Urgent Need help recovering files from Unpartitioned drive

[dlin]

Please help me.

Ok So I was trying to format C:\ on HD1

I have 2 HDs
My HD1 (40GB) had 3 partitions: C:\ D:\ E:

C:\ was WinME FAT32
D:\ was space partition FAT32
E:\ was WINXP NTFS

My HD2 (200GB) had F:\ NTFS
I formatted using the winxp disk on C:
While it was formating I went to take a shower and when I came back
It was INSTALLING WINXP on C:\ !!! and it became NTFS

I couldn't get out of it because it was already almost completely done.
I waited until it finished and when it did I immediately check my computer

AND I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. My 200GB partition was gone!!!
It had all my backupped files. Copy of everything.

...

After the terrible sinking feeling,
I rebooted praying hard that it would come back

After reboot I could no longer access XP thru E:\ (My original install)
I was directed to the new C:\ Windows (XP)

...

After numerous reboots, I booted from the XP Install CD and attempted to
REPAIR E:\ Windows
I tried to fix the MBR, I have not much experience (I WAS REAL DESPERATE)

I THEN tried FIXBOOT and BOOTCFG

I Typed in BOOTCFG /add E:\Windows

E:\Windows was then added to boot select screen

There was two other options:
drive (forgot what it was left blank )
drive option: 2

...

After Doing this and rebooting I was able to select XP from either E:\ and C:
Booted up XP on E:\ (at least it appears fine.)

Still did not see my 2nd HD

I went thru XP Computer Management/Disk Management
and find it is unpartition (unallocated)

...

I want to desperately recover my lost partition. And I do not know how. As of right now its still unpartition or unallocated. This happen to me at such a critical time. I am a NOOB so I turn and now must ask or beg if there is anyway to restore the partition or at recover the files. Please help me.

 

[dlin]

Im sorry for the damning loong post,

Im wallowing in self-anger

I forgot to add a few details.

Before I formatted C:\ and installing of XP,

I deleted the D:\ partition (WHY? I DUNNO. I thought I was just clearing the partition on D for space. But instead deleted it.

Following the mess I created, the drives moved up 1 letter

C:\ (stayed the same)
D:\ (gone)
(Original) E:\ turned into D:
(Original) F:\ turned into E:
NO G:\ meaning no F:\ (F:\ disappeared)

I just do not understand why the partition on the 2nd HD would just get deleted like that, when I did not even select it to be formatted.

When I selected a partition from a separate HD to be formatted.

 

[dlin]

Sorry to post again.

But I what I posted was really long explanation

So heres the problem in brief:

Have a drive that is showing up at unpartition (unallocated). and lost its Drive letter

I Want to retrieve its data and getting it working again.

186.31 GB showing 186.31 unallocated.

Please Help.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Well there's no reason the WinXP installer would have wiped your 200Gb drive during the install process, so I'm at a total loss.

The most important thing is DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO THAT 200GB DRIVE! It's probably recoverable as long as you don't do anything else to it.

You need a file recovery program. I can recommend DIY's iRecover. I've recovered files from drives that were repartitioned and re-formatted.

There's a chance that something really strange occured though and iRecover may not work. I'd recommend downloading their free trial first and see if it can find anything (the free trial is limited to recovering one folder at a time).

There are other recovery apps out there as well, and others may chime in with suggestions.

 

[Willoughbyva]

Well after reading all this I am a little confused. If you haven't written to the partition that holds you data then you can probably recover it. If you have written to the drive you may be able to recover some of the data. If it was a quick format then all it probly did was write a new fat table. If it was a long format then I am unsure what it did. Search anandtech forums for recovery software or undelete software. There is one that many people use with good success, but I don't remember the name of it. Hopefully someone will be along and post it. It is a program you can download, but I think it costs like $50.00 or so. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

 

[dlin]

Sorry to confuse you dude.

My 2nd drive is basically not showing up and when I check on it, it states that the space is unallocated. But the thing is I didnt format it delete anything or touch anything off of it since.

This all happened cause I formatted another hd that ended up deleting a partition and i guess it moved all the drive letters up? I dunno if theres something corrupted in the partition table or bot sector or what.

Now im searching thru the forums, not sure of what's really wrong though.

 

[dlin]

FlyingPenguin

About the iRecover program when recovering 1 folder at a time does it write to the recovering drive? I want to try and copy everything back to normal

Seems like here's my problem:

http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs-partition-boot-sector.htm

Im not very knowledgable on boot sectors or MFT.

My 2nd hd was a slave drive it was formatted as primary partition, I think.
So it had its own MFT?

 

[CrispyFried]

How did you delete the d: partition? From XP? FDISK?

If the slave 200 gig drive was formatted as a primary it probably would of been d: in DOS/WIn 98 originally.. all master and slave primaries are assigned drive letters, then drives in extended partitions (master then slave) in that order. Maybe the drive letters where changed via disk manager in XP? That would explain why the d: (f:? 200 gig) partition got whacked.. and thats why the other partitions are still there, the letters would be one way in XP, another way in DOS/Win98. Just a thought.

 

[dlin]

I deleted D:\ by rebooting the comp and booting from the Win XP CD

If the slave 200 gig drive was formatted as a primary it probably would of been d: in DOS/WIn 98 originally..

Im not sure about this part.
I dont use WinME anymore since there was a problem with it.
Originally I had only 2 partitions. C:\ and D:
I created E:\ to install WinXP
I kept WinME cause I had files on that drive and no way to back it up.

. Maybe the drive letters where changed via disk manager in XP? That would explain why the d: (f:? 200 gig) partition got whacked.. and thats why the other partitions are still there, the letters would be one way in XP, another way in DOS/Win98. Just a thought.

Yea I did change each drive letter's through disk manager, but before all this happened I also formatted f:\ from disk manager. but did it really delete f:\ as d:\?

EDIT: Your probably right..
Though when I deleted D:\ from using the XP CD it showed C:\ E:\ as well as F:\ as options too, listed on the partition list as well. But I can't recall.

http://img334.imageshack.us/img334/9185/gone8ot.th.png

http://img334.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gone8ot.png

 

[CrispyFried]

I meant to say WinME, not Win98, but they both act the same when assigning drive letters.

Since d: (the fat32 drive you really wanted to delete) is still there I think thats what happened, the letters were switched. The good news is you should be able to recover the 200 gig 100% with the right tools. I cant suggest any particular program myself though. Dont try to partition it or anything in the meantime, that may overwrite something.

 

[xtknight]

Use Restoration (freeware). You'll almost certainly be able to recover near all of your files.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

Also, what happened was you did format and install instead of 'keep intact' in XP install. Important you realize your data is still on the drive, it's just not 'indexed'. In most cases, that is. Also, I think you need to do the full sector search in Restoration. If you can, avoid all access to the drive if possible. Like, if Windows is on there, don't boot it if you don't have to. Reinstall Windows on another drive and run that Windows. Every time you access the drive, a file or two might become unrecoverable.

 

[dlin]

Thanks for the help guys, it never ceases to amaze me that how helpful this forum is.
Anyways, I got one more question. Can I tranfser the files that were on the drive to a FAT32 drive without any problems? Being that it was originally on a NTFS.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: dlin
Thanks for the help guys, it never ceases to amaze me that how helpful this forum is.
Anyways, I got one more question. Can I tranfser the files that were on the drive to a FAT32 drive without any problems? Being that it was originally on a NTFS.

I'm almost certain you can, yeah. I think Restoration puts it in a unified state and then just uses the regular Win32 API to write it out to your disk, not anything extremely low-level.

 

[luke007]

I suggest you use Partition Table Doctor to resolve your
problem.The software provides very useful functions:
Backup partition table, Restore partition table, Rebuild
partition table, undelete partition, Fix boot sector,
rebuild mbr,etc.

First thing I recommend you download the demo version of
Partition Table Doctor.( http://www.ptdd.com/download.htm )

Run the program and select "Rebuild Partition Table",
then choose "Interactive" mode.

See more: http://www.ptdd.com/recoverylostpartition.htm
http://www.ptdd.com/recoverdeletedpartition.htm
http://www.ptdd.com/partition-recovery.htm
http://www.ptdd.com

 

[OritionX]

Recover what you can off of the drive... Do not do any writes to this drive as you will start killing the data off it as you do. After you get the data you can off the drive you can try partition magic and see if that will reinsert the file system on there.