[archibell]

Two issues/questions...

First, I decided to do a fresh install of XP on my system and I did the rookie error of choosing the wrong drive and deleted the partition on my back-up storage drive (old IDE drive from previous computer as a single partition). Normally I wouldn't care, but over the years I had quite a bit of data that was semi-important to me...ok it was very important (luckily not the pictures of my daughters birth). Important enough that I have moved beyond the free partition recovery program (Partition find and mount) that didn't find anything and have started to look at paying for some software and I am currently trying demo versions, but I don't want to waste time with crappy programs. Does anyone have recommendations or suggestions?

Secondly, and not nearly as important, during this process I have noticed that windows computer manager doesnt show my third hd. I have 1 Sata drive as my main drive, and two IDE (dont laugh...cheap free storage), a 40 gig on the Master and a 30 gig (the one I deleted the partition on) on the Slave. I have both set with jumpers on cable select, but it doesn't see the 40 gig. However when i run utilities such as the Partition Find and Mount, it shows all the drives.


Any Help is greatly appreciated.

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Archibell,

Can you explain exactly what you did while installing XP? Did you format the partition you just erased? Did you create a new one over the top?
Chances are, you're going to have to put a price on your data and send it to a professional recovery service. Dell recommends DriveSavers, and Dell customers get a 10% discount there.

[The Admiral]

Archibell,

Can you explain exactly what you did while installing XP? Did you format the partition you just erased? Did you create a new one over the top?
Chances are, you're going to have to put a price on your data and send it to a professional recovery service. Dell recommends DriveSavers, and Dell customers get a 10% discount there.

[Samm]

Hi Archibell

Your chances of recovering any useable data depend a lot on whether you actually installed windows to your 30GB drive after deleting the partition. If all you did was delete the partition, realised your mistake and left the 30GB drive alone after that, then your chances are relatively good.

If you don't want to pay and arm and a leg to professional data recovery company, then I personally recommend Active@ Partition Recovery. I've had some excellent results with this software. What's more, you can download a trial version of it. The trial version won't recover your data but it will tell you what it is able to recover. In other words, if it's unable to do it, then it's cost you nothing, but if it does find your data, then you can buy the full version knowing that it's going to do the job.

http://www.partition-recovery.com/

[archibell]

Thanks for the replies....I never got the auto response so I didn't know anyone responded.

Samm...I tried Active@ Partition recovery and didn't get anything on the quick scans. Before I waited the few hours for the long scan, I tried "Recover My Files"....I was weary of this program as it looked like it was a scam (couldn't find any reviews / found the same program name from several different companies...etc), but viola! it recovered everything! and was around $40. It worked so well it even recovered a few files from the original windows 95 partition it used to be in my old computer many moons ago. I was quite relieved to say the least and now I just have to spend the next few days organizing and burning those files to DVD.

I also rechecked the connections and jumper positions on my IDE hard drives. Everything was in order. On the next boot -up...there they were. So I repartitioned them and reformatted them saved the recovered files back on the drives....and away I go off to fresh install happiness.

[shard92]

I have used getdataback from runtime systems... you can "try" for free to see if it will recover anything before purchase.... just get the one that corresponds to the partition that was lost ( ie fat or ntfs )_

[Samm]

Hi archibell

So glad to hear Active@ partition worked for you (told you it was good!)

[archibell]

It was Recover My Files that worked.

http://www.recovermyfiles.com

Like I said, I was weary of the program but it worked great.