[PurestLight]

Hi, I am in an absolute mess because I have wiped my 2nd HDD. Ill try and explain.....Ive got 2 hard drives, 'C' where i keep the O/S and all major stuff like AV and Firewall etc - its a little Raptor so not much room on it really, and a 2nd 250gb drive which was partitioned into K, L and M and housed video files, office progs, photos, photo progs and the like. I thought it would be a REALLY good idea to use Norton Ghost and clone C to M as a back up. What I failed to realise (because Ive decided Im a complete stupid idiot) is that the clone process reformats and wipes any previous data on the drive it's cloning to. Daft thing is, I didnt need to clone it, I was just trying the prog out for 'fun' and I have got a backup on an external HDD - or at least Im pretty sure I have. Its an Iomega and I used their software to do it.

I dont know where to start fixing this mess, I dont understand how back-ups work and if I restore Ill also have the 'C' drive stuff there as well which I dont want because Ive got it twice already

Now Im in the position where all the programs that were installed to K L and M cant be uninstalled because the uninstall bits have all gone and these drives dont even exist anymore. I dont want to just go ahead and reinstall them because I want the partitions back and to have it as it was before. I tried to do a system restore but it told me my drives had gone and there was basically no point in trying.....

I have run Active Undelete (demo) and its found lots of stuff, trouble is I don't know if what has been found is relevant to what I have lost. I guess the cloned 'C' drive data is in there somewhere.

Please could someone help me out

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Can you still boot to your OS drive? (the little raptor)

How big is your OS hard disk?

There may be a way to get your data off the 250 gig, but it's only a slim chance.

makai

Edited by makai, 13 July 2005 - 09:42 PM.

[makai]

Can you still boot to your OS drive? (the little raptor)

How big is your OS hard disk?

There may be a way to get your data off the 250 gig, but it's only a slim chance.

makai

Edited by makai, 13 July 2005 - 09:42 PM.

[PurestLight]

Hi thanks for replying.

The C drive is fine, a couple of odd things are happening but nothing major. Its 37.5 gb approx in size, and it has 13 gb free

[makai]

Hmmm... 13gb versus how much data on your other drive?

Have you ever heard of BartPE. It's a program you run off a bootable CD that you burn. It enables you to browse and move data around on your hard disk. It's very good for trying to retrieve data on drives that are unbootable, or have other problems.

Depending on how much damage Ghost has done, your data on the 250gb drive may still be intact and only the boot record for that drive has been destroyed.

However... just how much data will fit on your 13gb space, I don't know.

Visit the BartPE page, read the documentation, and download the program... it's free!

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

good luck
makai

Edited by makai, 14 July 2005 - 03:26 AM.

[PurestLight]

Hmmm... 13gb versus how much data on your other drive?

There were a lot of video files, Office Programmes, PSP and other big progs, theres no way Id get it on the C drive I dont think.

Ill take a look at BartPE, ty. Can you tell me how I remove the cloned C off my other drive? Im scared of making things worse lol and how do I un-install the progs that have lost their un-install bits?

Thank you for trying to help me

[makai]

I wouldn't touch your other drive until you've burned a BartPE cd.

Don't uninstall, or do anything to that drive or you may never have a chance to save anything.

makai