NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Vista beta deleted my partitions!!!!!!!

[blurredvision]

I'm a little peeved right now, but it's my own damn fault. I've been trying out the new Vista beta on my laptop for a week or so, and wanted to try it on my much faster main PC. So I use PartitionMagic 8, and divy off about 35GB from my one and only 200GB hard drive, and create a partition after my XP partition. All of that went fine.

So I start installing Vista, and the installation fails about halfway through, giving some kind of locale setting error. No problem, I'll start it again I think. I restarted, and when I get to the place to choose a partition, it tells me I have a 198GB unallocated partition! WTF!!!!

My worst fear confirmed, it deleted my partitions somehow, and left me with nothing. According to BIOS, my hard drive has nothing on it. Now, I have mostly everything backed up, but what pisses me off the most is that I've lost all the RAW picture files from my wedding and honeymoon a mere 3 weeks ago. Luckily, I have all the jpg's backed up onto DVD, so I still have them. However, I was in the middle of PP'ing all of those RAW files!!

Is there any programs or services that I hook this hard drive into another comp and recover the data? I've not touched the hard drive, so it still thinks it's not partitioned.

HELP!!!!!!!

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I took the advice, and used Getdataback to recover my lost files. It worked beautifully, and I'm in the process of reinstalling my OS. Atleast this gives me worry-free work on getting both XP and Vista running together, plus the niceness of a shiny new OS install.

 

[BigJ]

You should be able to recover everything as long as you didn't write over it.

They've got a plethora of recommendations in the Software section if you sift through it.

 

[Howard]

lol@u

 

[The Batt?sai]

Getdataback

i've used this before. its worked very well for me

 

[TechBoyJK]

anything that is important to you should be backed up immediately...

 

[Conky]

Text

 

[RbSX]

Yeah everytime I've installed XP it's formatted the partitions.

Don't know why you didn't expect this.

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara
Yeah everytime I've installed XP it's formatted the partitions.

Don't know why you didn't expect this.

installing XP has never completely wiped the partitions on a disk for me before. it leaves all but the partition it's installing to alone

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara
Yeah everytime I've installed XP it's formatted the partitions.

Don't know why you didn't expect this.

There's a huge difference between reformatting a partition and repartitioning a drive.

Also, you do not have to format a drive when installing XP.

 

[Captante]

Thought for today: NEVER attempt to install a beta OS onto a PC containing any data that has value to you! (what were you thinking?)

Second, if the data hasn't been overwritten, you may be able to get some or all of it back using somthing like the "Getdataback" utility referenced above, however if the data has been overwritten even once, the odds of recovering anything other then a few snippets of random code are slim.

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: Howard
lol@u

That pretty much sums it up.

 

[mugs]

I've used a program called Handy Recovery to recover lost partitions, it worked great. Cost $30, but WELL worth it to recover over 20,000 digital photos that my wife and I have taken.

You can try it for free, it'll tell you if it can recover your files and let you recover one file per day without paying. Obviously if it works, you'll want to pay the $30.

http://www.handyrecovery.com/

Now I have two sets of backups of all of our digital photos on DVDs in a fire safe, and another backup on the hard drive of my PC at work.

 

[NFS4]

BTW, does anyone have any recommendations on how to recover data from a cooked hard drive? Damn thing will spin up, but windows won't recognize it anymore. It cooked itself inside os a USB enclosure

I've got about 6GB or images on it that I'd like to get back. I've tried sticking it in the freezer to cool it down (it was burning hot when I first tried to recover data) and I've tried evreything I can think of. All that's left is paying $$$$$$ to send it off somewhere

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: NFS4
BTW, does anyone have any recommendations on how to recover data from a cooked hard drive? Damn thing will spin up, but windows won't recognize it anymore. It cooked itself inside os a USB enclosure

I've got about 6GB or images on it that I'd like to get back. I've tried sticking it in the freezer to cool it down (it was burning hot when I first tried to recover data) and I've tried evreything I can think of. All that's left is paying $$$$$$ to send it off somewhere

The freezer trick is a one shot deal. It's more than likely dead.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: NFS4
BTW, does anyone have any recommendations on how to recover data from a cooked hard drive? Damn thing will spin up, but windows won't recognize it anymore. It cooked itself inside os a USB enclosure

I've got about 6GB or images on it that I'd like to get back. I've tried sticking it in the freezer to cool it down (it was burning hot when I first tried to recover data) and I've tried evreything I can think of. All that's left is paying $$$$$$ to send it off somewhere

If it spins up fine and isn't making any funny noises, try the Handy Recovery program I suggested, first without doing the freezer trick then with it.

 

[silverspear]

you have PM

 

[xcript]

There's a utility on the Ultimate Boot CD that can recover partition tables. I've had a lot of success with it.

Edit: Active Partition Recovery is the one, IIRC.

 

[spanky]

Originally posted by: quasarsky
Getdataback

i've used this before. its worked very well for me

yeah, i've used that before to, and for the most part, it works.

by the way, even though the OP posted this in the wrong forum, some of you guys are pretty harsh.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: spanky
by the way, even though the OP posted this in the wrong forum, some of you guys are pretty harsh.

Eh, I expected it. Captante summed it up best, what was I thinking installed a beta OS on the same drive as important documents? Luckily, I do have most everything backed up that needs to be backed up, so I'm not completely out of luck. I just never expected an OS install to delete my partitions.

I'll check out this Getdataback program, thanks a ton guys.

 

[xcript]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
I'll check out this Getdataback program, thanks a ton guys.

You should see if you can recover the partition table first.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: xcript

Originally posted by: blurredvision
I'll check out this Getdataback program, thanks a ton guys.

You should see if you can recover the partition table first.

My bad, you're right. I was thinking the Getdataback did this also. I'll go with your suggestion above, then work with Getdataback if that doesn't work.

 

[corkyg]

This has happened to others on this forum. Some feel that Vista hides partitions, and that can be reversed.

 

[Injury]

I've actually had this problem with Partition Magic (6)... although it is probably a Vista issue, PM created partitions for me, then a couple of restarts later the partitions were missing and left with only unallocated space. Tried it again, same thing. I don't get how it can work for a couple days and fail, because the hard drive wasn't bad.

 

[blurredvision]

I tried using Active Partition Recovery earlier, which succesfully found the partitions, and even showed me the listing of files on my main XP partition. However, XP wouldn't boot after restoring the partitions, and I couldn't access the files at all either through DOS or another comp. I'm currently running Getdataback, and it has about 40 minutes left.