Argghh...lost all my data!!

Tuz76 · Post by **Tuz76** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:40 am

I have a bit of a question for you. Its relating to my personal PC at home.
I got a bit over my head on the weekend using Partition Magic 8.0!!

The pc has a single 6GB harddrive. Was in FAT format. It was partioned into
C and D drives.

Partition Magic allows you to 'delete' partitions. The delete partition
function then has something like "delete partittion" or "delete partition
secure - warning this will delete all files" . Cant remember but something
along those lines.

Anyway I chose Delete partition (the one that DOES'NT delete files!)

So After I did that, it worked well. I realised that since C was in FAT
format, I couldnt get bigger than 2.1 G and hence I said Ill convert to NTFS
and then resize the partition to 6GB (full size)

So everything worked well. The C drive is now NTFS and the size of the drive
is 6GB! But guess what....the folders in D drive are no longer there! They
have all dissappeared.

Now whats worse is I didnt actually create "Rescue Discs" I know I know....
I feel stupid already

So my question to you is..

Is there ANYTHING that can be done to go back to the previous

partition (or similar) that will allow me access to the folders that

magically dissappeared? Even after Ive converted to NTFS and resized the
partition? Please say there is! :/

Im SURE i didnt choose the delete partition and erase data.

Hope someone can help me.

Thanks

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 3:42 pm

that doesn't sound too good.. Sounds like you deleted the partition which means everything in it as well, but I would try running a raw data recovery app such as Ontrack's Easy Recovery Professional 6.0. There are several other disk recovery apps out there that can actually still get data off of deleted partitions and freshly formatted drives but they aren't always cheap nor reliable. Ontrack IMO makes some of the better disk recovery software.

good luck.

Brk · Post by **Brk** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 4:47 pm

I've used GetDataBack several times and it works extremely well, too:

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

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Jun 23, 2003 8:24 pm

My guess, since you resized your existing C partition to encompass what your old D partition had space wise, is it got overwritten a bit.

Give it a shot, lots of data recovery software will have a free trial you can download and "see" what you can get back...you usually have to pay to unlock the software to activate the actually recovery part of the program.

Often if you delete a partition, the stuff is still there underneath, often quite recoverabe. But once you write data over that space....the chances of recovery greatly diminish.

Don't scandisk or defrag, or uninstall or install any software, many of the data recovery programs will run from a floppy disk.