I've done stupidest thing ever. Help needed badly.

Hello. I'm desperate for your help. I have a Dell Inspiron 1501, some of you may know about Dell notebook HDD partitions. There is a 3 GB part at the end of the disk that you cant normally access, I dont know much about it. I also had three partitions that I created, C, D and E; 20, 8 and 75 GB approximately. XP was normally installed on C, but sometime ago, I installed a second Windows on D, because my Computer kept freezing (not OS related, I believe it was bad sectors). And tonight my computer would stuck at welcome screen, I couldnt access my files, so I tried the old Windows which turned out to be not working at all anymore, the unpleasant blue screen showed up.
Here is the stupid part: instead of repairing the Windows installation at D Drive, I formatted the 3 GB partition and installed windows there! Right now I really want to choke myself to death. I didnt want to touch the windows installation on D: because I didnt want to reinstall programs and drivers, so I decided to repair C:\Windows and fix the problem at D: thru that (i think it was a virus related problem) but at the disk selection menu, XP installler could not identify the C:'s file system and prompted for format. So I did that stupid thing. And now windows at 3GB partition boots and all other partitions are gone! I feel so terrible, I have lots and lots of unrecoverable files there and not only mine but my family's too! photos and very imported documents and other things. I know there are recovery programs out there but i think those are for deleted files, not deleted partitions and thats where I need your advice. Is there a way?
Please dont judge me, I feel bad enough already. I will appreciate any help, thanks in advance.

 

ok your post is a bit confusing, but it sounds like you deleted the partition, formatted it, and installed windows on top of it.....if thats the case then no, you cant recover anything.

 

Download a linux live cd and try using that to recover any data.

 

no I didnt format the disks I want to recover, I just formated the 3GB partition and installed windows there. I only deleted partitions and disks are untouched other than that. Pardon my weak English and my restless post.
@Harper, Im no Linux expert, I already have a Ubuntu CD but I dont see how I could recover files with that. Do you mean I could access unpartitioned disks? Wouldnt Linux overwrite data I want to recover? its blank for me.

 

Hmm... I think there are software solutions that could handle this. Do some Google searching.
Also, Microsoft has a way to do recover it, too, but it looks risky. You should know exactly what you doing:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245725

 

Thanks. I cannot decide if I should try that which I dont really think I can pull out, or a program called EASUSE. They claim to recover files from raw drives: http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-raw-drive.htm

 

I've used Recuva to recovery deleted files with decent success. So long as nothing has been written over them, it does quite well. I don't know if it will work with an entire partition having been deleted, but it's worth a shot. So long as you don't download/install it to the space that used to house your data, it can't hurt to try.

Some sites suggest reformatting in the same file system and the exact same size. This may work, but I'd try other suggestions first. If you do have to reformat first, make sure you do a quick reformat, not a complete reformat. A quick reformat just sets up the partition table but doesn't actually delete the contents of the disk; a complete reformat deletes all the data in that area of the disk.

Google does seem to have some suggestions; I've never had to do this myself so I'll leave off there.

edit: That program you linked to may work, but if Windows has to be able to see the partition as well, it might not be able to see what you need. Perhaps you should ask on their forums; also, take a look at this FAQ on their site which seems to pertain to exactly what you've done.

 

http://pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/download.htm?language=1

This program has helped me greatly once, though my case was much worse... Just avoid 'touching' that partition with anything except data recovering software as much as you can.

 

Since you have a working install on the 3gb drive, could you go to disk manager and do a screen capture and post it

Start > right click MY COMPUTER, choose MANAGE...when the computer management console appears go to DISK MANAGER, hit PRINT SCREEN key (prtsc), then open paint and go to EDIT > PASTE

The save and post it so we can see the current state of the drive.

 

Seems like a good first step... It's hard to understand if you did in fact alter your partitions, enough that Windows won't access them. It's entirely possible that the partitions are still there, untarnished, and you just need to tell Windows to recognize them.

Post the screen shot before doing anything else, as Gerry suggested.

If it does turn out you made those partitions inaccessible, TestDisk & PhotoRec are good tools for repairing an altered partition table and recovering data. They are a pain to use though. Also, it's best to run it from a different hard than the one you intend to recover.

 

Yes, if we really are talking partition table damage, TestDisk will have a far better chance of recovery than some of the other programs...but as Gregory mentioned, pain in the butt to use and you are always sitting their with your finger on the keyboard saying, "Do I really want to press this key?"

Excellent program, but scary....that's why a screen shot would be useful

 

Thank you all for your interest, it means a lot. Here is a screenshot, I'm sorry its not in English but i believe you can tell what's what from the graphics.

 

Ah, interesting. Looks like your most recent install overwrote the Master File Table completely.

TestDisk is a good option

It is not the exact scenario, but this step by step will get you close

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

 

O.k., I am going to deviate a little from the advice others have given you:

• First, judging from what you write (and, pardon me for being so blunt, you lack of expertise that speaks from this), and given the importance of your data, I would strongly suggest you get a knowledgeable person to help you with this.
• The second thing to consider, before you, or anybody else touches anything on your hard drive, get some software that can copy or image your entire hard drive, and make a backup copy of your drive (using something like Acronis True Image, Paragon Dribe Backup, etc.) This kind of software will also be invaluable, and a good investment if you ever have these kinds of problems in the future.

Once that is done, I agree that TestDisk may be a good option.

 

A good call Pirx...I would definitely start with an image before doing anything as sensitive as this.

Acronis has a 15-day trial you can download, but you may need to remove the drive and image it in a second computer using an adapter or harddisk enclosure as Acronis has some difficulty with SATA drives sometimes

 

One point, in a way adding to Pirx:

If the data is really very important - there are companies that specilise in data recovery - however - this will be expensive - how much I can't say - at least several hundred in your currency, maybe even a few thousand...

I believe when I first heard about it 4-5 years ago it would have been 2000 to 3000 or more € - but times have moved on since then.

 

You are right, it will cost me a lot and I cannot afford it now. But I'm positive, at worse case, I can create a partition without formatting and recover my documents and photos. But check this out:


I can see original partitions, if I purchase this program it might just work. I think correct selection would be:

But I'm not sure, I need a DELL guru's advise here, should I choose the 109 MB FAT16 part, or 3067 MB NTSF part(you can't choose both)?

 

Note that creating a new partition in place of the old partition is a bad idea. When writing new data to the hard drive, you will reduce the chance of a successful recovery.

I too feel that if the data is incredibly important, taking it to a professional would be wise.

However, the program you posted screen shots of seems to show an ideal situation. I'm not familiar with it. TestDisk will do the same for free, but will not have the nice user interface. I'd wait a bit to see if anyone else has had success with PTDD (the program in the screen shots). If so, that's a good option.

It would be wise to use the advise given in the previous few posts about creating an image of the current state of your drive. This will ensure that if any program fails, and causes further degradation to your data, you will be able to try again from a clean state.

 

I've used TeskDisk and worked it out! Great tool. Now I'm all good and I've learned a lesson. I want to thank you all, you've been very helpful.

 

Looks like he just need to right click the deleted partition and assign a drive letter.

 

Good to hear you got your data back - I hope its on an external HDD.

Well done

PS: - don't take offense, but once you have time, you could write a little guide on what you did - I bet it would be a great guide on the forum should anybody ever encouter a similar problem.

 

I just followed the steps on the site gerryf19 linked:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step
Thanks again everybody.

 

TestDisk to the rescue once again...if a drive is still spinning, it is among the best bets to save your bacon. Between it and Easy Recovery I'veonly failed to get data one time when the disk was still running