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Disaster on External HD

jbaello

I accidentally removed partition on a harddrive

with so much important data, can someone tell me if I can rebuild this partition? and retain all of my data?

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Comments

jbaello

I wouldn't mind purchasing a software for this, I made a mistake by deleting an external HD partition, which has so much important data. After this I will try to get a tape backup

dynamik

Maybe someone can chime in with a specific package, but you'll get a ton of results if you just google data recovery software. Most have a free download that shows you what it can recovery, and then you have to pay to actually recover the files.

jbaello

I just need a tool that will rebuild the partition without harming the data, those data recover software is so expensive, our tape that got jacked last week, will cost 6,000 $ to recover.

What happened is the external HD was plugged into a computer I was going to rebuild, and bam I deleted the wrong partition

I got shaken...

dynamik

There's a bunch of cheap shareware packages that'll do it. Unless you've written over the data, it's just sitting on the drive. The OS just can't get to it without the partition information. I'm not sure if they'll rebuild the partition, but they'll let you copy it to another location, and then you can rebuild the partition and copy it back. I spent $30 on some random package a few years ago. It's a pretty simple process.

Here, I found you another thread: http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25788

royal

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Main_Page and downloaded Testdisk. It'll recover your partition and data.

jbaello

I'm downloading "recover lost data v3.1.1" I am crossing my finger that my data is intact.

astorrs

Good luck hope you get it all back.

For anyone else who reads this down the road and is looking for serious data recovery of a server or something infinitely more complex (Exchange, etc), OnTrack (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/ has never let me down since I first used their products in 2001, but their software doesn't come cheap.

jbaello

Thanks guys, I appreciate the help, what is the partition I select for this, I have to be 100 % sure with the selections I make, it's NTFS partition made by windows XP.

jbaello

astorrs wrote:

Good luck hope you get it all back.

For anyone else who reads this down the road and is looking for serious data recovery of a server or something infinitely more complex (Exchange, etc), OnTrack (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/ has never let me down since I first used their products in 2001, but their software doesn't come cheap.

maybe we can leech that :P oops...

marco71

normally, when you delete a partition, changes are made only into Partition Table, so if you recreate that partition (without format it, ofc) with the same properties (starting sector, size and type), everything should be back to normal... if you do not know partition's properties, you should use a rescue specific software (I only used Norton Disk Doctor for DOS, but is a long, long time since then)

jbaello

when you re-create partition the next thing it will ask you is format the HD...

astorrs

jbaello wrote:

when you re-create partition the next thing it will ask you is format the HD...

You'll need a partition editor to do it safely the way he's talking about. And you need to know the exact dimensions. Much safer to use a recovery tool.

Sie

astorrs wrote:

Good luck hope you get it all back.

For anyone else who reads this down the road and is looking for serious data recovery of a server or something infinitely more complex (Exchange, etc), OnTrack (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/ has never let me down since I first used their products in 2001, but their software doesn't come cheap.

+1

Good software, has always helped me out too.

jbaello

royal wrote:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Main_Page and downloaded Testdisk. It'll recover your partition and data.

This software is quite complicated, I'll need to read through this, I gotta handle with care with this stuff... my life is in this box...

marco71

astorrs wrote:

jbaello wrote:

when you re-create partition the next thing it will ask you is format the HD...

You'll need a partition editor to do it safely the way he's talking about. And you need to know the exact dimensions. Much safer to use a recovery tool.

right ... that's why I always keep a copy of partition table into a file

jbaello

marco71 wrote:

astorrs wrote:

jbaello wrote:

when you re-create partition the next thing it will ask you is format the HD...

You'll need a partition editor to do it safely the way he's talking about. And you need to know the exact dimensions. Much safer to use a recovery tool.

right ... that's why I always keep a copy of partition table into a file

I've never done this...

marco71

btw, did you try to re-create the lost partition? for example with diskpart ?

JDMurray

Is it a dynamic volume? Here's are the recovery steps from Microsoft: How To Recover an Accidentally Deleted NTFS or FAT32 Dynamic Volume

cbigbrick

If it's a USB drive, I would boot the computer with the latest KNOPPIX CD. Even if it not a USB, I would stil give it a shot. Just google for Knoppix.

Or try Trinity Rescue

http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=1&front_id=12

jbaello

Thanks for all the response, and suggestions, I went ahead a downloaded a program called Active Partition Recover, it's working now, it's a 1 TB WD Book plugged into a USB. I got quite scared with this event. So I will look for a tape backup solution, for peace of mind.

jbaello

Going forward I had to delete the partition again, to let the software recreate it.