BIG MISTAKE !!!!!!!

[EFI]

THERE HAS BEEN DONE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE AND I BELIEVE THAT
IT WAS NOT MY FAULT.I HAVE TWO DISKS (HARD DISKS) ON MY
PC, THE FIRST (C THAT HAS MY OPERATING SYSTEM
(WINDOWSXP) AND THE SECOND ONE (D THAT IS MY STORAGE
DISK. I KEEP THERE ALL MY WORK AND ALL MY IMPORTANT
DOCUMENTS.
I WANTED TO FORMAT THE FIRST DISK (C AND RE-INSTALL
WINDOWS AND ALL OTHER PROGRAMS.SO I PREPARE A START UP
DISK, I GO TO MS-DOS MODE AND TYPE : FORMAT C:
I RESTART MY COMPUTER AND THEN I REALIZE THAT DISK D WAS
FORMATED !!!!!!I HAVE LOST EVERYTHING!!MY WORK,MY
DOCUMENTS, EVERYTHING!!!!!HOW COULD THIS BE???????HOW
COULD THIS HAPPEN????IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO???
PLEASEEEE HEEEELP !!!!!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

THERE HAS BEEN DONE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE AND I BELIEVE THAT
IT WAS NOT MY FAULT.I HAVE TWO DISKS (HARD DISKS) ON MY
PC, THE FIRST (C THAT HAS MY OPERATING SYSTEM
(WINDOWSXP) AND THE SECOND ONE (D THAT IS MY STORAGE
DISK. I KEEP THERE ALL MY WORK AND ALL MY IMPORTANT
DOCUMENTS.
I WANTED TO FORMAT THE FIRST DISK (C AND RE-INSTALL
WINDOWS AND ALL OTHER PROGRAMS.SO I PREPARE A START UP
DISK, I GO TO MS-DOS MODE AND TYPE : FORMAT C:
I RESTART MY COMPUTER AND THEN I REALIZE THAT DISK D WAS
FORMATED !!!!!!I HAVE LOST EVERYTHING!!MY WORK,MY
DOCUMENTS, EVERYTHING!!!!!HOW COULD THIS BE???????HOW
COULD THIS HAPPEN????IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO???
PLEASEEEE HEEEELP !!!!!

This is probably a so-called "learning experience", in several aspects:

1. Never write posts all in Caps. It's called shouting, and it tends
to irritate respondends.
2. Go easy with your question and exclamation marks. They distract
from what you're trying to say.
3. Back up your important files every week, without fail.
4. If you have a fat wallet, take your disk to a data recovery service
and tell them what you've done. If you don't, consider this accident
as a painful but useful lesson.
5. Until you decide what to do, do not touch this disk in any way.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Have you tried the following procedure?

Right-click on MY COMPUTER and select MANAGE.
Click on DISK MANAGEMENT and in the lower right-hand
window (gray shaded area), right-click on your second drive
and select INITIALIZE DISK.

If that does not work:

Go to Start > Run and type: CMD , and hit enter.
In the Command Prompt window, type: DISKPART , hit enter.
Then type: RESCAN , hit enter.
Try initializing the disk again.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


| THERE HAS BEEN DONE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE AND I BELIEVE THAT
| IT WAS NOT MY FAULT.I HAVE TWO DISKS (HARD DISKS) ON MY
| PC, THE FIRST (C THAT HAS MY OPERATING SYSTEM
| (WINDOWSXP) AND THE SECOND ONE (D THAT IS MY STORAGE
| DISK. I KEEP THERE ALL MY WORK AND ALL MY IMPORTANT
| DOCUMENTS.
| I WANTED TO FORMAT THE FIRST DISK (C AND RE-INSTALL
| WINDOWS AND ALL OTHER PROGRAMS.SO I PREPARE A START UP
| DISK, I GO TO MS-DOS MODE AND TYPE : FORMAT C:
| I RESTART MY COMPUTER AND THEN I REALIZE THAT DISK D WAS
| FORMATED !!!!!!I HAVE LOST EVERYTHING!!MY WORK,MY
| DOCUMENTS, EVERYTHING!!!!!HOW COULD THIS BE???????HOW
| COULD THIS HAPPEN????IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO???
| PLEASEEEE HEEEELP !!!!!

 

[Rehan]

This has happened most probably because the first disk C: is NTFS formatted
and D: was still in FAT (dos) format. When you rebooted using a dos disk,
the only disk that was accessible to dos was the second one. DOs can only
see FAT formatted disks. The only FAT formatted disk got mapped to C since
first disk was not accessible.

This has happened to me personally although I didn't loose any data...

Warning:
Please do not do any experiment with the disk that got formatted in error.
Best if you can unplug it from the system (if it was a separate disk rather
than a separate volume on the same disk).

Take it to a data recovery service center, they will be able to recover most
data if you have not messed up since then (i.e. have done something that has
overwritten the data.)

Rehan

 

[BillMadison]

Hiya,

As this being not your fault,...I beg to differ...
It seems like your C partition was configured as NTFS and
your D partition was Fat. When you start with a bootdisk
your computer only recognizes FAT drives so that means
that your D: drive will be recognized and not your C:
drive. That means that dos will assign that FAT drive as
C:
You probably didnt do a dir listing of the C: drive or
else you would have noticed that this was actually your
Data partition

You could try reinstalling a new windows on your NTFS
partition and try installing a recovery program to see if
you can recover any files that where on your D drive.
You just have to be sure not to install anything or
create any directories on you D drive as that will make
it more difficult for you to recover anything.

Sadly with these recovery and undelete programs,...they
dont come cheap and most of the freeware stuff you find
on the net are just that....UTTER CRAP.

Sincerely,
Bill