Partition HELP - please ..

[Neos]

I will make this as short as I can.

I have a dual boot system with SuSE and XP Pro. I set aside a 10 Gb section to do a triple boot adding Ubuntu.

In the process of trying to load Ubuntu, I deleted my partitions. I used the SuSE install disc to try and repair the damage and it could not. It did identify what I am recalling as most of the partition info - such as start and stop points by cylinders for each partition.

I have done a search here on Anandtech and certain programs are mentioned to use to better reveal the partitions, and to fix if you buy the full install.

The question is ...how do I download and use one of these partition programs? I am using a Knoppix live cd to access the web - but I cannot download the files to this closed off CD.

Any help on this question would be greatly appreciated - and any other ideas, too.
Thanks

 

[birdpup]

Be very careful not to write anything over the partitions where the data is. If you only have this one hard drive, then you need to write any data only on that last 10GB partition you were trying to install Ubuntu into. But, since the partitions have been deleted, there is nowhere to write any data to. With the knoppix CD, you would have to 'su' to root, 'umount' the partitions, then 'mount' the partitions as read/write. I do not have the exact commands available to me at the moment. Again though, since the partitions have been deleted, there is no place to write the data to. This would tell me you need another hard drive, even if it is in another system. Do you have a second computer you can install this hard drive into as a slave drive? Do you have a spare hard drive you could temporarily install WinXP into for recovery purposes?

Your current drive needs to be installed as a slave drive in some system so you can recover the data properly. I doubt you will be able to rebuild the partitions, so you need to concentrate on recovering the data.

With the knoppix CD, about the only thing you can do is to 'dd' the image onto another hard drive, for a backup of the drive in case any recovery program corrupts the data.

Acronis Disk Director can possibly recover the partition table but it requires WinXP.

Typical data recovery programs are here:
1) R-Studio
2) GetDataBack
3) Ontrack's Easy Recovery Pro
4) Quetek
5) File Scavenger
6) HDD Regenerator

I prefer GetDataBack.
After you build the system, obtain Acronis True Image to backup the data.

 

[Neos]

I have XP Pro on my old 40 Gb EIDE drive. The drive that is in question is a 80Gb SATA.

I can reinstall the 40, and set the 80 SATA as a slave - I am pretty sure. Do I then get Aconis and run it from the 40 to recover the 80?

Thanks so much for the help.

 

[birdpup]

Yes this is the manner in which to use the Acronis Disk Director to attempt to recover your partition table.

EDIT: As a disclaimer, Acronis recently appeared on the scene with a suite of products that look very impressive. There are other partition recovery programs available in case this does not work. Just google for "partition recovery".