Lost PC Data - heeeeeeeeeeelp

[Triggaaar]

Due to XPs SP2 not working properly with MS joystick, I uninstalled SP2, got the joystick working, re-installed SP2 - OS failed to load.
Removed SP2 again, and all loaded. Repeated attempts to get SP2 working failed.
So with SP1 running, I took another ghost image of c:, and then restored my PC to an old ghost image, with SP2.

All lovely. Except, when restoring my c: drive, ghost has removed my d: drive (data) completely (it was part of the same physical disk). I thought ghost would only replace the drive I backed up with it

Help

The lost data has not been formatted over, or written over, yet. Is there any way to get it back?

 

[The Dude]

I'll have a look now mate, Ontrack easyrecovery is the best out there, but expensive...

One this you MUST do:

whichever software you use, don't install it on that physical disk, use that disk as a slave drive ( make the change NOW) and install any old disk you have as the master and do an XP install on this if required...

Anything you install on that dosk from now on decreases the chances of a full file recovery, so leave it well alone.... I'll post back in a few mins with some SW options hopefully...

 

[The Dude]

here's a free package somebody on here pointed out a while back, I haven't used it myself but they seemed to be a fan.... only a 6mb download.

PC Inspector

 

[KraGorn]

I thought ghost would only replace the drive I backed up with it

It does.

I have 2 PCs protected with Ghost which only have 1 drive on them (a 3rd PC has multiple drives). I have often restored C: from and image on E:.

Sounds like something happened to the partition table, though what is kind of hard to say after the event.

 

[Deleted member 39241]

What does it say in the disk management properties?
This happened to me once, and I got it back in two clicks...

So, where is the missing partition? Is it just hidden, or has another partition resized to take it over?

 

[Triggaaar]

Ok, panic over - It seems that re-installing XP/restoring XP etc had formatted my drive, over the data.
But...
Someone recommended File Scavenger - I downloaded and demoed it.
It found 150 gig of data (missed nothing so far).
Genius program.
I had to buy it for £30 to restore that data, but hey ho.

 

[Triggaaar]

So, where is the missing partition? Is it just hidden, or has another partition resized to take it over?

Disk 1 = c: 40 gig, d: 260 gig, Disk 2 = e: 300 gig.
Restoring from Ghost automatically resized c: to 300 gig

 

[Triggaaar]

It does.

I have 2 PCs protected with Ghost which only have 1 drive on them. I have often restored C: from and image on E:.

I'm puzzled by this. I'm using Ghost 2003 (The Dude tried to help me get Ghost 7.5 for DOS to work, but I couldn't sort it). When I create an image, it allows me to select partitio c: from drive 1 (I think it insists I put it on a seperate disk, I'll check) and it then creates an image of the 7 gig on c:
When I tried to restore, it did not allow me to individually select c: alone.

 

[The Dude]

I told you the old versions are better..


Now you've got your network installed, go back to 7.5 and do all the ghosting over the network, this gets you around the NTFS problems you were having.

download yourself a copy of BFD107 ( google for 'bfd107', will be the first result... NU2.com or similar)
create a shared folder 'ghost' on PC2, dump a copy of ghost.exe in there..
boot PC1 from the boor disk modboot creates
map a network drive to PC2\ghost ( net use z: \\pc2\ghost )
change to drive Z:
run ghost from there, and save the image you create there.

when restoring the image you have, use
local> partition > from image and browse z: for the image file...

there are driver files (.cab) for virtually every network card in existence on the modboot site.... just download the cabfiles you need for your card, and stick them in the cabs\drivers\ndis folder on the boot disk..

 

[Triggaaar]

PC2 is only a temporary PC - destined for the scrap heap once I've got my data backed up nicely (DVD will do word/excel files etc).
When I tried 7.5, I still wasn't able to copy an image of c: to d: (same physical disk) as KraGorn has.

 

[The Dude]

thats down to NTFS on the big partition you have... when you do a ghost backup over the network using bfd, it does a network logon as the (remote) administrator, maps a drive, and ghost then treats the mapped drive as a local writeable disk.

I do everything this way, at work ( build many many PCs, 1000's... ) and at home.. it's actually faster than dumping partition to partition anyway... and partition loading certainly works 100% safely in the older versions... it does what you tell it, nothing more, nothing less.... ahhh the good days of DOS...

With all those network points you must have somewhere to dump a ghost image to.... your HTPC even?, as it's only dumping a file to it, no SW installation at all on the 'server'

I back up both my PCs to my laptop, my laptop to PC2, PC2 to my HTPC..... I'm a bit paranoid about losing c: drives....

 

[Triggaaar]

With all those network points you must have somewhere to dump a ghost image to.... your HTPC even?, as it's only dumping a file to it, no SW installation at all on the 'server'

Nope 1 PC does all was the idea. 1 PC which plays music to every room, can be used from any room to play games, or surf the net, or work etc. Not a fan of Norton at the moment - just tried 7.5 from NTFS Dos, and it's not having it. And Ghost 2003 isn't working at the moment.

I've just looked at my partition magic on my 98 machine (which is being dumped) and the help file says it works with XP. May give that a go (I know it doesn't do the image bit).