• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

HELP HELP !! Deleted Partition by accident !!

B

bjassin

Senior member
The topic says it all...I was trying to format the main C: drive, and I had attached an external USB 2.0 drive....well, like an idiot, I deleted the partitions on the external drive !!! I have since disconnected it. All of my critical data is on that drive. Is there any way to access the files or do I have to send it to those driver recovery people (and pay about $2,000). I absolutely NEED the files....

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

BJ


PS. I am located near Dallas...if anyone knows of a good place to take the drive to that can recover the files, I am willing to go (and pay)...

 
Hi,

I did a similar thing. I formatted my drive that had my thesis and all of my pictures on it. I used a product at r-tt.com. I paid about $75 and got the NTFS and the FAT versions. It recovered 99.4% of the files on a FAT partition that I formatted, and it recovered about 80-90% of the files on an NTFS drive that had its MBR destroyed by a bad drive in my system.

I highly reccomend it!

-Tim
 
Originally posted by: bjassin
The topic says it all...I was trying to format the main C: drive, and I had attached an external USB 2.0 drive....well, like an idiot, I deleted the partitions on the external drive !!! I have since disconnected it. All of my critical data is on that drive. Is there any way to access the files or do I have to send it to those driver recovery people (and pay about $2,000). I absolutely NEED the files....

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

BJ


PS. I am located near Dallas...if anyone knows of a good place to take the drive to that can recover the files, I am willing to go (and pay)...
Click to expand...

Ok, how did you delete these files. I mean, what exactly did you do to delete them, was it a format? Just "delete" of files, were you running through Windows setup, and picked the wrong drive? or what?

Because there are a few different routes here.




KeyserSoze
 
(Note: don't blame me if this doesn't work or somehow makes things worse.)

If you only deleted the partition, and this did not wipe the drive clean or had it corrupted, restoring it should be easier than it looks.

1. Turn the damn thing off. Now.

2. You can use a Norton Ghost or a Knoppix CD to make an image for a backup (assuming you have sufficient space for storage on some other medium). dd is your friend.

3. A simple recreation of the partition using fdisk (any fdisk), assuming you remember the size, should restore it to a usable state. It is better to err on the side of having a larger partition than you need.

The only condition under which the recovery people are necessary is if a drive mechanically fails. Even then, I've heard that putting a dead drive in the fridge for a while can perform miracles.
 
bers12 has some good advice there. R-studio has also been recommended to me.

This is why people shoul make backups. 😉

GL.
 
Thanks for the advice....I looked around and used a program called GetDataBack for NTFS....THANK GOD it works !!! It's the best DARN $79 I have EVER paid !!!

Here is the stupid story. Recognizing the need for backups, I bought a small laptop hard drive and put it in a USB 2.0 enclosure to use as my 'backup' drive. Every single file I have ever created (including my college papers from the late 1980's) was in there along with a TON of work-related files. I remember that when I was in college I thought that DOS-based Wordperfect was the GREATEST thing ever invented !!! Anyways, EVERYTHING I had was in that drive !!!!

In any case, I had it attached to a laptop that I was going to install a new hard drive onto. I had just copied some key files from my laptop drive to the backup drive. Since I wanted a 'fresh' start with the new laptop hard drive, I proceeded to delete all partions of the laptop drive so that I could format it and then install a fresh OS. In any case, since my USB 'backup' drive was still attached, the stupid windows installer also detected it and listed it as a 'drive'....At the time, I was in the middle of doing 3 things at work--talking on the phone, finishing up some work, and also formatting my new stupid laptop hard drive. So, I proceeded to delete the partions of ALL the attached drives--including my 'backup' drive !!!! YIKES !!!

I swear when I realized what I had just done, I was about to cry. I couldn't believe it !!! All the stupid pictures my wife and I have taken since we got a digital camera, all my resumes, all the papers I wrote in college and grad school, all of my work files--everything GONE !!!

I know enough to know that the data was not really 'gone'....but I did not know how to get it back....I called a few of those hard drive saver places and the minimum they wanted was about $1000. My wife told me to pay it too.....

In any case, I thought I would post here first...and I appreciated the advice. I downloaded the program for free and ran it, and then it allowed me to check the files to see if they were in good shape--they were. Then I bought the program, and copied the files over to another drive.

That was a CLOSE call.....phew....

BJ
 
Here is the stupid story. Recognizing the need for backups, I bought a small laptop hard drive and put it in a USB 2.0 enclosure to use as my 'backup' drive. Every single file I have ever created (including my college papers from the late 1980's) was in there along with a TON of work-related files. I remember that when I was in college I thought that DOS-based Wordperfect was the GREATEST thing ever invented !!! Anyways, EVERYTHING I had was in that drive !!!!
Click to expand...

Bill's first law of backing up. If you have no backups you will lose your data.
Bill's second law of backing up. Your most likely to lose your data during the window between the time you decide to do something about rule 1 and the time the first backup completes 😉

Bill
 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
bers12 has some good advice there. R-studio has also been recommended to me.

This is why people shoul make backups. 😉

GL.
Click to expand...

R-Studo all the way, it's easy as hell to use and I have done quite a few recovery's with it succesfully.
 
Hard drives are not a viable backup medium for anything important. DVD media is CHEAP and so are the burners. Invest in one. I did and I'm increadibly happy with it. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Hard drives are not a viable backup medium for anything important. DVD media is CHEAP and so are the burners. Invest in one. I did and I'm increadibly happy with it. 🙂
Click to expand...


Ok..I agree...I just got a double layer DVD+-RW. However, I don't know a THING about DVD burning.

What's a good site to go to that has answers to DVD-burning related issues...from the basics to advanced stuff??

BJ
 
Originally posted by: bjassin
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Hard drives are not a viable backup medium for anything important. DVD media is CHEAP and so are the burners. Invest in one. I did and I'm increadibly happy with it. 🙂
Click to expand...


Ok..I agree...I just got a double layer DVD+-RW. However, I don't know a THING about DVD burning.

What's a good site to go to that has answers to DVD-burning related issues...from the basics to advanced stuff??

BJ
Click to expand...

No clue. I fired up nero, selected the burn dvd (or whatever it's called) option, and copied a bunch of files onto it. Then hit the burn button and that was that. 😛
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top