Recovering a drive(?)

AlphaTrinityAlphaTrinity North Wales, PA
edited June 2007 in Hardware
Hey guys,
I made a huge mistake and accidentally did a fixboot to a strictly storage drive. I realized this when I went to access the drive and it asked if I wanted to format it. I would love it if somebody knows of a way to get all of the information off of that drive (or break the bad news to me that all of my family pictures, photoshop and website work, and my books are gone forever). Thanks a bunch for a quick response.

Comments

  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    edited June 2007
    Hey AlphaTrinity!

    I would get yourself a demo copy of GetDataBack for NTFS or FAT32 depending on how the drive was formatted.

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

    Have it search the drive and if there are files to recover it will show them all to you. The demo version won't restore any files though, you'll have to buy a license key to get them back...

    We use it at the shop all the time and it works like a charm.

    Make sure you recover these file to a different Hard Drive. :)

    Good Luck!
  • AlphaTrinityAlphaTrinity North Wales, PA
    edited June 2007
    Well I didn't format it, I just accidentally ran a fixboot to it, and now I can't access the drive at all (Windows asks me to format the drive). I just figured that since all I did was write a boot sector, most of my files on that drive are still intact..just unaccessible for now. Thank you for your fast response though, I really appreciate it. :)
  • AlphaTrinityAlphaTrinity North Wales, PA
    edited June 2007
    Here's a picture..just in case this helps in any way.
    Drive D is my boot drive that has Winxp on it, drive C is my storage drive that is currently a system drive that has no drive format.
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    edited June 2007
    GetDataBack will still run even if the drive has no partition or file system on it...

    Install it to you D and run it on your C... You'll be amazed at what it can recover.
  • AlphaTrinityAlphaTrinity North Wales, PA
    edited June 2007
    So I ran that program...and about three errors popped up, then my computer froze. I rebooted...and I got a tasty bsod. That hard drive has been dying slowly for about the past two months..so I guess it's finally done. I guess I'll have to put recovering my other drive on hold until I get a new boot hd.

    By the way, I wanted to ask if I need to format that storage drive before running that program. I noticed that the program can do NTFS or FAT32..but the drive that needs recovered has no file format. If I format that drive I will lose all of that precious data that I need..but it looks like I need to format the drive in order to use that program(?)

    :sigh:
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited June 2007
    No you don't. You use the version of the program that coincides with the file system the drive was using before it went bad.
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    edited June 2007
    I'd just set the drive aside till you get a new boot drive and your machine in proper working order...

    Then I'd put the data drive in as a secondary master or slave and recover the data to your primary boot drive or where ever you have the free space.

    DO NOT format the data drive before you try to recover it.

    If the drive has physically packed in... such as clicks, seeks track zero continually or grinds then chances of getting your data back are slim...
    Also if there is an electrical problem with the board on the drive chances are slim as well, you can try another board from an identical drive it that is the case...
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited June 2007
    Read this article of ours: http://icrontic.com/articles/advanced_data_recovery
  • AlphaTrinityAlphaTrinity North Wales, PA
    edited June 2007
    Whew..
    I got my hands on a hard drive from my school..and I was able to use it to recover all of my files. :) I'm so relieved.

    Thank you very much for your help..it would have majorly sucked losing all of that stuff. At least I learned two good things: how to recover drive info, and to back up your files regularly >.<

    <3 SM <3
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    edited June 2007
    Good to hear you got your data back!
  • trolltroll Windsor, Nova Scotia Icrontian
    edited June 2007
    Great article Thrax!
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