Did I lose my data?

[maximo12]

I had this HD partitioned into two drives of course because of xp's limitations. I had about 80gigs of home videos on the second part. I thought if I reformatted the part that xp was installed that the other part wouldn't be affected, but now, I can't see my other partition. Did this delete everything or did the reformat simply hide the other partition? What steps do I need to take to find out if my data is still on the HD?

 

[Lord Evermore]

How did you go about reformatting it? It sounds like you actually cleared the partition information. Your data is still there, still intact, and the master file table should still be available. However I don't know of a way to restore the partition information using the existing data, at least not for certain.

Programs like Partition Magic (there are some free ones with a little fewer features I think) might allow you to see that the partition is there. You can also search for "data recovery software" or "file recovery software". If the file table is intact, those should be able to locate and restore all of your files, since it can read the table and get the files just like the OS would. It just scans the drive until it locates a file table, if there is a good one. If the file table is gone, then it can scan the drive and attempt to restore files based on recognizable file patterns.

 

[maximo12]

Ok. I have linux and just booted it up and linux still sees both partitions and my data is still there which is great! However, how do I get windows to see the data again? Honestly, I think I used a program from my harddrve manufacturer to partition it last time. But, I'm really not wanting to partition the drive again, I just want to see the data.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Again, how did you do the format exactly? During the XP install? (which by the way, if you install with SP1 or higher already integrated, the drive size limit is removed).

If you can view it in Linux, then your best option might be to use Linux to copy the files to a bunch of DVDs or another hard drive, or over to another machine on a network.

 

[maximo12]

I completely deleted the first partition and did a complete format, but didn't touch the other partition of course (I can still see the data). It doesn't matter if the limiter is removed because there are two partitions. It's just strange that windows saw it before but not now. My bios settings seem fine, also. If they were wrong, I don't think linux could see it either.

 

[maximo12]

Strangely enough, I just logged back on to windows and now the drive is showing up. How strange is that?

 

[Lord Evermore]

It's Windows. Not strange at all. I support some old NT4 servers that often lose their RAID mirror configurations. They even show that the hard drive isn't even accessible anymore. Reboot it and suddenly the hard drive is there again.