm surprised this happened so easily (wouldn't I be), since there was plenty of room for a new partition. Having created the extra partition, both now mount as volumes but there seems to be nothing on the original, single volume.

I've looked at the possibility of re-writing the original partition tree using TestDisk and pdisk but since the original partition isn't lost per se, I'm not sure how to work it. I'm now looking at any possible option to retrieving the original volume intact, rather than days of trawling through recovered files using recovery software. Can anyone advise? There are loads of threads here on related topics but I couldn't find the specific info i needed, part of me still believes there's a simple solution. Many thanks.

Richard

If there is a simple solution, I've never seen it.
I'd be interested in a method that does not require data recovery software also.

It is possible to repartition drives without losing data, but there is always the chance that something will go wrong. Never play with partitioning (as you've now found out) without a backup of any data on the drive in question. I assisted helping people do exactly what you did without problem for maybe 10 years, that is, until the first time one of them had all their data become unrecognizable. One time is all it takes. Now I refuse to even tell anyone how to do it until there is a backup in place.