partially formatted partition.... help!!!

[kitedude]

Hi all!!

I have a huge problem!!
In short:
I use an external firewire backup device. The total size of the harddisk is 120Gb. I have partitioned it into two “drives”. The first partition I use for backup of my main drive in the pc (its about 30 or 40Gb). The second partition on the device is about 80Gb and is primarily used as storage of some of my dvd’s.

One evening I managed to start the backup software in a way I shouldn’t have and it started formatting the drive. It took me about two or three seconds before I realized what was happening and was able to turn off the external device. When I restarted it, I could no longer see the second partition or anything it previously contained. I would guess that most of the files and folders still are physically on the partition but the table that tells the pc where to locate them are gone (cant remember what its called).

It contained mostly folders with dvd-files and also an important folder with .tiff-images.

Are there anybody out there who can tell me what I should do??? I’m no genius when it comes to this kind of computing but I’m probably not the worst newbee either….

I’ll appreciate all the help I can get and if you’re ever in Oslo I’ll buy you a beer!!

[Magicniner]

Create a partition but do not format, quick format with the file system originally used & run your recovery, this should give you the best chance of file,
Regards,
Nick

[GDH]

Hi,

Dont do anything else to the drive. If the Tiff files are really important to you the first thing I would do is to download Recover My Files and install it on you good disk. Run the program and click "Manually Set Options". Go to the Advanced tab and place a tick in the box for "allow searching of physical drives" (you need to do this because you cant see your second partitition). Then run a search, take out all the default file selections and just search for TIFF files. Because you are searching the "physical drives" it will also find any tiff files on the good partiton as well as the bad.

Once you have done this and saved your tiff files, then run a second search. This time select Format Recover. Again select the Physical Drive and use the default file selection list (do not add anymore files, particularly multimedia as this will slow down the search). Run the format recover (with an external 120 you will probably need to run it overnight). You should find your entire patition. Look in Folder view and check out any folders called "Recovered Partition". I hope this works - I am looking forward to the beer.

[kitedude]

Tnx Graham!

I actually tried a program called Handy Recovery before u answered this thread. Its only a demoversion but it found the files I was looking for. The only thing is that I have to copy the files it finds on to an other drive. Its not really a problem but the solution I was looking for was to recover the drive and the files that are making problems... dont know if thats possible!??
I actually have an older version of Recover my files (v. 1.6) on the stationary pc... is it possible to use that version? The reason I'm asking is that I cant find the advanced option u were mentioning...
Otherwise it sounded straight forward....

Tnx again!
A beer or 5 is waiting....