[three]

Today for some reason I felt that I should do some de-fragging on my HD, haven't done it in a while. After completing the defrag, and while I was working on something else, a notice popped up saying that my OE had an error. I thought nothing of it, but when I tried to open up OE again, it would crash out instantly.

First I guess I should mention that I only have 1 45gb drive partitioned into 3 parts, 2 of the partitions are used for WinXP while the 3rd partition is used for linux.

I had only defragged one of the XP partition, the one where I keep ALL my data, that's when the OE error popped up cause that's where I store all my folders and accounts. I tried to defrag the main XP partition but it wouldn't let me. So I rebooted my pc to see if that would fix something up.

Well, it wouldn't boot. I tried everything and ended up using the cd and recovery console. I did a chkdsk and everything was fine, I did a deep scan and it was fine, but neither allowed me to boot up, so I ended up doing a repair just in case. That took a while but eventually it allowed me to boot up.

The problem now is that the Data partition is now completely EMPTY! It shows up as an unformatted partition! Is there any way to get this back????? HELP! This is my computer at work and I have TONS of important data on there! (I know I know...but I didn't feel like I needed to back up the data, my previous tactic was to keep all data on a seperate partition that way I can always re-format and re-install if XP ever screws up :p )

[Tomay]

Easy Recover http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecovery/

GetDataBack http://www.runtime.org/

[Dirdian]

Yep, there is a piece of software that will scan a partiion and recovery the contents. I have used this myself and it works a treat. A real life saver.

Try EasyRecovery Professional by onTrack, http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/

Happy recovering!!!

[three]

thanks guys, i had intended on using another software but i'm now giving East Recovery a shot.

dunno if i'm doing it right, i just installed it and then went to the 'advanced recovery' and selected the damaged partition and clicked 'next', it started scanning the partition and it's finding files and directories so i'm sure i'm doing it right..but man, it looks like it'll be a while, 9-10 hrs to scan 9.5gb space.

well..if i'm not doing it right please let me know.

[three]

ok, well, it's been over a month now and still can't get that partition recovered ;( , was using easy recovery which proved it isn't as easy as stated.

well..i decided to give active partition recovery a shot today which required me to boot from a 98 boot disk, here's the funny thing, under dos, my partition showed up! 8) all the files were there so i copied some of it over to a new partition and booted up windows and yup, files loaded up! so it's xp that's screwing it up.

now here's the dilema, if i use dos and xcopy the files over, all the filenames will be messed up since it doesn't support long file names..so what do you guys suggest? is there any way of copying the files while still keeping the long file names? ;(

[three]

nevermind, i used PC Inspector File Recovery from www.convar.de and it worked great! and it's free too! i'm impressed and relieved. now just gotta get into the habit of doing daily backups

[Mr.Guvernment]

was about to say

if u had a second computer, take the HD and put it in the second system as a slave and see if the drive showed up that way and copy everything over, then reformat that partition.

[yutao]

I recommend that you use DataRecoveryWizard to recover your data.
The software provides very useful functions for data recovery:
DeleteRecovery, FormatRecovery, AdvancedRecovery, RawRecovery.

This program is an efficient disk recovery software providing
you a complete answer to data loss.

You can download the demo version of DataRecoveryWizard.
http://www.easeus.com/download.htm

Run the program and you can select the any recovery mode
"DeletedRecovery", "FormatRecovery" and "AdvancedRecovery".

See more:
http://www.easeus.com
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-deleted-files.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-lost-partition.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-formatted-partition.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-fdisked-drives.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-lost-files.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-repartitioned-drives.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-scandisk-chkdsk-disk.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-ghosted-image-data.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-encrypted-data.htm

[Relic]

SPAM. Nice job, mods, wherever you are, heh. ;(

[kmzpub]

Hello,

Active@ Partition Recovery is the tool that might really help you. Anyway, is it capable of recovering lost partition. This tool helped me much before, so you can give it a try. Really recommneded!
http://www.partition-recovery.com/