Recovering deleted partitions

[nexus09]

Hey, once again I have a major problem

I have two partitions, C for programs/windows, and D for data. Somehow in my upgrade from '98 to XP Pro the D partition was deleted, giving me a message "This drive is not formatted would you like to format now". However, the drive is formatted as FAT32, it's just not being recognized.

This poses a major problem as I haven't backed up my data for months (about 3 gigs of stuff). I have Partition Magic 7, but haven't been able to determine a way to recover the partition. If anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it.

Greatly ,greatly, greatly, greatly... greatly...:frown:

 

[Zepper]

Norton Utilities (can be gotten cheap from www.9software.com et al.) has programs called Unerase, Unformat and Disk Doctor. One or the other might be able to point you in the right direction. Also there are some data recovery programs out there if the Norton stuff doesn't work. If you use any of the Norton Utils, be sure to only let them analyze on the first pass - NOT CHANGE or FIX!. I have had them make data recovery much more difficult if they make changes that aren't the right ones. I think that Disk Doctor will allow you to make a restore disk to return to the way it was before DD was run. I recommend doing that, but don't know effective it would be. Here are the data recovery programs I've either used or had good feedback on.
Boilerplate-02:
Data Recovery-
. If your drive isn't physically damaged perhaps one of the following will help:
Lost & Found from PowerQuest (the Partition Magic folks). They don't make it any more, but I have seen it listed as "In Stock" here: www.MSBCD.con . I've used this to save the bacon for myself and others several times. Be sure to download and install the updates from the PQ web site before using. They would have sold a lot more if they hadn't tried to limit its use to one computer and their protection scheme so easy to circumvent .
. This next is new and even claims to recover date from fragged RAID 0 drives...
. DiskRecoverySW from: www.r-tt.com. You can DL a demo which will tell you what the full pkg will be able to recover--so you can see what you would get before you plunk down your $$$s (I just DLd the demo myself for insurance <g> ). Can't beat that!
.bh.

 

[Tal]

If you haven't overwritten the area of the harddrive with that partition, you could be ok, what type does PTEdit show for that partition? PTEdit is the dos util on Disk 1 (I believe) of Partition Magic 7...... There should be a number for type, and a box that you can click to show what each number means. Also, there are several programs that will do this, one is Forensic Utility Suite 3.5..... Think this one might be only for law enforcement official though..... Another would be Get Data Back FAT.... From www.runtime.org See Description:

No matter what the disaster scenario is- &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; GetDataBack will recover your data if the hard drive's partition table, &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; boot record, FAT/MFT or root directory are lost or damaged, data was &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; lost due to a virus attack, the drive was formatted, fdisk has been &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; run, a power failure has caused a system crash, files were lost due to &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; a software failure, files were accidentally deleted... &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; Recover even when Windows doesn't recognize the drive- &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; GetDataBack can even recover your data when the drive is no longer &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; recognized by Windows. It can likewise be used even if all directory &Ucirc;
&Ucirc; information - not just the root directory- is missing.

Another would be Easy Recovery Pro 5.0:

$$ EasyRecovery Recover lost or inaccessible data quickly and easily. $$
$$ Professional Edition recovers an unlimited number of files from DOS, $$
$$ Windows 3.x, 95, 98, 2000 and NT systems, SCSI hard drives, floppy $$
$$ diskettes, Zip and Jaz removable media, and provides advanced data $$
$$ recovery options. $$

Lemme know what you get from PTEdit... -TAL