Accidentally repartitioned hard drive

[Maggy J]

Does anyone know if you can recover data from an accidentally repartitioned hard drive and if so...

I'm not the affected user but I'm trying to help someone who has lost all their artwork of the last 10 years in one fell swoop.And it has to be cheap or free.

So can anyone help?

[Kymmy]

The only way is normally a surface scan software, something like ONTRAKS EASYRECOVERY but it does cost....and also the drive needs to be put onto another PC..

I've not got my copy anymore so I'm afraid I can't help

Kymmy

[Rob M]

It might be possible to use some of the free forensics utilities that are available for Linux.

You'd probably want to start by taking an image of the drive (using dd) and then using some of the other tools to work through the image recovering the data.

It aint going to be a simple operation though I wouldn't have thought.....

I'd be happy to take a look if you get seriously stuck with it, but I can't promise anything

[Kymmy]

Just to clarify, when the disk was repartitioned the List of where all the files are and what they're called would have been overwrote... As long as the drive wasn;t fully (not quick) formatted as well all the data should still be on there.

The problem is though that PC's (windows, linux or anthing else)breaks up the fle and puts it into spaces that it wants to fill and without that list of where all parts of the files are it's a nightmare job to recover them.

It though can be done but if you go to a professional it can cost thousands of pounds for a single drive

Kymmy

[DaiNasty]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

The only way is normally a surface scan software, something like ONTRAKS EASYRECOVERY but it does cost....and also the drive needs to be put onto another PC..

It's absolutely essential that nothing is installed onto the drive at this point.
As has been mentioned already the drive should be 'worked' as a slave and preferably imaged before anything else is tried.

10 years without a backup!! What were they thinking?

[Maggy J]

Originally Posted by Rob M

It might be possible to use some of the free forensics utilities that are available for Linux.

You'd probably want to start by taking an image of the drive (using dd) and then using some of the other tools to work through the image recovering the data.

It aint going to be a simple operation though I wouldn't have thought.....

I'd be happy to take a look if you get seriously stuck with it, but I can't promise anything

Thanks for the offer but my friend is in the US.

---------- Post added at 09:31 ---------- Previous post was at 09:29 ----------

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

It's absolutely essential that nothing is installed onto the drive at this point.
As has been mentioned already the drive should be 'worked' as a slave and preferably imaged before anything else is tried.

10 years without a backup!! What were they thinking?

They were thinking that with the new DVD Writer and NEW HD that they would be soon sorted....

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

10 years without a backup!! What were they thinking?

I think that people get complacent with PC's...

I recently had 2 HDD's fail (one on the server but that's mirrored and also synced to my PC so no data lost) and then my partners HDD failed (bad sector was lucky it was in the space occupied by the windows directory so managed to rip off all the data and warned her to back-up to the server more regulary (will probably set it up on a sync))

But that is my first HDD crashes at home since my first 5MB Hdd back in the 80's

Kymmy

[Rob M]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Thanks for the offer but my friend is in the US.

That's ok, I'm not averse to a bit of travelling (all expenses paid, of course ).

[altis]

If the work is stored as JPEGs then you could probably use the recovery tool from Sandisk called RescuePro. This is bundled free with their high-end flash cards and is often available for peanuts on ebay:
http://www.sandisk.com/products/cata...rescuepro.aspx

What did they use to repartition the hard drive? If it was something like PartitionMagic then, IIRC, this includes some recovery tools. Failing that, find someone with, or buy an old copy of Norton System Works. Much maligned but it can recover this sort of thing. Remember to connect the disk in question as a second drive and engage brain before operating!

If that doesn't work the people who wrote RescuePro offer a paid-for service:
http://www.lc-tech.com/

[jamiefrost]

There are a few pieces of sotware around that dont cost a lot, $60, as mentioned above don't use the machine at all, but you will need a second drive to run the software and to copy the recovered files to.

Just doing the for someone at work after dell kindly reinstalled windows for them by reformatting the drive (no backup ) but it is finding some of the lost pictures and documents.

Using a programe called recovermyfiles

HTH

JJ

[Maggy J]

Actually he has done some backing up onto his new HD and partial back ups in the past...but not as much as if he had a DVD writer before now.

He's also thankful for the suggestions thus far..and is leaning towards finding someone to help him transfer the contents of the old drive to his new drive.

Will try and let you know what he decides.

BTW I asked the question as much for me and other less techy members here.

[Aragorn]

Do you know if it was originally one partition and whether any formatting was done after the re partition?
The data is separate from the partition table and if the original partition table can be rebuilt (eg one whole disk partition) and the data wasn't touched it should be recoverable.
A slave disk under Linux would be the best way to do this.

[Horace]

If the artwork is in JPG format, there's a nice little free utility call findjpg that will recover them if the data is still there even if the headers were destroyed they still may be recovered. This includes formatted drives.

http://www.partitionsupport.com/utilities.htm

At the bottom of the page or included in findpart.