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Thread ID: 55589 2005-03-14 16:43:00 problem accessing data on my hard drive superstar (7586) Press F1
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333992 2005-03-14 16:43:00 hey, my pc messed up a few days ago and i was advised to 'partition' my hard drive. So i did.

That didnt solve the problem, the problem was a faulty RAM chip.

Now my pc is working, but i can not access anything on my hard drive.

It comes up that i have 2 drives (though i have one physical drive in my pc). One is the D:/ drive which is 2gigs (which is the size of the partition i made) and the other G:/ is 35gigs.

I can access the D:/ drive but not the G:/ drive. When i click on it i get the message saying 'the disk in drive G is not yet formatted, would you like to format it?'

I have some very very important stuff on there including a massive bulk of coursework due in this week. Please help me, as always i will appreciate any help i can get.
superstar (7586)
333993 2005-03-14 17:16:00 How exactly did you partition your hard drive? Did you use a non-destructive program such as PartitionMagic? What OS is this? Jen (38)
333994 2005-03-14 17:31:00 windows xp
i used a boot disk floppy to do so
superstar (7586)
333995 2005-03-14 19:27:00 windows xp
i used a boot disk floppy to do so

Fdisk, or the drive manufacturers utility? Did you create the new partition out of free space?

Do you have a live Linux CD like Knoppix or Mepis? With one of those, you can boot to the CD and mount and browse your hard drive partitions. If there is any data there you can view, move, copy or burn it to CD.

Unfortunately, your data may not be recoverable. You may be able to repair the installation, if it still exists in a readible format by booting to the XP CD (the Linux CD will tell you that).

Another option is to use a data recovery programme or service, both will cost money, the latter $500 to $1000. The less you try to access the drive prior to data recovery the better, again the Linux way is safer in this respect.
Murray P (44)
333996 2005-03-14 19:34:00 hey, my pc messed up a few days ago and i was advised to 'partition' my hard drive . So i did .

That didnt solve the problem, the problem was a faulty RAM chip .

Now my pc is working, but i can not access anything on my hard drive .



I have some very very important stuff on there including a massive bulk of coursework due in this week . Please help me, as always i will appreciate any help i can get .

If it is "very very important stuff" and you don't have a backup, you should probably get professional help . If you were prepared to partition your computer without thinking about the consequences, you should get someone else to oversee the data recovery attempt . Don't try and do anything from that computer . You will need the hard drive mounted in a second computer with enough space in another drive to store the recovered files .
PaulD (232)
333997 2005-03-14 20:26:00 Not to mention how did the 1st partition end up being d:? It should be c: by default and then the 2nd partition would be d:
Any other drives, like CD or DVD would then be e:.
pctek (84)
333998 2005-03-14 20:41:00 Not to mention how did the 1st partition end up being d:? It should be c: by default and then the 2nd partition would be d:
Any other drives, like CD or DVD would then be e:.

it is my slave drive.

i have a 5gig drive for windows and applications

the other drive in question is for everything else
superstar (7586)
333999 2005-03-14 20:43:00 If it is "very very important stuff" and you don't have a backup, you should probably get professional help. If you were prepared to partition your computer without thinking about the consequences, you should get someone else to oversee the data recovery attempt. Don't try and do anything from that computer. You will need the hard drive mounted in a second computer with enough space in another drive to store the recovered files.


a response like that is not appreciated. If you can't be pleasant than don't bother at all.

You know nothing about me or my situation, what makes you think you have any right to scrutinize me? I came here asking for help, if i wanted a reluctant answer i would have asked for one.

In future don't bother.
superstar (7586)
334000 2005-03-14 21:00:00 Fine. Suit yourself, it's your data after all. PaulD (232)
334001 2005-03-14 21:16:00 Don't try and do anything from that computer. You will need the hard drive mounted in a second computer with enough space in another drive to store the recovered files.

What Paul is saying here, is that you want no further read/write access to the drive in question as that makes data recovery more difficult, more expensive and less likely to succeed. Paul may have been a bit blunt, but the advise is valid IMO, it's a harsh lesson to learn re the need for backups when altering software and hardware.

Any access to the drive can overwrite your data, although accessing via a Linux live CD is less likely to do any harm than attempts via DOS, Windows or utilities based on them as the live CD creates a RAM disk and operates from that. Using the live CD be used just to find out what readible data is on the drive and therefore what method of recovery (and at what cost) will be required. Proffesional data forensics can recover data fram erased and formatted drives, whether the data has any meaning to you will depend on your actions now.

Can you let us know the answers the previous questions. For all we know, it may be that just your MBR and/or partition table is nixed.
Murray P (44)
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