How to recover a FAT32 partition

[arlequin]

Hello, there!

I am looking for some advice, due to a panic situation unleashed by myself...

I used to have two partitions on a 20 Gb hard disk:
[tt][ul]
[li]1st NTFS : 5Gb (C)[/li]
[li]2nd FAT32: 15Gb (D)[/li]
[/ul][/tt]

Well, MS-Windows 2000 Professional had some awful trouble with some ntdll.dll stuff, so I decided to roll-back into my old fashion MS-Windows98 SE installation.

The FAT32 15Gb partition have all the data I wasn't able to back-up, a bunk of large files.

Everything was well planned:

Running fdisk in order to destroy the god-damn NTFS partition in C and to create a brand new one FTA32 in that 5Gb free space.

Everything went fine untill I decided to format c: /s my fresh FAT32 partition (yes, I am still talking about that 5Gb partition, the 15Gb partition MUST be kept untouchable).

But... and here's my fault, I forgot to switch unit names, so, I pressed <ENTER> when asked to format the C partition and then realised that in fact [COLOR=red yellow]I was starting to format my loved & needed original D partition (15Gb)....!!![/color]

Needless to say... I panic!! Ctrl+C, and then reboot the machine...

No way, ran fdisk again and switched the drive names in the correct way. The formatted the C (yes, now the 5Gb) partition and installed a fresh new one MS-Windows98SE.

But now I can't access my 15Gb partition. I guess the data is still there, I guess I only erased the FAT, the zero sector or whatever. Actually, I am preaching for that...!!

The question is:

Is there any tool like 'unformat' or 'low-lever data recovery' such as Norton or something like that?

Because Windows thinks it's a non-formatted unit and tries to format it!!

I've installed PartitionMagic version 8 but I prefer to seach for any other more powerful piece of software in order to try to recover my data.

Thanks In Advance and please apollogize for my despear.

Arlequín
arlequin_AT_internet_DOT_com_DOT_uy

 

[wolluf]

There are plenty of data recovery apps - one of which should do the job (Google will find a selection).

Some recommended here:-

Free

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

Commercial

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

http://www.webattack.com/get/filescavenger.html

 

[sri2097]

U can use Partition Magic software and recover the FAT32 file system

 

[arlequin]

sri2097,

I have PartitionMagic 8.

PMagic only see my 'lost' partition as an unformatted one

Arlequín
arlequin_AT_internet_DOT_com_DOT_uy

 

[J741]

In partition magic 8, select the 'partition', then select 'undelete partition'. This is how I recover lost partitions.

However, you currently have an 'unformatted parition', so you may need to delete it first, before Parition Magic can undelete the parititon containing your data. Now I've NEVER tried it this way, but as I understand it, Parition Magic does not do a security erase when deleting a partition, so your data should remain intact, and recoverable, but I'm not completely positive about this so try it at your own risk.

- James.