Partioned HD, formatted. Data Recovery Possible??

[SmokeyX]

Hi all,

Just installed Windows2000 from a 95 laptop. I saved all the important files EXCEPT one very important *.pst file for personal folders in Outlook. I repartioned the hardrive, reformatted it too, but I need that file. Is there annnnnny way of retrieving that file back? Are there any programs that might help? Let me know...

Henry This information would realllly help my hide.
enriqueq_842@hotmail.com

 

[Alt255]

Repartitioning a drive does very little toward affecting its contents. Formatting a drive, however, depending on the type of format used, can make data recovery more difficult.

I'll recommend the easy and cheap method first. Obtain a copy of Power Quest's Lost and Found program. It's relatively inexpensive. You will need a second hard drive, at least as large as the one you formatted. It must be formatted with the file system of the original (FAT16, FAT32, etc...).

Boot to the Lost and Found floppy and let it do its job. It could require anywhere from several hours to several days, depending on the size of the drive and other factors.

I have had very good results using this program on disks that have had much worse than what you described.

If that doesn't work (I really think it will) you might have to let a professional data recovery firm handle the drive. This could cost anywhere from $1000 to $100000 (depending on the size and condition of the drive and how desperate you appear).

Good luck!

Alt255@Vorpalcom.Intranets.com
​

 

[asad2001]

In my opinon there is no way. Since u have partioned the hard drive. One of the last options is that visit the web site :

http://www.ontrack.com

for data recovery options. They have the right solutions.

Inform me about that

 

[Alt255]

It's a little late to make this note because SmokeyX has probably taken one irreversable course or another: repartitioning a disk only changes a few bytes on the disk (a partition record requires less than half of the data shown in one line of a Tek-Tips post).

Repartitioning does virtually *nothing* in changing the contents of a hard drive. Formats, however, can have bad effects in the recovery process (depending on a number of factors; ie. How many times did you reformat the drive after re-installing various OSes and using it as a toy?)

If anybody wonders about the procedure for restoring lost files, here it is:

1) TURN OFF THE COMPUTER, NOW.
2) Then ask how to recover the files.

Alt255@Vorpalcom.Intranets.com
​

 

[electraboy]

I believe Powerquest Lost&Found is very hard to find those days. Powerquest has give the prog away for free, but i couldn't find it anywhere. (Until I realised i have it on cd, so if you need it and can't find it: scam@pi.be).

Are there still any other programs voor recovering data ?
I tried Lost&Found on my suddenly inaccessible HD, displaying a partition with 14002 M, 14001 Free ?
(I installed windows xp on that partition before)
When i try L&F, it simply crashes after finding my SCSI-devices (the option -s makes no difference).
With the recovery console i repaired allready the MBR and i executed the bootfix utility. Both utilities are reporting errors and are replacing the MBR and the BOOTPART but after a restart i can do it all over again with the same results.

Problem 2 (has nothing to do with the first one)
On my portable i have a dual boot NT4 / XP. With PowerQuest Partition Magic 7, i tried to merge two partitions from a second 30 Gig HD into one.
It's a removable disk, so normally the OS doesn't need that disk for properly working.
While mounting the second partition in a map of the first (both NTFS), the program reported a sharing violation.
Both partitions became inaccessible !!
With Lost and found i couldn't recover one usefull bit.
The two partitions still exist, and the first i could access again after assigning a drive letter. But the second (which is the most important one) says :'Format the drive ?'

I can't rollback the operations from Partition Magic, can I ? It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

Murphy's Laws​

 

[Butterfly21]

Another good file recovery program is OnTracks Easy recovery. I have used this to recover files that have been deleted and later removed from the recycle bin in windows me. Don't know if this will be of any use.