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General discussion

Have I lost my tonnes of data?

Jan 2, 2007 3:31PM PST

OK. First things first...Never format your HDD when you are sleepy...I did so and am deseperately hoping to save myself from the damage caused.

I had to format my internal hard disk (80 GB) and so before doing so, I copied all the data that I thought I would require later to an external harddisk (WD 250 GB) conected to my PC through a USB port.

Now, as part of running the setup through my bootable OS setup disk, I chose to delete the 4 partitions on my internal hdd and then in the next section when I was asked to choose the drive on which I want to set windows up, by mistake I chose the external hdd item and then created a couple of partitions before realising that I was digging my own grave. Immediately after that, I stopped the setup process and removed the external HDD from my PC.

Now what I have with me is a fresh internal hard disk (80 gb) on which I have a crisp new Windows, but when I plug in the external HDD, it is showing me just the partitions, on which when I click I am asked to format them.

IS THERE A WAY TO RETRIEVE THE DATA FROM THIS DISK or SEND IT TO ITS ORIGINAL FORM??? Please help!!!

Discussion is locked

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Re: data lost
Jan 2, 2007 3:58PM PST

Google for hard disk recovery or data recovery. You'll find do-it-yourself software and companies that will try it for a fee. But I'd say the prospects aren't really very good.

Kees

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Recovery software recommendations
Jan 9, 2007 7:31PM PST