XP-Setup killed D partition

  • Thread starter Thread starter Christian Wirth
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Christian Wirth

Hi,

a friend of mine had WinXP installed on her Notebook. System and
programs were on the C: partition, the Data was on the D: partition.
She needed to reinstall XP, and thought that would not change anything
on the D: partition (just as I would think).

I can't tell if she pressed any wrong buttons during installation but
after it the new system is now on C: (C: was formatted during install
just like it was supposed to be). The D: partition is completely gone,
although the space it occupied before (10Gig) is now unused as can be
seen in the Control Panel \ "Computer Manager" (I hope that's the
correct translation of the German "Computerverwaltung").

I assume all the data on the partition is still there (even the
file-system itself should be, I don't know if it was a NTFS or a FAT
though).

My two questions are: is there any tool in windows that lets me
recover this? I will try out Partition Magic once the Notebook is
delivered to me but I would prefer an "official" tool. I just want to
search the "unused" space for existing partitions. Most likeley just
the entry in the Partition table was deleted, it should be possible to
recover this.

Second: how can that happen? Should that happen? What went wrong?

Thanks for you informations.
Christian Wirth
 
Operator error....Windows XP will not delete or reformat a
partition unless you specify this action during the setup phase.

You may wish to try a possible third-party solution:
http://www.file-saver.com/undelete/menu.aspx

You also can try the following, but there is no guarantee of success:

Search and Recover is a powerful arsenal of tools designed to instantly
recover deleted, destroyed, and damaged items from your PC. Such items
include files, folders, songs, pictures, videos, programs, critical system
components, web pages, and even e-mail messages. Search and Recover
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USB flash drives, and other digital devices.

Visit: http://www.iolo.com/sr/

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

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.mspx

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

:

| Hi,
|
| a friend of mine had WinXP installed on her Notebook. System and
| programs were on the C: partition, the Data was on the D: partition.
| She needed to reinstall XP, and thought that would not change anything
| on the D: partition (just as I would think).
|
| I can't tell if she pressed any wrong buttons during installation but
| after it the new system is now on C: (C: was formatted during install
| just like it was supposed to be). The D: partition is completely gone,
| although the space it occupied before (10Gig) is now unused as can be
| seen in the Control Panel \ "Computer Manager" (I hope that's the
| correct translation of the German "Computerverwaltung").
|
| I assume all the data on the partition is still there (even the
| file-system itself should be, I don't know if it was a NTFS or a FAT
| though).
|
| My two questions are: is there any tool in windows that lets me
| recover this? I will try out Partition Magic once the Notebook is
| delivered to me but I would prefer an "official" tool. I just want to
| search the "unused" space for existing partitions. Most likeley just
| the entry in the Partition table was deleted, it should be possible to
| recover this.
|
| Second: how can that happen? Should that happen? What went wrong?
|
| Thanks for you informations.
| Christian Wirth
 
Do not know of any software that will recover a partition. When you delete a
partition the allocation table is destroyed therefore identification and
location of files is lost. During install she was asked if she wanted to
repair or install new and delete old partition. Something was answered wrong
in this process. She should have used the repair option. Sorry!!!
 
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