[UV_Power]

Hey everyone,

I just reformatted my whole computer. I put in my Windows XP disk, went to the setup screen, and saw a list of all the current partitions. But, in my "haste" (which is such a bad word to use during a system reformat ), I didn't realize that my big external hard drive was still plugged in. Even more terrible news, I mistook the external hard drive for the internal one I wanted to reformat. And the worst news is I deleted the partition.

I haven't actually formatted it yet, so all the data should still be on it, but the partition is gone. Is there a way to get the data back if the partition is gone? This is my backup drive so I really need that data.

reminder: This is a big external hard drive.

Please help!

Thanks.

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It's possible to recover the partition but only with commercial software as far as I know, so it depends how much you value the data on it. There is a trial of such software here:http://www.partition-recovery.com/
But you'll need to pay them $30 before it will unlock to do a full partition recovery. As I said, depends how valuable the data is.
$30 is not a lot for software that may well save the day on many other occasions in the future.

Edited by pip22, 10 September 2006 - 01:29 AM.

[pip22]

It's possible to recover the partition but only with commercial software as far as I know, so it depends how much you value the data on it. There is a trial of such software here:http://www.partition-recovery.com/
But you'll need to pay them $30 before it will unlock to do a full partition recovery. As I said, depends how valuable the data is.
$30 is not a lot for software that may well save the day on many other occasions in the future.

Edited by pip22, 10 September 2006 - 01:29 AM.

[UV_Power]

You're right. $30 is not alot and I am willing to pay that for my data. But, I have been reading that some software can do more harm than good. How successful is this software, in your opinion?

[Kemasa]

You can use a Linux Live CD, such as Knoppix, to recreated the partition table, if you know how it was setup before. If it was the whole disk. then it is easier, just create a partition and set the type to be NTFS, assuming that is what it was. As long as you did not format it, thne the data should be there. Knoppix is free, just use fdisk or a similar program.

Such a disk a good tool to have around, even if you normally don't run Linux.

[UV_Power]

You mean just create a new partition on the external hard drive via Knoppix? Would that just write over some of the existing data?

Edited by UV_Power, 10 September 2006 - 02:33 PM.

[Kemasa]

Yes, create the partition with Knoppix. Linux does not automatically create the filesystem, at least none of the programs that I normally use (fdisk, sfdisk, etc.). It would be nice if the old fdisk from win98 days was still around and updated since it did not create the filesystem, but new versions do.