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| Thread ID: 41571 | 2004-01-15 06:18:00 | O NO! Stupid me - i just formated half my HDD | fergie (424) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 207599 | 2004-01-15 08:48:00 | :( can't use unformat on xp.... looking at tht program i used before - the folders weren't numbers they were named: $ROOT00072 with numbers changing - anyone no if they can be changed back to normal folders? |
fergie (424) | ||
| 207600 | 2004-01-16 01:35:00 | They can probably be renamed ... if you can remember what they should be called. That sort of name means that the recovery programme couldn't find the real name. The DOS based systems did have a pretty effective undelete and unformat capability. You have to be absolutely paranoid when partitioning and formatting. :D Clever system provided "recovery consoles" tend to create a ram disk to work in, and bump up the identifiers of real disks. It would be much safer if the ram disk was made "Z". But even so, "accidents" would happen. ;-) |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 207601 | 2004-01-16 02:12:00 | yeah, when i formated it - i'm sure i told it to do the G: drive (it instead down the F: drive) But looking on the keyboard i see that they are right next to each other... I would have done it through windows - but it said it was in use (pagefile - see my other post... should have asked earlier) But its ok now, i managed to go through all the folders (about 500 of them) that the recovery program got - and i got my most important files, so just gotta go through a bit of a rebuilding process |
fergie (424) | ||
| 207602 | 2004-01-16 03:18:00 | Dont forget that when booting off a Startup Disk, Windows makes d: its RAM-Drive... ALWAYS check the contents of the partition first by typing: XYZ: Replace XYZ with the drive you're wanting to format then just type: dir Make sure the files in there are NOT the ones you want to keep... ...Then type: a: then: format XYZ: ....Just keep that in mind for next time :-) Would running a Scandisk on the drive pick anything up? |
Chilling_Silently (228) | ||
| 207603 | 2004-01-16 10:00:00 | no a scandisk will not pick up the files on a quickformated drive. The difference between a quick and full format is that a full format completly wipes the disk, were as quick only does the first sector -Jacob |
Jacob4165 (199) | ||
| 207604 | 2004-01-16 11:12:00 | Oh dear, you know, if you can return formats, it worried you if you format for security reasons (and you cant afford high tech services) | Growly (6) | ||
| 207605 | 2004-01-17 01:12:00 | The answer is very simple, Growly. You don't format a disk to securely delete data. :D Formatting handles only the organisation of the disk structure, so it can be used for data storage. Sometimes, although this takes much longer, the formatting programme tests the surface by writing and reading each sector. It's probably not really necessary with IDE drives. MFM drives were different, and this is where a lot of the folklore about formatting comes from. Those who repeat the myths about formatting were probably not yet born while MFM drives were being used. :D For security, you just write random data to the whole disk. This is done "a number" of times. There are free programmes to do this. A simple three or four line script does it in *nix. Any of these programmes will do it well enough. Are your secrets are so valuable that it's worth anyone's time and money to recover them from a disk you have sold? :D |
Graham L (2) | ||
| 207606 | 2004-01-17 07:11:00 | Yes i know, but when you dont have any other means.... I know of a program that turns all binary information stored on the disk into 1s, i'm sure that'll work. Meh. |
Growly (6) | ||
| 207607 | 2004-01-17 07:12:00 | Lol - dont seem to be arrogant - but i went to a course where they taught me that, silly me, funny things you forget... | Growly (6) | ||
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