Deleted partition on back up drive in error. Help!

**devs** · 14th February 2004

Bad problem - I've just had to install a new hard drive into my computer I loaded XP Pro and all was good. I then did a few changes here and there and rebooted. However on this machine I have a second drive that has no operating system and is used just for file back up. When I rebooted I did not have the power lead connected to the hard drive with os (XP Pro) on so it did not boot. I then foolishly decided that I needed to reinstall xp so I booted from cd and deleted the partition on my back up drive by mistake. ;(

Now that I have connected both drives and reboot I can not see my back up drive via windows ;(

Any ideas how I can get my data back or repair the deleted partition? The data that I have on the drive is very important to me so any help would be gratefully appreciated!

Cheers,

Steve.

P.S. I've been told to run fdisk? Would this be right - I really don't want to funk this one up as there is loads of work that I need on the drive.

I don't know what size the partition was and in honesty don't know it was even partitioned untill i deleted it!

**kracken** · 14th February 2004

EasyRecovery Professional 6.0 from http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecovery/compeditions.asp
should do it for you

**devs** · 14th February 2004

Thanks for the shout mate - I'm downloading it now...

I'll see how it goes.

dEVS!

**devs** · 14th February 2004

Excellent it worked a fu*k'in treat! Recovering the files as I type!

Do you know an easy way the format the external drive after I get the files off.

Cheers m8,

dEVS!

**devs** · 14th February 2004

One last question mate - I've got all the data back and have reformatted the spare drive now when I try to move the recovered data back (30gb ish) it copys the first couple of folders then restarts with the error message "NTLDR is missing" Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.

Any ideas why?

Thx.

**TwoPlAnKs** · 14th February 2004

if i remember rightly ntldr is a supremely important file in windows, like the basic kernel thingie that runs when you start up.

will it boot up afterwords? or does it not boot anymore?

**{film_man}** · 14th February 2004

use partition magic mate that what i use not that i got my HDDs working

**devs** · 14th February 2004

I boots fine without the extra harddrive attached (formated) yet when I attach it it boots most of the time and I can open the extra drive via my computer yet when I copy files across it starts to copy does about 100mb then restarts with the error message "NTLDR is missing".

Pretty strange problem. I have a feeling that there is some rogue system bits lerking on the formated drive could that be poss.

dEVS!

**{film_man}** · 14th February 2004

what make disk is it

**devs** · 14th February 2004

Its just a Maxtor mate - I'm pretty sure the drives health is good as it worked fine before. How can I low level format it?

**{film_man}** · 14th February 2004

are the jumper settings right

as if they are on the same cable sending data from one to the other could be the problem

i know this as i had problems with my new HDD

**devs** · 15th February 2004

Hi {film_man}
and thanks for the shout mate - I managed to get it sorted just formatted it again and it all seems to be working fine now got all the files copied over etc, so all good!

Thx for the help everyone and hopfully thats all my computer probs over for a while!

dEVS!