restoring a deleted partition

[preacher666]

hi,

i have just accidentally deleted the partition on my external HD. i havent done anything to it so the data should still be there. does anyone know of a program to rescue it and save my data?

 

[gagaga]

Oooh ... tricky one.

You've done the right thing so far by not touching it. There's a lot of sw out there, but unfortunately most of it is commercial. (Google windows undelete or NTFS undelete).

This > http://ntfsundelete.com/ < is a free one but I had no luck with it.

http://www.diskinternals.com/ sell a lot of stuff - you can download a trial that does the scan but not the restore - you can then buy it if it finds the stuff you need.

From memory (it's been a while), none of the apps recovered the directory names / structure properly.

Also from memory after deleting a partition I had to create a new partion (quick format not full..!) on as all the tools seemed to need a drive letter to reference.

Good luck ... I'd hold fire for a bit to see if others have more words of wisdom.

 

[preacher666]

thanks for the reply.

i have just ordered a 750gb internal drive so i can copy the raw data in case i mess it up but i will take your advice and hold fire.

 

[Paul Shirley]

TestDisk is your friend (and free). Only time it has failed me was when the entire root directory got zeroed on a FAT32 disk, even then it let me pull back almost all folders below the root.

If you aren't comfortable with using 'dd' one of the free drive imaging tools should backup the disc, just don't let it try to skip unused sectors.

 

[overkill]

TestDisk is your friend (and free). Only time it has failed me was when the entire root directory got zeroed on a FAT32 disk, even then it let me pull back almost all folders below the root.

If you aren't comfortable with using 'dd' one of the free drive imaging tools should backup the disc, just don't let it try to skip unused sectors.

That looks like a piece of software I could use.

In fact I wish I'd had it a month ago..........

Cheers

 

[preacher666]

i downloaded testdisk but i wasnt sure how to use it.

TestDisk is your friend (and free). Only time it has failed me was when the entire root directory got zeroed on a FAT32 disk, even then it let me pull back almost all folders below the root.

If you aren't comfortable with using 'dd' one of the free drive imaging tools should backup the disc, just don't let it try to skip unused sectors.

 

[Paul Shirley]

Try the step by step page on the wiki. Should be a fairly straightforward 'Quick search' in your case.

 

[preacher666]

now i know why i couldnt use it, it doesnt find the partition!

 

[djdpt]

i done this once and downloaded a copy of ontrack data recovery software worked a treat recovered everything then i just reformatted and stuck it back on

now you can buy the software it will cost like £300 or you can download it from the usual places e.g limewire, piratebay or torrentz

 

[Old_Biker_John]

hi,

i have just accidentally deleted the partition on my external HD. i havent done anything to it so the data should still be there. does anyone know of a program to rescue it and save my data?

Hi preacher666,

Sorry to see your problem posted here.

This website gives some advice on partition recovery, including explanations of the functions offered by several freeware recovery programs. (TestDisk is listed and sometimes misses partitions on first check, but there is a further option to try)

I hope you see something there that will help you fix your problem.

Good Luck,

John.