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Thread ID: 28970	2003-01-06 18:48:00	Unformat	davelowe@worldnet.co.nz (391)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
111555	2003-01-06 22:41:00	Thanks Mike, I'm in Whakatane so email me if you would like to help. Chilling silence, I did boot from a 98 floppy then went format C, but it formated the D drive and left C intact. Dave	davelowe@worldnet.co.nz (391)
111556	2003-01-06 23:00:00	When you boot, it creates a RAMDRIVE which can change the letter of the drives. It always pays to double check that you can get into the CD-ROM drive, and check what's on the 2 HDD's before formatting. Dont worry, I've done that before myself... ;\	Chilling_Silence (9)
111557	2003-01-06 23:22:00	You didn't say whether or not you reinstalled Win 2000 after the reformat. If you reformatted then realised that it was the wrong partition before doing anything else, and have not done anything else on that hard drive since, then you may be able to recover some or most of your stuff by using something like the Norton Utilities' Unformat facility. There are probably others as well. I suggest using a DOS version of NU as you can boot to DOS from a floppy and run NU from another floppy. I am not sure how this would work with a reformat using Win 2000 (I assume that that is what you used) - hopefully someone else can comment on that. If this approach is feasible post back because I still have NU 6 (a DOS version) and could send you a copy.	Robin S_ (86)
111558	2003-01-06 23:53:00	Thanks Robin, yes once I worked out what had happened I went looking for a fix. Hence we are here now! The machine still boots as per normal as the OS partition was untouched only the "storage" partition was formated. The formated partition has not had anything written to it yet. So please tell me more....... a walk through would be much appreciated. Thanks Dave	davelowe@worldnet.co.nz (391)
111559	2003-01-07 06:54:00	I am hoping someone will reply and answer the question about the advisability of using a DOS-based unformat facility in your situation. Since the original OS was Win 98 (DOS-based) it seems reasonably likely that that the DOS version of NU would recover the partition's file structures and make them readable by Win 98. I am not sure that Win 2000 could read them, however, so that accessing them might be a problem. I am sure there will be other threads dealing with unformatting in the pf1 archives. If you do a search on 'unformatting' you will probably turn up some helpful info. If it can be unequivocally established that NU 6 is worth a try I could zip some of the files from it and email them to you. I couldn't walk you through it because I have never had cause to use Unformat. You would need a DOS bootup disc - do you have one or could you get one?	Robin S_ (86)
111560	2003-01-07 08:45:00	Generically speaking DOS based utilities may have some problems. If the drive was formatted with NTFS, its likely to be a big problem. I also wonder if the DOS utilities can handle long file names?	godfather (25)
111561	2003-01-07 09:21:00	Try www.runtime.org for ntfs and fat file recovery programs Just install on your win98 partition the ntfs recovery program and scan your d drive partition with it if your have made your d drive ntfs , use the fat recovery program if your d drive is still in fat32 file systems Note trial programs allow you to scan your drives but not copy the files out of its results but it will let you open the files which in turn gets saved to your win temp folder, So copy those mp3 from your temp folder.. This worked on fat32 recovery trail program ver 1.05 I know this a kind of a cheat but you have to manually open all the files you want to recover , then copy and paste them from your win/temp folder. I think this will result in some flamming towards coming to me but I think it is such a pain to do but a low cost free way of doing it.. works good to recover your most important personal files after formatting a drive	333littledevil (2353)
111562	2003-01-07 10:29:00	From your posts: Your hard drive consisted of two drives - presumably one primary and one logical in an extended partition. You had - in the past - Windows 98 as the OS with the two drives both formatted by DOS (presumably Windows FAT32). At some stage you upgraded/loaded Windows 2000 over Windows 98. Inferred from your posts: When you upgraded/loaded Windows 2000 you selected the option to convert the operating system drive to NTFS. You used a DOS - possibly Windows 9x - boot disk to format the now lost drive. Aside - No version of DOS bootdisks recognises NTFS partitions. The DOS boot disk recognised the DOS drive as C (which Windows 2000 recognised as D). You deleted your own data because you assumed you knew what you were doing. Solution The data on the formated drive is 100% recoverable - providing no disk writing utilities have been used by people who don't know what they are doing. It is not necessary to utilise partition recovery software since the partition still exists. It is possible to recover the FAT record either by using NU or dskprobe (see MS here (support.microsoft.com)). It is also possible to recover the data by using any of the designed recovery programs such as Lost and Found (DOS based and requires another formated disk to save the file to) and EasyRecovery Pro (Windows based and recovers to another formated disk). If the data is important or irreplacable, conduct your own attempts at recovery at your own risk.	Merlin (503)
111563	2003-01-07 20:36:00	>>> Thanks Mike, I'm in Whakatane so email me if you would like to help. Did you get my email? Mike.	Mike (15)
111564	2003-01-07 22:39:00	Yes thanks Mike, I've got a copy of GetDataBack and will try that first. If that dosn't work I send it to you to try and fix....... Thanks Dave	davelowe@worldnet.co.nz (391)
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