Go
here
Download the PC version.
Burn the ISO using DVD Decrypter, just google that, you'll find it easily enough. (right-click ISO file once downloaded, if you've installed Decrypter, it should give you the option to burn using it when you right-click)
Then go
here
Scroll down to the section that says 'Partition Recovery'. Read this section
very carefully, it's quite simple, looks more difficult than it is. I'm no expert on data recovery. But this worked for me this evening, saving 150 Gigs worth of data. Once I knew, took about 10 mins using this stuff, after hours of searching for a good method. It is probably a good idea to print this page off if you can.
So, once you've done all that, you can boot off the CD you burnt using Decrypter. Just let it do its thing, you have to press 'Enter' a few times throughout boot, but eventually you land up at a prompt. Type 'testdisk', have your printed off instructions at hand and go for it.
Obviously, everything I recovered is now backed up. But what actually caused this, was me having cloned a 7 Gig installation from a 54 Gig disk to a 55 Gig primary partition on a new 320 Gigger. This left the another 243 Gig partition on the new disk that wasn't there originally. I hadn't yet bothered to slipstream an XP SP2 installation disk, and stupidly threw in the original bootable (no SP) when I wanted to reinstall XP, this installation was 12 months old and cluttered with crap. This severely screwed up the partition table and above method rescued it, even though I'd actually told it to do nothing. When it came to 'which partition would you like to install Windows to', it only showed 130 or so Gigs of unallocated space, the old limitation prior to SP2. I banged my head on the desk, I shoulda known this. Asked me to format, obvious answer 'no', coz the data is still there somewhere. Format it and it becomes even harder to retrieve.
I feel very lucky tonight. Ironic with all the argument about Linux, that is was a Linux-based rescue CD enabled me to 'see' the original partitions and just change the boot partition back to 'active' and correct the partition table. If you asked me right now what my opinion of anything to do with Linux is, I'd have to say I love Linux.
