I'm in deep dookie

Hi, I'm screwed! How are you?

Here is the problem: I have two 20GB harddrives and a 30 GB

20gb 1: 20GB NTFS Windows partition
20gb 2: 15GB FAT32 data backup 5 gigs free (deleted linux distro)
30gb : 30GB FAT32 empty (new)

I wanted to resize my 15GB FAT32 partition containing my data backup to replace a deleted linux distibution, but BOOTIT froze everytime I tried... (not it's fault, this drive has a history of hating partition managers, Partition magic went nuts trying to work with it) So I move all of my data from my 15gb fat32 partition to my 30gb fat32 and reformatted the 20Gb(2) as an NTFS volume using windows 2000 disk manager service. then I restarted with a win98 boot disk and formatted C: from the command prompt..... (see what I'm saying) windows 98 doesn't recognize NTFS partitions, so instead of formatting 20GB(1) or even 20GB(2) I formatted the 30GB with all my data on it, not realizing this at the time, I even had two failed windows XP installations on it!! so not only did I reformat the drive with all my data on it, I WROTE OVER SOME OF IT!!!! I know there is no chance in HELL that I can retrieve the data from the 20GB(2) that I converted to NTFS, and probably the same is true for the 30 GB, but PLEASE TELL ME I'M WRONG!!

Sounds really bad, but you might try this stuff.
http://www.runtime.org/

Sounds like you have a real exercise in data recovery ahead of you. If the data you have is just MP3's and stuff forget it and start downloading again. If there's some really important data, then hand your disk over to data recovery experts. It's gonna cost you, however and evaluate if you actually do save money or whether it's just easier to start over.
Cheers,
cgkanchi

I got alot of stuff on CD, but I'd say I lost a good 80% of my data and 100% of my friend's backups. the music is a large chunk of it, and I got alot of it backed up, so that's not what I am worried about, I've been meaning to clean up my music collection, this speed up the process considerably, but my big problem is the stuff I don't remember... her family pictures, my family pictures, my tutorials, website data, photoshop portfolio, program source code, (confidential data some authorities probably shouldn't see), PORN !! Oh MAN my PORN!! I haven't lost a single byte of data in 3 years!!! This was my backup drive, I only used it when I was doing a full reinstall of my OS, which until now was a pretty failsafe system,(as the architect would say, "A triumph equaled only by it's monumental failure") heh, It seems the only thing that can surpass my anal retentive attention to detail is my ineptitude. my record for never losing data is now kaput... I sux0r :-(

Sounded like an easier way to resize the partition was to copy all its contents on to the new, empty drive, delete the partition and recreate it, and copy the contents back.... never mind

try this http://www.z-a-recovery.com it will cost though

the demo will recover four directories at a time, then you must rescan to get another four. hopefully you don't have everything in millions of subdirectories!

it may recognise alot of filenames but thats no guarantee that the data is vaild.

Let us all take a moment of silence for acidreign's lost porn.

*sniff*


Amen.

Best Wishes,

-Maestr0

hmm...I wondered why my P2P seemed suddenly .... lighter. Best bet (as many have said before) is data recovery experts -- doing something yourself might worsen the prob, and the data recov guys will prolly get more off it anyway (though I doubt you'll be able to afford electron microscope scanning). Good luck (I know data loss is not fun -- two (single) drive crashes in less than three months at one time. CD backups have become a way of life)

GandalfTheGray saved my ass.... his link led me to getdataback for FAT... I recovered most of it from the 20 GB drive, and the rest from the 30GB drive, thanks to him, my record for never losing data stands, and will forever do so...

Half a cheer for the recovery..


hip....


and the other Half cheer for the advice/link

Hip....



Cheers

Sorry, I can't help you (m$ user) on this issue, but since it deals with the same issue, I wanted to post this link http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Ext2fs-Undeletion.html for linux users who might find themselves in this same situation.

I'm sure that you'll be able to recover most of your data.


--PuRe