Lost 160GB with PM8

[BitBuster]

Hello, this is a Mayday, because very importent work is lost as follows:

I have a 160 GB HD Maxtor, from this a had a 50 GB partition C:/ for Boot (i know thats much, but as developer i have a lot of tools and IDEs on my C:/ ) the rest of this logical drive was partitioned as follow:
50 GB Data and 60 GB all you need-Programs, what collected in the last years.

Now, as a developer i have to know bettern and have a mirroring or a secure-copy I didnt and my work from 4 years is gone!!

The Crash came, as i looked with PM8 to my drive c and see there a unallocated partition. I thinked, that is exactly that what you need for your partition C:, what where with 50GB long time to small and wanted to add this unallocated 20GB to it.

PM8 let me do nothing with this 20GB, only set ACTIVE, and i did, because i thinked, when you will do something with this 20 GB, it must be activated.
I pressed APPLY and after that the Systemn want boot new, but it failed, because No NTLDR

Looked i Inet, found a threat and proved the Rescue-console and did: FIXMBR and FIXBOOT...... nothing.

Now i have a new XP on a small 20GB Seagate and Installed Acronis Disk Direktor, what in any of ist trys to find lost patitions not exatly the same Visualisated image of my 160GB Maxtor before my mistakes showed, but 2 of the patitions hat a big red CROSS on its patition-picture, what u can see in the picture below, but i dont know what and from where comes the two big yellow partitions with 811,6...GB and 259,4...GB, but the rest of the second HD is is shown like before the crash..... i am very confused now!!!

Now, the data what are lost, are for me very important, and i have learned about it (i hope) but what i have to do exactly, to get back the my DATA in use of Acronis Disk Director and the partitions with the ? so, as it was before my mistakes, with the normal 50 GB Boot C: and the rest what i wrote above?


Please look at picture after this Link:
http://www.funpic.de/fotoalbum/foto,246040.htm

I thank u for any helpfull Messages ( and please excuse my english)

with best regards from germany Tom

[K0LO]

Tom:

Welcome to the forum. Recovering data can be tricky. Sometimes if you do anything to the disk you may make recovery more difficult.

Acronis Recovery Expert may be able to find the damaged partitions, but it works best if you let it search unallocated space. So you would have to first delete the damaged partitions on the disk, and then let Recovery Expert find and reconstruct them.

However, before doing that I would do the following:

1. Download a free trial version of Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/download/trueimage/). Install it to your working XP system and use it to create a full disk backup of the 160 GB disk. You will need another disk to store this image to. It will probably be very large, so you will need another 160 GB or larger disk. If you can borrow or purchase another disk, save a backup of your damaged disk just in case your recovery efforts make things worse.

The best way to proceed is to restore this backup to another 160 GB disk, and do all of your experimenting on the second disk.

2. Try a file recovery program like GetDataBack (http://www.runtime.org/). These types of programs look for individual files on the disk.

3. Finally, if nothing else succeeds, use Acronis Disk Director to delete the damaged partitions on your 160 GB disk. They will become unallocated space. Then run the Recovery Expert and have it search the unallocated space for evidence of former partitions. If it succeeds, your old partitions will be re-created.

[BitBuster]

Hi k0lo,

Thank you for your very good and helpfull posting for me. It helped, but:

I did with acronis True Image before. this step is quiet and ok. Then i downloaded the GetDataBack for NTFS, let it run on the first Partition i known and found many files what let my Bloodpressure beats higher and was very happy about it.
At the moment i want save theme, came the Message, that Save the found Data is only with the fullversion possible :'(

i cant buy it only for this,

Do you/anybody know a freeware what make it possible?

I will go search self now, because i have seen that my Data and will have them back now!!!

best regards

Tom

[K0LO]

Tom:

I am not aware of freeware file recovery programs, but you can probably find some by searching with Google.

If you have a spare 160 GB hard disk, then here is what I would try:
1. Restore your True Image backup of the damaged disk to the spare disk. Or, clone the damaged disk to the spare disk. Remove the damaged disk from the PC and put it aside.
2. Use Acronis Disk Director to delete all of the partitions from the spare disk. Right-click on each partition and choose "Delete". Then choose "Commit". You will end up with unallocated free space on the disk.
3. Run Acronis Recovery Expert and let it try to find your missing partitions. If it succeeds, you should have all of your data.

When you delete a partition you are not deleting data from the disk. Deleting a partition only removes its entry from the partition table. Recovery Expert will then search the data on the disk looking for evidence of a partition. If it finds any, it will create a new entry in the partition table for the damaged entry. This will often result in complete recovery of the partition and all of its data.

If you do this on a spare hard disk then you are risking nothing. Your original disk is still preserved, and you know that you can always try the file recovery programs if the partition recovery does not succeed.