FDISKed my hardrive - A light at the end of tunnel?! - IT'S WORKING!!!

[cyberia]

Well, I was installing Linux on my PC and FDISKed the wrong drive. Anybody have any suggestions. I am ready to break down in tears.

(As you can see, Linux IS working though. Now I really need to get my Win XP and all my Cr*p on it back )

 

[birddog]

I have a feeling that you are S.O.L. You may want to check to see if Partion Magic has a tool to help you out (I think it is a longshot though).

 

[Shagga]

Unfortunately you have lost everything. Re-installation I believe is your only option...

 

[Woodchuck2000]

I hate to bear bad news, but you've had it. FDisk re-writes the partition table at a fundamental level - there really is no way back...

 

[JW310]

I believe there's a program called Lost & Found that will get your data back if the partition that you wiped was a FAT/FAT32 partition, rather than an NTFS partition. There may even be a few other utilities that can get your data back, as long as you don't touch the drive between now and when you run the program. I've seen cases where I work where the partition table on the drive was really messed up, and Lost & Found was able to recover the data off the drive (even stuff that had been deleted!). Unfortunately, Lost & Found has been discontinued.

JW

 

[cyberia]

I did some search myself and found a couple of utilities that should work (Disk Rescue, Active Partition Recovery etc.) So, there is hope.

The partition I deleted was FAT32, and the only thing I attempted to do on it afterwards was fdisk/mbr. So, I hope everything is still intact.

Thanks JW310 for suggestions.

 

[JW310]

This link may be of some use to you as well. It seems that many programs that will do data recovery such as this are a tad bit costly (of course, that's a relative term depending on how much your data means to you). Though, unlike what everyone else has said, it is possible to get your data back. It'll take some time and patience, but you should be able to get everything back.

JW

 

[cyberia]

Well, what do you know?

Using the demo of Active Partition Recovery that both JW310 and I found through google.com, I was able to get a peak at my data. All my data appeared to be intact. The demo shows you what's available/recoverable but does not actually restore the partition table.

Then I was able to locate similar tools for Linux. All of these tools combined were able to give me a good idea about starting and ending sectors of my partitions.

Using that info I was able to manually create new partitions that matched old partitions. I used Linux FDISK for it. All my windows files and applications became visible. However, the drive is still not bootable. This is my task for tonight.

Now that I got all my data back, in the worst case I will reinstall Win XP to fix the MBR/bootable sector.

Thanks JW310 for useful suggestions. I am keeping my fingers crossed for successful conclusion of this process tonight.

 

[cyberia]

My C: drive is back! And I did not even have to pay for a third party recovery software. Linux had everything I needed. After I restored the partitions with Linux's FDISK, all I had to do was to boot from Win XP CD-ROM, go to Recovery Console and do FIXBOOT.

 

[wfbberzerker]

hurrah! glad you got your stuff back.

 

[Sundog]

Good to hear you got it back and running.

 

[Paulson]

Good job

 

[amdskip]

Hmmm, I may have to start playin with linux

 

[kc2gub]

where can you get linux? Can you download it anywhere? Legally or Illegally? lol, Like maybe on Kazaa or somwhere of the sort.

 

[Paulson]

linuxiso.org

Linux is free...

That's why it's so damn awesome...

I suggest mandrake for learners..

 

[cyberia]

kc2gub:

Depending on your Internet connection, it might be less time consuming to just order a set of CDs from a place like linuxcentral.com, lsl.com or ... (there used to be other places) for as low as $2-$3 (that's what I used to do) or even check out the local library for a Linux book with CDs (that's what I did last time).

 

[kc2gub]

well i do have 8000+ down and 950+ up, but the servers won't responding at all last night, ill try again sometime