restoring files that had their partition taken away.

[Spuffin]

Long story short, I was asked to erase the entire contents of a harddrive. In compliance I just deleted the parition. Now the powers that be want some of those files back Anyhow I know there is a util out there that can restore these files but I'm unaware what it is. If anyone can point me the right way I'd be much abliged. All I have done is deleted the partion, I have not re-created or formatted the drive so i know those files are still there. TIA

-Spuffin

 

[daveshel]

Tell the powers that be to look before they leap, because they're SOL. Even if you were to reinstate the same size partition, you would have to format the drive before you could read it. Actually, the data recovery specialists might be able to help, but this is VERY expensive.

 

[stevewm]

GetDataBack will do exactlly what you want. http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

They have FAT16/32 and NTFS versions.

It will scan the entire drive (or a portion of it) and present you with a list of files and directories it found and allow you to copy them somewhere else.

I had to use it once when a very old virus (Monkey Boot Virus) on a floppy disk wrote over my partition table.

I kept all my personal data in its own 8GB partition at the end of the drive. When the partition table got screwed I made a 2GB partition at the front of the drive and re-installed windows. I let the program scan the last 8GB of the disk and it found every single file, even some I had deleted weeks ago.

 

[chaswood]

Another great program is SpinRite from Gibson Research:

http://grc.com/spinrite.htm

Cost is about $80 but worth it if the data is valuable.

 

[randypj]

spuffin,

If you use one of these, would you post back how well it worked for you?
--Randy

 

[corkyg]

Once you destroy a partition, it is beyond the capability of SpinRite 5 (I have it, and have used SpinRite since version1.0.)

I don't believe GetDataBack can do that either - like SpinRite, it can only work in a partition that still exists.

I concur with Daveshel - SOL!

On the other hand, Ontrack, which provides professional data recover service, has software that might do the job, but as you can see - it ain't cheap. I doubt that the data is worth $350 or so.

EasyRecovery

 

[randypj]

corky-g--

I was thinking that if a partition is just deleted, files can be retrieved? Especially if nothing was written to the drive afterwards? Cause, the data bits haven't really been written over.......the "mapping" to the files/bits is just no longer there? I mean, they can even be recovered after a format?

Hmmm.....I've got the free downloadable version of Lost and Found, that PQ gave out somewhere. I think it was after they quit supporting it. Even when they supported it, you could dl it, and it would show you what you could recover, but you hadda buy it before you could recover anything.
--Randy

 

[stevewm]

When you delete a partition all it does it remove its entry from the partition table, unless you actually wipe over the data on the drive it is still there

I used GetDataBack to get files after my entire partition table was wiped out. It was able to get them all back, and even some I had deleted.

 

[Night201]

Yes, Ontrack Easy Recovery will work. Even if the partition(s) has been deleted. Just make sure that you take the drive and install it as a slave or master on the 2 controller. You don't want to install or add a partition or anything to it. It'll scan every part of the disk, list the files it can recover (which is pretty much 100% of the files assuming you didn't touch the drive after deleting the partition(s).