HELP FDISK RECOVERY NEEDED

[JPLWU]

A client walked in and wanted his hard drive erased, and all the data off of it, well he had told another employee that he wanted the data transfered to the new computer first, in a single file, well when he told me one thing and another to the other person, lines got crossed and the computer got fdisked....now, because i didnt think to reformat the hard drive that night, i was going to wait until today..and found out my big suprise! So i am asking is there any single best way to recover the primary partition i deleted? I didnt reformat so I know that the dat a is probably still there on the drive somewhere...the quicker the reply the better!

 

[wolluf]

If this is fat32 (which it sounds like), you may recover it just by creating a new partition of exactly the same size (this has worked occasionally for me) - ie, fdisk & reboot & see if there is an accessible partition without formatting.

Other than that - you need a data recovery app. Again, if fat32, this free one should work:-

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Otherwise, couple of commercial ones recommended here:-

http://www.webattack.com/features/premiere.php?id=104372&r=h

http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

(mount drive as slave in other machine & install recovery software on other machine. btw, formating it would make little difference to recovering data using these apps. Only deliberately wiping the drive or using it again would do that).

 

[JPLWU]

thanks, I am pretty sure that it is, becaus e id ont think windows 98 supports NTFS right?...if we dont get that data back I might as well look for a new profession

 

[dick1234]

DEAR WOOLUF,

I THANK YOUR FOR YOUR LEAD TO PC INSPECTOR.

I DOWNLOADED AND RAN IT .

IT SAID 500 FILES RECOVERED BUT I SEE NO RECOVERED PARTITIONS (D; E; F IN FDISK??

WHAT DID I NOT DO:

DICK

 

[Jontmke]

First TURN OFF THE CAPITAL LETTERS!

Jon

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. (Bertrand Russell)

 

[wolluf]

Dick - not sure what you're question is. My earlier suggestion was to create an identical partition to 'replace' the one removed (fdisk won't 'recover' partitions). In the past this has occasionally reinstated the lost (ie, one that has been deleted, but nothing else done to it) partition for me. The file recovery tool just tries to recover data from wherever you ask it to look.

 

[Melania]

I am sorry for the bad news.

Recreating a partition using Fdisk is not possible. Fdisk fills some sectors with F6 to prevent using the partitions without formatting them. It targets boot sectors in order to destroy old partition data. I'd recommend manual restore using Disk Editor from Norton Utilities.

Generally, after using automatic data recovery tools, in case of failure, things are messed up completely because the data recovery tool creates correct data from the point of view of the operating system so if you try doing manual recovery later, making the difference between left chunks of original data and badly recovered data is more difficult

Here are some details.
Fdisk fills with F6 the first sectors on tracks, every head, except the first one which is the master boot. I don't know exactly how many sectors it writes with F6. I'm afraid, if it's FAT32, then fdisk F6-es the first and the 7nd sector on every track targeting also the boot copy. If your FAT(32) size is not a multiple of the number of sectors per track (usually 63), then, even if you fdisk your drive, you are still able to repair your FATs using a disk editor and copying good sectors over the F6-ed ones.

 

[wolluf]

Melania - r u sure about that? Fdisk is a partitioning tool - why should it write data other than in the partition table in the mbr (that's what format is for). Do you mean this about format command (copied from elsewhere):-

In "Unconditional" mode (FORMAT /U), the Format program aggressively tests
the sector data areas for write/read capability, and leaves it formatted
with the hexadecimal value F6 in every byte. This does actually destroy the
data, and such a drive is not recoverable by any practical means. If the
test reveals that a cluster contains a defective sector that cannot be
written or read properly, then the Format program marks that cluster as bad
in the FAT, and the operating system will thereafter ignore the cluster and
not write or read it.

And as I said at the top - I have recovered a partition by just recreating it (I was very surprised the first time it happened - I was experimenting with a boot manager, during which my fat32 partition 'disappeared'. This happened on a number of other occasions after this - and in c. 50% of cases I recovered the partition the same way).

Also - data recovery tools have different modus operandi - but most create list of what they think they can recover first - ie, they do not change the disk - from the file header info - and leave it to user to actually decide what to recover.

 

[roandrob]

I have used Ontrack easy recovery in a similar situation and succesfully recovered data. the file names may not be identical but are accesable. If your jobdepends on it the price of the recovery software is probably worth it. There are other options besides Ontrack. This is just the one I used.

 

[796]

Can any expert assist as I am pulling my hair out. I have a 20GB and a 17GB Maxtor drive both giving the same symptoms.
I have maxblast3 them both from floppy. I have written zeros fully to them both. I have successfully completed maxblast. Both drives are recognised in my Bios on boot up which is set to FLP then HDrive then CDrom boot option with Flp boot seek enabled. The Ramdrive displays as Drive C (indicating no partition set?) At the A prompt and with Ramdrive C, I type a:\Fdisk and immediately I get "Error reading fixed disk" on both harddrives When they last worked, both were displaying "boot from Atapi CD Rom drive" prior to failure. I cannot partition the drives nor format them. Just for the record, I have a Maxtor 40GB which works perfectly on the same rig with the same software.I have full virus protection(Norton Antivirus)and the same software throughout I am baffled. I hope you can help

 

[TekTippy4U]

If I understand you correctly "and" you are only hooking up one HDD at a time, on the Primary IDE as Master, your Ramdrive would be D:\ not C:\ which is why the CdROm gets pushed to E:\.....
Anyway if you have an OEM version of OS
Which OS....?
Fat32 or NTFS....?
You could set your BIOS to "Boot from ATAPI CD ROM" as "FIRST" boot device...and you dont even need a floppy....
or
if that's not cutting it....Set the BIOS as i said, Leave the OS CD in drive....pop in the startup floppy...and choose "Boot with CD ROM Suppport"....you'll end up at A:\....now switch to E:\ and type CD Win98 for example...now your at E:\Win98...now type SETUP....off ya go

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[roandrob]

796

Your message is a little skimpy on what you have done. If all you completed with maxblast was a 0 fill of the drives you will not have access as this wipes out everything including the master boot record.
If this is the case then run maxblast once more and choose set up drive. Follow the instructions from there.
You should partition and format for whatever OS you plan to use from within maxblast as this is easiest.
If this fails try removeing any disk overlay on the drive and then repeating.