Forum Home
Press F1
Thread ID: 40449	2003-12-08 09:02:00	Infinite wisdom	metla (154)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
198423	2003-12-08 09:02:00	Backed up everything I had on 3 harddrives to a partition on one harddrive then proceeded to format and reload the os’s on all my systems. During windows install one of my harddrives died (how sad) so i pulled the harddrive with all my data backed up on it and inserted it into the machine with the faulty hd (The hd already had an os on it.... yes, I know well this is a bad idea and have pointed out the stupidity of it to many people), Of course upon booting the machine I had an extremely sluggish and crash prone system due to the chipset drivers clashing, No worries, I expected that. So, after a moment’s hesitation (where I thought about putting the hd back where it came from) I went into the device manager and stripped it of everything to do with the motherboard, rebooted and prepared to load on the drivers for the current chipset. Only to find the drivers wouldn’t load, the system barely worked and I needed plan b. Format partition and reload os, Sweet as, ran like a dream.....until I tried to access my 40gb of backed up data on the second partition, where I was informed the disk file structure was corrupt and inaccessible...This was at 2am i might add,.....I was in shock just staring at the screen for half an hour afterwards, I had lost so much vital information, records, work and irreplaceable files that I’m still discovering what I have lost (this was a week ago). I then spent many hours looking for ways to access my info, I managed to retrieve 11gb of data but most was so corrupt as to be unusable. I have since formatted the offending partition but its only showing up as 11gb,Partition magic gives an error when pointed at the drive. Seagate’s diagnostic tool also locks solid.Otherwise the drive works fine.... Therefore, My question is, Someone here awhile back mentioned a program that would overwrite an entire harddrive from beginning to end completely ignoring all partitions and file structures, Does anyone know the name of this program or one similar? I would very much like to recover the 30gb of lost harddrive space. Sorry about the long post before getting to my question, I just had to share my stupidity.	metla (154)
198424	2003-12-08 09:11:00	DBAN, Darik's Boot And Nuke! Just insert a floppy, and it will wipe the data off all hard disks found. Note: it takes many hours for just a 6GB drive. Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but it should do the job.	agent (30)
198425	2003-12-08 09:45:00	Metla, don't you want to recover the data. How will wiping the lot get you there? Should't you be pointing some recovery software at it and if that doesn't work think about sending it out to be recovered? Cheers Murray P	Murray P (44)
198426	2003-12-08 10:05:00	> Someone here awhile back mentioned a program that would overwrite an entire harddrive from beginning to end completely ignoring all partitions and file structures, PoWa is probably the one who mentioned such a program. Do a search for "security" with his username for this year. A number of threads come up that it might be in. Sorry to hear of your woes, pretty hard luck. :-(	Fire-and-Ice (3910)
198427	2003-12-08 10:11:00	Done a raw data recovery on the drive, it copied over everything that was readable, the problem is that any files that are fragmented still get copied over as raw data and are unusable. The files that weren’t fragmented were copied over fine. Pity it wasn't a large amount. As for data recovery services, The price is ridicules, especially as most just use the same software i did, and I have little faith that any of them could recover more then i did even if they disassembled the drive and tried to read directly off the platter they would still only access the same files i managed to find. That’s my theory anyway, It’s probably as good as any I’ve managed to convince myself of. But yeah, that parts done and dusted. The offending partition has already been formatted and is back in use, My next move is to recover my 30gb of unfound harddrive space, Not the data, just the storage area. Agents program looks like it might do the trick, I’ll have a go with that one at some stage.	metla (154)
198428	2003-12-08 10:49:00	Well I think I may be with you but I'm not sure. Hence I have quoted your entire post and I intend to go through it. Please bear with me on this. > Backed up everything I had on 3 harddrives to a > partition on one harddrive then proceeded to format > and reload the os’s on all my systems. How many physical hard drives do you have in your system? How are these drives partitioned? Am I correct in thinking you have two or three physical hard drives with one or more partitions on each? How many O/S's are you using? From the above it looks as if you have multiple systems as well. I know that with most systems if there is only one system unit it can contain 4 IDE devices unless you have a raid or promise type card. I would guess that you have a CDRom drive in the system if it's only one system. Thus three hard drives and one CD type like reader or CD/RW. I am confused and would like to clarify things so we we know what we are dealing with. > > During windows install one of my harddrives died (how > sad) so i pulled the harddrive with all my data > backed up on it and inserted it into the machine with > the faulty hd (The hd already had an os on it.... > yes, I know well this is a bad idea and have pointed > out the stupidity of it to many people), Of course > upon booting the machine I had an extremely sluggish > and crash prone system due to the chipset drivers > clashing, No worries, I expected that. So it appears you have more than one system unit. Which version of Windows were you trying to install? Which version of Windows do you normally use? What file system do you use? Fat32, NTFS, EXT for Linux etc. > So, after a moment’s hesitation (where I thought > about putting the hd back where it came from) I went > into the device manager and stripped it of everything > to do with the motherboard, rebooted and prepared to > load on the drivers for the current chipset. > > Only to find the drivers wouldn’t load, the system > barely worked and I needed plan b. > > Format partition and reload os, Sweet as, ran like a > dream.....until I tried to access my 40gb of backed > up data on the second partition, where I was informed > the disk file structure was corrupt and > inaccessible...This was at 2am i might add,.....I was > in shock just staring at the screen for half an hour > afterwards, I had lost so much vital information, > records, work and irreplaceable files that I’m still > discovering what I have lost (this was a week ago). So here is one Hard disk with backed up info which you want on the the second partition. > > I then spent many hours looking for ways to access my > info, I managed to retrieve 11gb of data but most was > so corrupt as to be unusable. > > I have since formatted the offending partition but > its only showing up as 11gb,Partition magic gives an > error when pointed at the drive. Seagate’s diagnostic > tool also locks solid.Otherwise the drive works > fine.... Partition Magic has worked fine for me in the past but using that software recently just grunged an entire partiton on a hard drive. Fortunately before I did this I backup all I wanted to CDrom disks. I just wanted to merge two partitions on one physical drive. > > Therefore, My question is, Someone here awhile back > mentioned a program that would overwrite an entire > harddrive from beginning to end completely ignoring > all partitions and file structures, Does anyone know > the name of this program or one similar? I would very > much like to recover the 30gb of lost harddrive > space. Do you want to recover your lost files? I have had success using Easy Recovery Pro. If you want to contact me as an option then that's fine. > > Sorry about the long post before getting to my > question, I just had to share my stupidity. Who said you are stupid? I want to thank you for helping Beetle.... To answer your post. You can use Killdisk to try to get back the full capacity if that's what you want to do. Try using Killdisk on Google. If you have no results then I can File attach it to you.	Elephant (599)
198429	2003-12-08 10:56:00	Yes. Data recovery can be expensive. Anyway I guess you have written it off. I was going to try it for zero dollars if you send me the hard drive. No recovery then no dollars.	Elephant (599)
198430	2003-12-08 11:06:00	Metla is a good lad,but I think he wandered into foolish territory there.	Thomas (1820)
198431	2003-12-08 11:06:00	Basicly i have three systems running at the moment,my plan was to make one master back-up of all my data to one harddrive,then format everything else so all my systems were running on a new install of windows . To be honest the file systems,amount of harddrives,systems and os's change on a frequent basis,My machines are in a constant state of flux . I have itchy fingers and can never leave them in there current state for very long . As for stupid,I done what i did knowing full well i was taking a risk . (and it wasn't the first time ive done it,Never had the final result this bad before) . Killdisk sounds like an interesting program,ill track that down . Thanks everybody .	metla (154)
198432	2003-12-08 11:12:00	"delpart" it does just that and nothing more	beama (111)
1 2