screwed up on XP install

[alfio]

hello all

i screwed up during an installation of XP. i didn't realize that my external hard drive was plugged into my machine when i was attempting to reinstall windows on my machine and i inadvertently selected that drive to be erased. when i realized what i'd done i (perhaps stupidly) unplugged the external drive before it could actually start erasing/reformating. anyhow, what i think happened is that the drive has been marked 'to be erased' somehow by my stupid error but that the data is still there. does that make sense? more importantly, is there a way to get it back (by re-writing the partition table maybe?)? thanks

not happy about losing all that data

[Majestic]

Have you confirmed that the data was indeed lost? I would think if you pulled the plug prior to the drive being formatted then the data is still intact. What you did do is just abort a Windows install which isn't a big problem. Just do the install on the correct drive and once that is done then plug in the external to see if you can now access it.

[alfio]

Have you confirmed that the data was indeed lost? I would think if you pulled the plug prior to the drive being formatted then the data is still intact. What you did do is just abort a Windows install which isn't a big problem. Just do the install on the correct drive and once that is done then plug in the external to see if you can now access it.

thanks for the assist on this

i did plug in the drive after i finished the install and it doesn't register as a drive on XP. again, i don't think the data was lost because i didn't give it time to do anything and it never started formatting (i only managed to select that drive to be formated).

edit: my earlier comment about being able to see the drive on linux was not correct.

[Majestic]

If the index or partition table is damage.... it sounds like a job for Recuva

http://www.piriform.com/recuva/features

A good little recovery program by the makers of CCleaner and it is free as well.

[corvette]

You can also try Partition Table Doctor. Or if some files have been erased (not likely), then Ontrack Easy Recovery may help too.

I've messed my external drive once in a similar fashion, data was intact, but disc not readable. Partition Table Doctor fixed it flawlessly.

[alfio]

You can also try Partition Table Doctor. Or if some files have been erased (not likely), then Ontrack Easy Recovery may help too.

I've messed my external drive once in a similar fashion, data was intact, but disc not readable. Partition Table Doctor fixed it flawlessly.

i hope you are right : )

i tried Recuva but it does not seem to see the HD in question (it only detects the drives that are working well) - will try PTD next

thanks

[alfio]

not seeing a thing with any of these programs. i also tried active partition recovery after finding some threads on another board but that also proved futile. this thing is just not showing up on anything but i just can't imagine it is totally gone.

[alfio]

ok, success!

found a neat little program called TestDisk on this site http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Main_Page

it did the trick in a couple of minutes though a really basic DOS interface. lovely

[Tõnis]

Congratulations on the fix! And thanks for reporting back with the solution ...

[Mike Blake]

Thanks for the tip on TestDisk -- it looks like a useful weapon for the troubleshooting arsenal. I wish I had it last year...

[comps]

Just a warning about TestDisk - I have used the tool for the last several years and it works well in common scenarios, but it can easily erase your chances for data recovery. I've seen many people lost their data thanks to testdisk. TestDisk does not detect things like LVM PVs, RAID metadata, .. and pretty much anything except the common msdos (and perhaps GPT) partitioning scheme.

So the "think before running a tool" rule still applies! TestDisk has no magic inside.

[RealBlackStuff]

I made a silly mistake last year, using Paragon Alignment Tool , to prepare my PC for Windows 7.
This is easily the worst, crappiest, lousiest, most rotten piece of software I have ever come across!
It totally screwed up all the partition info on my hard disks, including (I guess) the NTFS equivalent of file access tables.
As usual, I took Acronis images before I proceeded, but after that piece of s h i t Paragon tool, I could not even restore those images!
As I was setting up a new PC anyway, I had bought new SATA HDs instead of my old PATA drives.
I tried everything and every program I could think off to get the data of my old hard disks, and only TestDisk (included in some Linux distro I found) could get those all-important files off the old HDs.
So +1 for TestDisk!