Lost Partition Recovery 2

[AncientTiger]

A friend of mine gave me her 200Gb SATA drive in exchange for trying to get all her hundreds and hundreds of Itunes off the old file system. Problem is, that the only visible partition on the drive is a HP Recovery partition, and it's like 6 or 7 Gb. I KNOW there's more data on there, but I'm having a HELL of a time finding a tool to recover files from a lost partition that doesn't cost $$$$ (I'm not a tight-ass... I just hate spending $75 for a program I'm only going to need to use ONE TIME! lol).

I know they've gotta be out there, and I found one this morning that would mount the other partition to a virtual drive, but it wouldn't open up... said it was "write protected".

I'm running Win2KPro, FAT32 file system, and I believe this SATA drive came from a XP machine running NTFS.

Anyone have any cool toys they know of that might fix this for me? There's a mug 'o beer in it

Thanks


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Over 20 years of programming, and still learning every day!

 

[BadBigBen]

Recuva - File Recovery

http://www.recuva.com/

is very light on the wallet (namely FREE) and will do what you need it too...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[AncientTiger]

Well, it found nearly 9000 files, but I'm not even sure what I'm looking for. LOL

I don't have an IPOD, and have no idea what the downloaded audio files would be. Are they .mp3 or .m4a files, or something totally alien to this hardcore Winders fella?



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Over 20 years of programming, and still learning every day!

 

[BadBigBen]

They can be both, either MP3 or M4A...

MP3 are compressed audio, music files and the M4A are MPEG-4 compressed audio file...

and no need to apologize, about not knowing what what is... That is what this FORUM is about, User helping Users (to quote another member of T-T, wahnula)...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[AncientTiger]

Well, no luck. It found ONE mp3 out of almost 10,000 files. No other audio files (wav, mp4, ogg, etc, etc).

It's odd, because just browsing through the files it does find, I see image files that appears to be the default windows backgrounds, and there's a TON of cab files, but that's about it.

I'm going to wait a few days to see if there's any other suggestions before just chalking it up to lost and reformatting the critter.

Thanks for the suggestions anyways BadBigBen

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Over 20 years of programming, and still learning every day!

 

[Freestone]

I have had very limited success with the following, but the price is right:

http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1

 

[G0AOZ]

Ok, so you don't like to spend $$$ on a recovery prog. But at least you can try the free version of GetDataback to see if anything you want IS still there. You'll have to pay for the version to lift 'em off though...

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[AncientTiger]

Roger, YOU ROCK!!!

It took about an hour to scan the 180+ Gb lost partition, but it found EVERYTHING she thought she had lost... called her on the phone and started naming off old Itune artists from her playlist and I thought she would break my phone's speaker from screaming w/ joy. LOL

Now then I know they're still there... just have to find a freebie program that'll find 'em and extract 'em.

Thanks guys, you've been a BIG help!

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Over 20 years of programming, and still learning every day!

 

[G0AOZ]

Good luck with finding a freebie... Let us know how you get on, and which one did the business for you.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[wahnula]

I'm sorry if I sound like I have an attitude, but why do people expect to find free solutions to PC problems? I will admit GetDataBack is rather pricey but it does a unique job some might call priceless and the evidence of that is your girlfriend's reaction.

And, you will own it for life, and maybe you can sell it or rent it out or gee, maybe even get to use it yourself again in the future. I had a member in another forum object to paying fourteen dollars for a solution to a problem that had him concerned enough to bother us for a solution. $14 is less than a movie and a Coke, and you will own the product for life.

And what about the people who work so hard to innovate and develop a product that does an extremely useful task...shouldn't they be allowed to earn a reward for their hard work and get a few dollars from you to show them how much you appreciate their work?

Sure, times are tough, and some folks make way less than others. But there is always a thing called budgeting, and there is always room in anyone's budget for a brilliant solution to an important problem. Think about it.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[AncientTiger]

I understand your point wahnula, but ask yourself a question... would YOU care to spend 70 bucks for a program you're going to use ONE TIME ONLY? I'm not in the data recovery business, I'm doing this as a favor for a friend of mine, and in all the years I've been troubleshooting, fixing, and building friends computers, this is actually the FIRST time that I've tried to do this. It'll probably be the LAST time too.

So... spend 100 bucks for a bottle of prescription meds to cure a simple headache, or spend 3 bucks for a bottle of aspirin that'll give the same result? That's a no brainer man.

I have no problems with folks wanting to make money off their software, and if this were a service I offered frequently, I'd have NO problem with forking over the 70 bucks to buy the GetDataBack software... it rocks. I'm just not going to spend that for something I'm only going to use ONCE.


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Over 20 years of programming, and still learning every day!

 

[tlcscousin]

If you have access to a Vista machine connect the drive to it and see if it will see the files and allow copying them.

 

[Freestone]

Of course, you could always ask your friend to fork out the $$$ since it is her data.

On the freeware side of things, did PC Inspector find anything for you? Here is another I found, but have no experience with at all:

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

 

[wahnula]

...but ask yourself a question... would YOU care to spend 70 bucks for a program you're going to use ONE TIME ONLY?

I spend $70+ for the mechanic to fix my car, and that's for ONLY that repair. I pay $185 to the A/C guy JUST for his Fall checkup. I pay the doctor his $45 copay on EACH visit. I think you get my drift.

I am not trying to flame you or anyone else; it's just frustrating when a solution is found and the problem changes from one of technology to one of finance. I hope you find a solution you can live with.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[KaiserA]

You could try the program:
freeundelete.exe

 

[AncientTiger]

Understand your point of view Wahnula. Still don't agree 100% with it, but I guess we'll just respectfully agree to disagree.

And point of interest, everything I've tried has not had the good results that GetDataBack had, so my friend is going to buy a software key to get the full version so I can restore her stuff. I'm still convinced there's freeware out there that would do it, but I don't have the time to search for it any longer, and she's anxious to get her stuff back, so....



I appreciate all the suggestions everyone offered. Y'all ROCK.



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Over 20 years of programming, and still learning every day!

 

[wahnula]

AncientTiger, you have just agreed in a roundabout way ...your time is valuable, and the cost of using your valuable time searching for a free solution has surpassed the cost of the product known to work!

I wish you all the best in recovering every single byte of the data you need. Now you can hang a shingle, "AncientTiger, Data Recovery Expert" outside your door!

Tony

Users helping Users...