Most urgent of help requested!

[Crazy Hobbit]

I deleted the main partition of an external USB drive that I have been backing up stuff on for awhile now. I did not format it however. Is there any way I can recover the data on it? The drive shows up in Windows XP but I cannot access it and Windows keeps prompting me to format it.

Any ideas :?

[Angry Kid]

If you used XP to partition it, you're pretty much SOL. :(

There are some partition recovery apps out there, but I'm not all that familiar with their abilities.
EX: http://www.partition-recovery.com/partition.htm

You may need the services of a data recovery company.

[ignus]

I deleted the main partition of an external USB drive that I have been backing up stuff on for awhile now. I did not format it however. Is there any way I can recover the data on it? The drive shows up in Windows XP but I cannot access it and Windows keeps prompting me to format it.

Any ideas :?

ive never used an external hdd before, so i dont know if this would apply... but you could use the winxp install prog to blow all the partitions and start over on it, or even maybe use a win98 startup disk and do the same.

i know one time winnt fubar'ed a hdd of mine when i wanted to take it off and install a new os... so u may just be screwed man :(

[BoogerBomb]

Hes saying that he wants the data back from what I can tell. I am positive that there is away to do it however I doubt that data is that important enough to you to take it to one of them places to get it taken off professionally. Can you access the drive in DOS? To get to DOS you have to create a startup disk and boot to it. Create one by putting one in the floppy drive and right-clicking on it in Windows and choosing format. Check the selection that says Create an MSDOS startup disk.

[AnalogKid]

Hes saying that he wants the data back from what I can tell. I am positive that there is away to do it however I doubt that data is that important enough to you to take it to one of them places to get it taken off professionally. Can you access the drive in DOS? To get to DOS you have to create a startup disk and boot to it. Create one by putting one in the floppy drive and right-clicking on it in Windows and choosing format. Check the selection that says Create an MSDOS startup disk.

I don't think DOS is going to make a difference. He blew away the partition, which is essentially an fdisk. No OS is going to be able to see the data, because the partition table is gone. Also, I'm guessing the drive was formatted in FAT32 or NTFS, which even further eliminates DOS.

The other hitch is, it is an external drive, which means if there is some program written to run in DOS to reset the partition, it won't be able to access the drive (as far as I know, DOS is ignorant of USB/Firewire).

I did find this utility, http://www.bitmart.net. They offer a free download to see if the data is recoverable. You could give this a shot.

[Chairman_Kaga]

It's also probably larger than DOS can handle.

As long as you don't overwrite the data, there should be a way to recover. Being a USB drive throws in some issues but software methods of recovering the data should work.

Might want to try this too. Don't know much about them but...

http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

[Stockboy99]

If USB is throwing in issues of driver access from dos or whatever else. Keep in mind many of these external drives are merely enclosures of ide drives. If you don't mind voiding any warranty you can simply disassemble them and attach them directly to the machine.

How was the partition lost? Just from fdisk or similar methods? There are several utilities on the market that recover this data, unfortunately all the ones I know of or have used are quite expensive. (ie. recover98, ontrack)

[Crazy Hobbit]

Thanks everyone so far!

I deleted the partion of the external USB drive using the Windows XP CD, during the re-installation onto my main hardrive. I wasn't paying attention, the USB drive was on, XP detected it along with my main hardrive. Being that it was first in the list, I wasn't paying much attention.

Once I had deleted the partition and realized what I had done, I stopped immediately. I did not format or try to add or remove anything from the drive.

I went to this site Cancerman had listed http://www.bitmart.net/ and downloaded their demo program which scanned my USB drive and was able to recover alot of the small files like images and documents and stuff. The demo limits the recovered file size to 64 KB. I can see almost all the folders that I had on the drive but there is nothing in them when using the demo.

I just purchased the full version (recovers from both FAT and NTFS partitions) and I'm crossing my fingers it will work as well the demo did. I'll let you guys know!

Thanks again everyone!

[AnalogKid]

I did find this utility, http://www.bitmart.net. They offer a free download to see if the data is recoverable. You could give this a shot.



I went to this site Cancerman had listed http://www.bitmart.net/


*cough* *cough*

[CANCERMAN]

I did find this utility, http://www.bitmart.net. They offer a free download to see if the data is recoverable. You could give this a shot.



I went to this site Cancerman had listed http://www.bitmart.net/


*cough* *cough*


Got a cold AnalogKid :( need some kleenex, http://vsfgamers.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=566 Mine was posted on Tuesday, yours Wednesday. Sorry.... now you may need some. :D

[AnalogKid]

I did find this utility, http://www.bitmart.net. They offer a free download to see if the data is recoverable. You could give this a shot.



I went to this site Cancerman had listed http://www.bitmart.net/


*cough* *cough*


Got a cold AnalogKid :( need some kleenex, http://vsfgamers.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=566 Mine was posted on Tuesday, yours Wednesday. Sorry.... now you may need some. :D

hmmmm, didn't know he had 2 threads going on this. What a spammer! :D

[CANCERMAN]

:D Yes I would agree that he is a little spamming sl*t. I wonder if he was able to get all of his data back.

[Crazy Hobbit]

Well thank you to both of you , sincerely, as I was able to get ALL of my preciousssssssssss data back from the full version of that product. All my videos, movies, music, papers, photos, patches, etc. all recovered.

Now any of you are in a jam similar to mine, I have a remedy for you :D

Thanks again everyone who pitched in with an idea. Now to stop being so clumsy when I'm reinstalling XP...