formatted harddrive

I've got a bit of a problem! My second harddrive on my windows 98 machine just got formatted accadently (long story) by the the format command in dos. This drive is 100 gigs is size and was practically full (approx 99 gigs used). Unfortunalally I've only got about 20 gigs backed up (an oversight for which I've got a good excuse) and it will be next to impossible to get the rest of the stuff again, so I'd appreciate it if anybody could tell me of a way to recover all this info (or of any programs that will do it). Thanks.

Next time make partitions!! If you didn't use /u then try unformat in DOS

I did a search at download.com and came up with these two programs. I've never used them, but they say they can retrieve formatted data, so you might wanna give em a shot.

Recover98 3.5
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0...st-7-1.1583639

Restorer2000 1.1
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0...st-7-4.5057570

Good luck mate,
Greg

Norton Utilities is the oldest and most famous
program for recovering files on the PC.
If it wasn't too fragmented, you might
recover a lot of stuff.
Good luck.
:cool:

rcgreen
I've got Norton utilities on cd but if I reinstall it won't some of the info I'm trying to recover be written over so I'm trying to leave using this as a last resort. I can't run it from the other drive cause it contains a praticularly nasty virus that will cause the mother board to overheat if opened (don't ask me how it does that but that I know from experience that it does happen, not from any experience on any of my machines thankfully, and at any rate it is only 1 gig in size).
What I am trying to find is a program that will fit on a floppy and recover all the info when the machine is booted from the floppy (if such a program exists).

hot_ice
Thanks for the trouble but these programs won't help me any more than Norton Utilities will.

cleanbash
I didn't partition the drive because of a program on it called Goback (from Gateway) which wouldn't let me and the only way to remove it is to format the drive. (Goback can be a very useful program especially when computer illeterate users have access to the machine. )
I also have already tried undelete in dos but it told me it couldn't find any deleted files or folders.

Thanks anyway.

if you do not want to install on either of the two hard drives you have available, then how do you expect to recover anything? obviously, if you plan on using a program, it is going to have to be installed on some type of storage device, and i have yet to see a data recovery or forensics program that can do everything from a floppy. what type of virus does the other drive have? if it is still a functional drive, then install norton utilities on it, slave the formatted, and try to recover. or try and get a hold of another hard drive, install a variant of windows, then your data recovery software. slave the formatted drive and see what you can get. there are many freeware data reovery programs out there, but i have not had to much luck with them. norton does seem to be the best for the price. also, you need to consider what the the original file format of the partition was, and what it is now after you formatted it. this can make a huge difference. especially when dealing with ntfs. good luck man.

VanEck
I'm currently working on getting another harddrive, which should solve all my problems, but it my take a while.

About the drive with the virus, it is not still functional because I cannot even access it without letting the virus free so I have no chance of using any antivirus software on it. I'm not very worried about that problem anyway because a few machines at work are also affected with this particular virus. So far they (the companies network admin) have called in three companies that specialise in viruses and none of them seem to be able to do anything about it, so I don't think that I have much hope.

Some older versions of norton will run fron a floppy,
but probably only work on FAT16 drives.
Keep looking. I'm sure the tool you need exists
somewhere.
:cool:

i think there's a unformate command on dos , it sucks .. but give a try atleast ...
but as rcgreen told ya , u'll find a tool somewhere .. keep searching the net ...
tru the http://www.blackcode.com/
they have allots of freware software.

good luck man . :(

i googled this...it supposedly fits on a floppy...worth a shot...

http://home.arcor.de/christian_grau/rescue/

Since it's a second drive, slave it to one that is bootable and install Norton on that drive or if you have the newer versions it will run from the cd BUT you need to be in a Windows environment so regardless the borked drive will need to be slaved.

Good luck!
TC

Thanks for the help everybody. For anybody that might be interested I recovered about 90% of the lost info (thankfully). I got 50% of it back using Nortan utilities on a borrowed drive and the program zigar directed me to got the rest that was retrievable back (thanks zigar I owe you one). I don't understand why Norton didn't retrieve the whole lot but what can you do.