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Don't format! Take that drive out and pop another one in. TestDisk is your friend. PhotoRec if you just want to recover your p0rn coll..^W^W.... err, 'family' photos.

Don't format! Take that drive out and pop another one in. TestDisk is your friend. PhotoRec if you just want to recover your p0rn coll..^W^W.... err, 'family' photos.

Or as you are making a backup. A friend of mine thought it would be a good idea to backup their entire laptop drive, reinstall the OS, and then restore their data from the backup. They bought a new external drive to carry out the plan. They backed up the data, and re-installed the OS. The backup data was only going to be the sole copy for a short while, so one drive with the backup aught to be enough for the couple of hours it would take before restoring it, right? No, the brand-new backup drive failed mid-way through the process. It took weeks to recover maybe 3/4 of the files using testdisk.

I think most experienced users know that if a drive is going to fail it will probably do so very early after purchase or years later, but I'd never seen such a horrible demonstration of that expectation for myself. It failed mere hours after putting it to use. Needless to say, they now make sure there are always 2 backup copies during a wipe-and-restore procedure, and I follow that practice too. I would have thought it was paranoid, but it's not.

Two Is One, And One Is None

Or as you are making a backup. A friend of mine thought it would be a good idea to backup their entire laptop drive, reinstall the OS, and then restore their data from the backup. They bought a new external drive to carry out the plan. They backed up the data, and re-installed the OS. The backup data was only going to be the sole copy for a short while, so one drive with the backup aught to be enough for the couple of hours it would take before restoring it, right? No, the brand-new backup drive failed mid-way through the process. It took weeks to recover maybe 3/4 of the files using testdisk.

I think most experienced users know that if a drive is going to fail it will probably do so very early after purchase or years later, but I'd never seen such a horrible demonstration of that expectation for myself. It failed mere hours after putting it to use. Needless to say, they now make sure there are always 2 backup copies during a wipe-and-restore procedure, and I follow that practice too. I would have thought it was paranoid, but it's not.

I second that. Or dd_rescue, which sounds like the same thing and does function similarly, but is a different implementation.

Another very useful tool is testdisk, which can operate on the drive itself or more safely on a disk image made with ddrescue or dd_rescue. I used testdisk to retrieve several hundred GB of files from an almost brand new disk that had a load of bad blocks. A friend had just backed up all their files to an external drive, deleted the original, and then planned to copy things back after a reformat of their main system drive when they discovered the external had gone bad. Talk about bad timing. Lesson learned. They now make two backups. Anyway, it took weeks to read and re-read the files from the disk, and we didn't get 100% of it back, but we got over 90% of the files.

Assuming the hardware isn't completely dead, then dd_rescue and testdisk are the way to go. I've recovered stuff from very badly messed up disks with that combination. One drive had serious hardware problems, and would only mount intermittently if it was propped in a certain orientation. The risk is that the drive will get worse as you attempt recovery, and lessen your chances if you ever go the professional route; but if you aren't going to pay 4-figures for professional data recovery, then it's probably the closest you'll get to doing it yourself (with free tools).

As I note earlier, photorec http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec will get the data back easily. And it's free.
(Working out which recovered files are useful is another matter, most filename information won't be recovered.)

Photorec will get it back, do-dah, do-dah
Photorec will get it back, all the do-dah data!

Seriously, http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec will recover practically everything after a simple format and re-install.

That is a good thought, and photorec does an excellent job of finding pictures and videos by searching through your sectors - definitely worth a try.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step

Just have your OSX do a repair - it could be that certain VTOC or directory tables were damaged, and a repair may fix it. The files themselves should be OK, but the pointers to them are fubared.

Also try something like http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec or similar to recover deleted files. There's one for OSX. Run it after a repair, and photorec, and you should get most of your crap back.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

Zero the empty space to achieve the best compression, although someone might like rooting around in the raw data.

Instead, use TestDisk/PhotoRec to recover the useful deleted data to bundle it also in the TGZ.

Zero the empty space to achieve the best compression, although someone might like rooting around in the raw data.

Instead, use TestDisk/PhotoRec to recover the useful deleted data to bundle it also in the TGZ.

And if the cops ask you to delete photos, play along, because recovering the deleted photographs is trivial compared to what can happen when arguing with a cop.

After the cop leaves, swap out the memory card for another. Make sure you set the card aside and don't take any more pictures on it, because taking new pictures could potentially overwrite some of the deleted data. When you get home, download and run PhotoRec (it's GPL/open source, available on multiple platforms, and runs almost without regard to what the underlying filesystem is).

I've had the same problem with an NTFS volume before which Windows assigned a drive letter but couldn't recognize the partition. I could see the MFT data when I opened it with a disk editor. I was able to use TestDisk to repair it. All of the filesystem and data were completely intact.

For what it's worth, I could once restore my partition table using TestDisk.

As I linked to another person in this thread, PhotoRec works fine on OS X as long as you aren't deathly afraid of the command line (and have a spare drive for writing out all the files it finds to).

Sure, it's a bit messy with the files (as are most undelete programs – though PhotoRec doesn't even make a cursory attempt, beyond file names), but it's pretty good at getting everything not-written-over in my experience.

PhotoRec (don't let the name fool you) works for most user data files. It doesn't organise them (just fairly-opaque names like "f12948529.png" or "b29458923.zip"), and picks up a fair amount of garbage (OS files, for example), but it's quite good at getting everything that hasn't been overwritten.

No question with TestDisk as an excellent open source/free recovery option.

It was the only thing I found (freeware or pay) that relatively easily restored a couple of NTFS logical partitions--and all data--after they were destroyed by an older version (8.0) of Diskeeper's "boot optimization" defragging. The last time I used Diskeeper or recommended it. I continue to use and recommend TestDisk. The author of TestDisk was also responsive to emails when I encountered a unique issue with the drives I ended up needing help with.

Note that TestDisk is only for recovering lost partitions and making non-bootable partitions bootable again. For those functions, there is no better program out there.

Its sister program included in its download--PhotoRec--can do file recovery. Its designed mainly for recovery of photos off all media, but it supports many different file formats. So the TestDisk/PhotoRec package may be all you need.

Other freeware/non-open source file recovery alternatives that are reliable and work well:

--PC INSPECTOR File Recovery. 100% free & full featured, many options. Been using it for years.

--Recuva. 100% free, by Piriform, the maker of the very popular CCleaner/Crap Cleaner system cleaner.

Somewhat less elegant than the above one. But the only freeware option I've studied that can do a "deep scan" of your drives for lost files. Which can take hours, but may turn up more missing data than the other non-PhotoRec options here.

--EASEUS Deleted File Recovery. A more limited version of their $70 "EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard", but very well designed for basic file recovery.

There are other freeware file recovery options I've studied, but they are all more limited than the above. Would recommend TestDisk (for partitions) and PhotoRec (for files) first, then the other three (for files) in the order given.

In all honesty, shelling out for a payware solution is very unlikely to "find" more deleted files on a NTFS partition than the above freeware solutions, unless you have special needs they don't cover. Which is rare. And again, there is nothing better than TestDisk--free or payware--for recovering partitions.

No question with TestDisk as an excellent open source/free recovery option.

It was the only thing I found (freeware or pay) that relatively easily restored a couple of NTFS logical partitions--and all data--after they were destroyed by an older version (8.0) of Diskeeper's "boot optimization" defragging. The last time I used Diskeeper or recommended it. I continue to use and recommend TestDisk. The author of TestDisk was also responsive to emails when I encountered a unique issue with the drives I ended up needing help with.

Note that TestDisk is only for recovering lost partitions and making non-bootable partitions bootable again. For those functions, there is no better program out there.

Its sister program included in its download--PhotoRec--can do file recovery. Its designed mainly for recovery of photos off all media, but it supports many different file formats. So the TestDisk/PhotoRec package may be all you need.

Other freeware/non-open source file recovery alternatives that are reliable and work well:

--PC INSPECTOR File Recovery. 100% free & full featured, many options. Been using it for years.

--Recuva. 100% free, by Piriform, the maker of the very popular CCleaner/Crap Cleaner system cleaner.

Somewhat less elegant than the above one. But the only freeware option I've studied that can do a "deep scan" of your drives for lost files. Which can take hours, but may turn up more missing data than the other non-PhotoRec options here.

--EASEUS Deleted File Recovery. A more limited version of their $70 "EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard", but very well designed for basic file recovery.

There are other freeware file recovery options I've studied, but they are all more limited than the above. Would recommend TestDisk (for partitions) and PhotoRec (for files) first, then the other three (for files) in the order given.

In all honesty, shelling out for a payware solution is very unlikely to "find" more deleted files on a NTFS partition than the above freeware solutions, unless you have special needs they don't cover. Which is rare. And again, there is nothing better than TestDisk--free or payware--for recovering partitions.

Hello,

Here is a list of data recovery programs I have put together. Some of them may be a little old, for floppies or optical media only, but should still be useful. Unless otherwise noted, they are all for Microsoft Windows.

A-FF Labs - NTFS Undelete and Partition Find and Mount
Access Data - FTK Imager
Acronis - RecoveryExpert
Advanced NTFS Recovery - NTFS Recovery (may handle FAT32 as well)
bitMART - Restorer Ultimate
Brant, Dmitry - DiskDigger
BriggSoft - Directory Snoop
CGSecurity - TeskDisk and PhotoRec
Convar - PC Inspector File Recovery
Digital Assembly - Adroit Photo Recovery (pictures only)
DiskInternals - NTFS Recovery
DIY Data Recovery - iRecover
DTI Data - Recover It All
DataRescue.Com - PhotoRescue (intended for flash RAM cards, which are typically formatted with FAT, may work with other devices as well)
EASEUS - Data Recovery & Security Suite
Fsys Software - DFSee
Gibson Research Corp. - Spinrite
Gillware - GillWare File Viewer
Higher Ground Software - Hard Drive Mechanic Gold
Kato, Brian - Restoration (also here)
LC Technology -
[Continued in next message, as for some reason, Slashdot would not let me post in its entirety (too many URLs?). AG]

Hello,

Here is a list of data recovery programs I have put together. Some of them may be a little old, for floppies or optical media only, but should still be useful. Unless otherwise noted, they are all for Microsoft Windows.

A-FF Labs - NTFS Undelete and Partition Find and Mount
Access Data - FTK Imager
Acronis - RecoveryExpert
Advanced NTFS Recovery - NTFS Recovery (may handle FAT32 as well)
bitMART - Restorer Ultimate
Brant, Dmitry - DiskDigger
BriggSoft - Directory Snoop
CGSecurity - TeskDisk and PhotoRec
Convar - PC Inspector File Recovery
Digital Assembly - Adroit Photo Recovery (pictures only)
DiskInternals - NTFS Recovery
DIY Data Recovery - iRecover
DTI Data - Recover It All
DataRescue.Com - PhotoRescue (intended for flash RAM cards, which are typically formatted with FAT, may work with other devices as well)
EASEUS - Data Recovery & Security Suite
Fsys Software - DFSee
Gibson Research Corp. - Spinrite
Gillware - GillWare File Viewer
Higher Ground Software - Hard Drive Mechanic Gold
Kato, Brian - Restoration (also here)
LC Technology -
[Continued in next message, as for some reason, Slashdot would not let me post in its entirety (too many URLs?). AG]

Hello,

Here is a list of data recovery programs I have put together. Some of them may be a little old, for floppies or optical media only, but should still be useful. Unless otherwise noted, they are all for Microsoft Windows.

A-FF Labs - NTFS Undelete and Partition Find and Mount
Access Data - FTK Imager
Acronis - RecoveryExpert
Advanced NTFS Recovery - NTFS Recovery (may handle FAT32 as well)
bitMART - Restorer Ultimate
Brant, Dmitry - DiskDigger
BriggSoft - Directory Snoop
CGSecurity - TeskDisk and PhotoRec
Convar - PC Inspector File Recovery
Digital Assembly - Adroit Photo Recovery (pictures only)
DiskInternals - NTFS Recovery
DIY Data Recovery - iRecover
DTI Data - Recover It All
DataRescue.Com - PhotoRescue (intended for flash RAM cards, which are typically formatted with FAT, may work with other devices as well)
EASEUS - Data Recovery & Security Suite
Fsys Software - DFSee
Gibson Research Corp. - Spinrite
Gillware - GillWare File Viewer
Higher Ground Software - Hard Drive Mechanic Gold
Kato, Brian - Restoration (also here)
LC Technology -
[Continued in next message, as for some reason, Slashdot would not let me post in its entirety (too many URLs?). AG]

Well stated and correct. I've unfortunately been thrown the task (as many in the IT world get daily) more than once to recover deleted files from a employee no longer with the company, or just recover files from a damaged system or hard drive. Usually the option of paying a recovering shop $2000 - $5000 to retrieve the data isn't even a consideration for an option, although definitely preferred. First and foremost I make an exact copy of the drive using the dd utility, such as the following: dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=512 conv=noerror,sync Then all recovery is done on the copy made, so worst case scenario and everything including the cat goes south, it's no harm - no foul, since you can just make another copy and try again. Which tool to use really depends on what type of data your trying to recover, as each program targets specific functionality. Many do just try to repair partition tables, which is generally not what you want. I've had great success using ddrescue, and is probably my preferred - again, depending on what your goal in recovery is. Another great tool is http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk (Testdisk) which works well. Others that are a little more involved to operate and setup are http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s042078/magicrescue/manpage.html (magicrescue) and http://www.sleuthkit.org/sleuthkit/ (the sleuthkit) and there is some good information at http://dftt.sourceforge.net/ (http://dftt.sourceforge.net/) which might provide help and insight. No matter how you look at it though, your in for a fun ride, so best to stock up on pain killers and red bull.

I would be interested to hear if anyone has come across GOOD software for ext2/3, ReiserFS or ZFS. Google finds lots of links, but most are non-free, and most related forum posts seem to be shills for the same products.

I went through the same thing after I took my Linux PC in for repair, it was under warranty, and the tech reformatted the drives even though I specifically told them not to. Someone in a post above posted a link to TestDisk which works with the formats you list above, my drives are formatted ReiserFS so if I can get off my ass, go buy a new external drive, and try it I may recover my data.

Falcon

TestDisk.

Thanks for the link. I have a Linux PC with two drives formated with ReiserFS, one set as the home directory. The mobo failed while under warranty so I took it to the store where I got it for repair. I specifically told them not to format the user drive but the tech reformatted it anyway. I had more than 500GB on it so I've been looking for something to unformat it and recover the data. Looking at the wiki you link to it looks like it can do it. Now if only I can get off my ass, buy a new external drive, and try to recover the data.

Falcon

I could not agree more. Just last week I had a designer friend who accidentally deleted the partition his portfolio was on. We tried to recover the partition however the MFT had become lost/corrupted.

My first attempt to recover his data was with ntfsundelete, however it did not recognize the partition at all. I next used Disk Internals NTFS Recovery program (Commercial) with the same results.

Finally, I Googled a bit and found the testdisk/photorec package and used that. It took about 40 hours to recover ~225GB data. It was unable to recover filenames, however it did create new directories for each directory it found and recreated the files in those directories, albeit with arbitrary names. Most impressively it did recreate the files with the proper file name extensions. With some creative perl scripting I could have even renamed some of these files based on meta data in the files. This was not necessary in my case.

No one has mentioned TestDisk yet??

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

I've used this plenty of times, restoring 'blank' hard drives (especially USB drives who's partition tables were corrupted) and file recovery works great with NTFS, as well as most other filesystem types...

For a free solution, check TestDisk.
It has saved my data many times.

I've had good luck with TestDisk

If it a case of unreliable sectors, your best bet would be to use Spinrite, which does an admirable job of getting the data off the bad sector.

After you run spinrite, you should be able to use something like photorec to recover your files. (Boot from a DOS CD, and you'll need a second hard drive to recover to)

If it's just plain text, you can also boot from a Linux CD (a plain old knoppix disk, or if you want a forensic Distro - like Helix which would give you more tools to work with.) and do a simple "strings /dev/sda > /mount/sdb1/recovered.txt" (where sda is the drive that your trying to get data off of, and /mount/sdb1 is the drive that you want to recover to.)

If that doesn't work, Helix has more tools at your disposal.

Try PhotoRec. It's Free Software, not just free download.

There has never been a time in my life when some person of supposed authority have made any attempt to force me to delete photographs from my digital camera. Perhaps I am just not taking photos of important things. But should that happen I might gleefully comply if I didn't want to make a big deal about it.

Many digital cameras use VFAT filesystems which means their contents can be recovered. The utility of my personal choice is photorec(1). The photorec utility runs quite well on Linux. Just use /bin/dd to make an image of the SCSI disk to your HDD, run photorec with the device file as the parameter.

Photorec is written by Christophe GRENIER (no, I am not he) and can be found at:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/

The Auslogics free trial works for 30 days (uncrippled) if you can find it. I had this, but didn't use it.
The Data Doctor NTFS can be found as a demo only and I think is crippled. http://www.datadoctor.in/data-recovery-software/ntfs-data-recovery-software.html
I'm recommending Data Doctor as I've recovered important info of a few crashed drives. Worth the money. You could try your luck and torrent for it.
There are also a few via google: http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1 and maybe http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec - These are free.
Generally if the drive spins up, you've got a chance to recover files. Just make sure you can access the drive off another computer, and have enough space to recover to.
Also check some computer mags at newsagents. Many have free utilities included on disk that could be valuable.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

http://uniset.ca/terr/news/lat_fbibreakin.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAPP
http://www.amazon.com/Bowling-Alone-Collapse-American-Community/dp/0743203046/sr=8-1/qid=1172469926/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-3962904-3664448?ie=UTF8&s=books
http://code.google.com/p/torchat/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Shah's_Men
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_Contras_cocaine_trafficking_in_the_US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree
http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/iron.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Rule_Book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeal_of_prohibition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writeprint
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
http://www.eff.org/testyourisp/pcapdiff/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
http://ai.bpa.arizona.edu/COPLINK/
http://ai.bpa.arizona.edu/research/coplink/authorship.htm
http://www.coplink.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
http://www.zurich.ibm.com/security/idemix/
http://packetstormsecurity.nl/filedesc/Practical_Onion_Hacking.pdf.html
http://www.williamson-labs.com/laser-mic.htm
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dfrankow/files/privacy-sigir2006.pdf
http://freehaven.net/anonbib/topic.html#Anonymous_20communication
http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/mcnamara/links.html

As a Linux user and student, I have paid for free software. Testdisk comes to mind. Of course, it's called a donation, but whatever. I would pay $20 for that given the chance. I'm glad I didn't have to, though, because when I needed it I couldn't have given the $20 fast enough (no credit card)

This is offtopic, I know, but I wanted to reply to your signature link at the appropriate page and replies are disabled there. So, here it goes, flagged as "Anonymous Coward" so it doesn't appear to those reading Slashdot filtered at +2 and I don't get modded down as "Offtopic". :-)

First, I'd like to point out that, although I'm currently an Ubuntu user at home, I also had my fair share of ugly results with Grub and, a little before it, Lilo. At the time I was a Linux newbie too, and it turned out I didn't understood how to use these boot loaders properly, also losing partitions and needing help to recover my data. But over time I came to know both softwares well enough to not have much problem.

What I want to tell, however, is that these kind of problems also happen on Windows, and even Windows alone. Earlier this month, my boss tasked me with reinstalling Windows XP Pro on his computer. This, you surely know, is very easy for anyone who have done it some times, although I also know for sure Windows newbies suffer a lot doing it, as the desperate calls I received from a friend who was trying it for the first prove. Anyway, reinstalling my boss' XP shouldn't have been a hard task, as he has two hard disks, a small one for the OS and applications and another, huge, for his data. In short: disconnect the data HD, wipe clean the OS HD, install XP, install drivers, patch XP up, install applications, reconnect the data HD, done.

Well, it turns out that everything worked fine until the "reconnect the data HD" step. I load Windows, and nothing. The disk was detected and installed, but no partitions where detected on it. I go into Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management (sorry if these terms aren't accurate, I'm translating to English from my Brazilian Portuguese XP), and there the hard disk is, without partitions. Strangely enough, however, the data HD is marked as being a "Dynamic Disk". With status "Online (errors)". I right-click it, select "Reactivate disk". Nothing happens. I go into the system even log, and there I find a scary red icon with a useless error message and a long hex code. I search the code on Google, it directs me to an even scarier Microsoft Knowledge Base article saying the solution is to convert the disk to "Basic", which will delete everything on it as there is "no way" to do a non-destructive conversion from dynamic to basic. Uh-oh...

Since reformatting my boss' data HD isn't a good idea by any stretch of imagination, I go around searching on Google, and all the solutions I find talk about purchasing some advanced recovery software with prices starting at $99, with which to copy on small steps the recoverable contents from the data disk to the OS disk, backing it up to DVDs one at a time, for then to reformat the disk and copy the data back. Yeah, sure! Or, rather, no thanks!

So, I search more, and more, and more, and more, and finally find an obscure solution that deals with editing the disk partition table by hand with an hex editor. Again, thanks again! But restarting my search from there, I finally discover someone who successfully did it using, guess what? An even more obscure Linux text-mode partition recovery utility which, luckily, had a Windows port (still text mode though): TestDisk. Fingers crossed, I try it. It scans the data HD, detects a lost dynamic NTFS partition there, and offers me options to recover it and convert it back to a basic NTFS partition. Sure, why not? If anything goes wrong I'll still be able to (purchase and) use a full-fledged data recovery tool. No need though: it worked. I reboot the machine, the data hard disk is fully detected. I run an extensive chkdsk on drive E: to repair any residual damage, and my boss' data is then fully available again.

As you can see, it's not only Linux that can cause trouble to Windows partitions. Windows itself also does nasty things to Windows partitions now and then, for no apparent reason.

How could people be missing an opportunity to promote the wonderfulness that is the Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows. You can even put the Ultimate Boot CD image on there. I have a disc that can boot into either. If you are opposed to the MS Windows version, or don't have an extra XP license laying around, the Ultimate Boot CD has the wonderful utility called Test Disk by Christophe Grenier. It can recover MBRs and potentially rebuild tables and/or indexes for crashed drives.

Theres also a program called testdisk that scans the hard drive to recover partition information and rebuild the partition table: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

If something goes wrong making a computer unbootable, I usually boot up Knoppix and check to see if anything is recoverable. If you can read the hard disk, but it is really messed up, then your best bet is probably copying off any meaningful settings or data and wiping the disk. If you cannot even get that far, TestDisk is pretty good at recovering partitions which are not too far gone. That is as far as I have gone in recovering hard drives.

That said, no device will fare well with bad RAM. Check reviews, etc. and make sure you are buying from reputable companies.

Get the UBCD or UBCD4Win for some good tools. Particularly, UBCD4Win includes several freeware and open source tools for file recovery. My favorite happens to be testdisk, followed closely by Restoration. (Make sure, if you use the UBCD4Win, you build these tools into ISO. Just follow the directions at the site, it is real easy.)

I've found PhotoRec [1] to be excellent for recovering, for example, photos deleted from a memory card (friend's mistake, not mine). It will also recover other most other file formats and appears to handle various filesystems. There is another program called TestDisk available at the same site which is meant to fix corrupted filesystems. -Azrael- [1] http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

I've had good luck with TestDisk when a partition has been deleted.

I was formatting a PC and installing a fresh copy of XP on it. I had backed up all my data onto my thumb drive first. However, when the option to choose the partition to install XP came up, it displayed my thumb drives 1GB partition. I had forgot I had left the thumb drive plugged in, not realizing what the partition was I deleted it (but didn't format). After realizing my mistake I used TestDisk and it recovered all my data.

PhotoRec is data recovery software specifically designed for recovering lost photo files on corrupted memory sticks (CompactFlash, Memory Stick, SecureDigital, SmartMedia, Microdrive, MMC, USB Memory Drives...)

DOS, Win, Linux, Mac versions available here.

PhotoRec is data recovery software specifically designed for recovering lost photo files on corrupted memory sticks (CompactFlash, Memory Stick, SecureDigital, SmartMedia, Microdrive, MMC, USB Memory Drives...)

DOS, Win, Linux, Mac versions available here.

Try using TestDisk (it's OSS) for MBR/partition table recovery. Worked perfectly for me when the Debian installer screwed up my MBR. And in the future, just unplug your secondary drive during OS installation, then plug it back in once you get the system running.

In case you're curious how the Debian installer could've screwed up like that: I was installing Debian on a laptop hard drive (from a laptop that didn't have floppy, CD, or network), which I plugged in to my primary IDE channel and set as master. My main hard drive, which was on the same channel was also set as master, but the BIOS didn't detect it, so I figured it was inaccessible and didn't bother to unplug it. When the installer wrote the MBR to the laptop hard drive, it also managed to write the same one on my main drive as well. So now I had an 80GB drive with 5 NTFS and FAT32 partitions being read as a 320MB drive with a linux swap and linux ext3 partition. I made a temp install of Win2000 on my secondary HD and tried to recover it with a number of commercial partition table recovery tools, but none of them got the partitions right. Then I tried TestDisk, which detected all the partitions correctly and got my system running again. Moral of the story: always unplug things when you don't want them messed up.

Hope this helps.

Hello,

If everything else fails you may try this: http://www.cgsecurity.org/cmospwd.txt Find your notebook in the list. If it is there just remember what to change in 24C0X eeprom. If it is not there then you can try to corrupt random places in the rom (of course you need backup first, It seems to unlock the HP when the checksum is incorrect). To do the changes you need to hook the eeprom. Solder SDA SCL and GND (maybe also the adr pins?) you can use lm-sensors i2c-pport driver and i2cdump i2cset commands to manipulate the ROM. I did it once and it worked (I was a hinting some guy on IRC :))

Ruik