Hi! I had just installed XP on my system and after installing some software from my external hard drive i realized that something went wrong with the install so i decided to reinstall the os. I forgot to switch off my external hard drive and when windows loaded all the files and asked me where did i wanted to install xp and all that, both drives appeared, my internal hd and the external with all my data. I was doing something else at the same time and i wasn't paying all the attention i should have so i deleted the partition of my usb Hd and just after i did it i realized my mistake and in a moment of desperation I removed de usb cable and turned off the ext hd. The file system for that drive is ntfs and there was only one partition. I did not formatted the ext drive, i only deleted the partition.

I need to recover those files, they are irreplaceable and really important.. If anyone has a solution it will be gladly appreciated.

Active@ Partition Recovery can scan the drive for a previous partition and restore the MBR/partition table.

You can also recover the files off the drive to a second drive with GetDataBack for NTFS.

I've used both of these programs, they both work well. Both programs have demo versions that show you what they can recover before you have to buy them.

I will try that thanks.. someone told me partition magic would also do well.. you know anything about it?

somejoe is a god...He saved my Raid 0 array data..lol..

Follow his lead and you can't go wrong.

No, Partition Magic is for manipulating existing partitions, not recovering them. You need these dedicated data recovery tools to do what you need to do.

Hi thank you for replying.. i have a question, by using this programs do i risk losing data? (if it isnt lost already)

Not really, Active@ Partition Recovery will only write the MBR/partition table back to the drive when it has completed the scan and found all the partition information.

GetDataBack treats the drive as read-only, and writes your recovered data onto a 2nd drive.

Oh my god you ARE a god! thank you so much! Active partition recovery did the job better and faster than i expected! everything is great! Thank you so much!

i had my whole drive formatted by mistake. i recommend you use ontrack file recovery professional. you will recover most of the data but you will lose their filename

I was in the same situation. I accidently deleted my ext HDD partition when upgrading from XP Home to XP Pro. I read that you said that Active Partition Recovery 5 worked well and it had a demo. I tried the demo and it displayed all of my ext HDD files. So I bought the software to recover my files. It cost me $41.14 (canadian conversion).
It's a terrific product. My drive was about 250GB and it took about 4 hours to do a superscan but a very short time to recover my files.

Again, great product. Thanks for the great advice you gave about this product.

Hello,
Right now I'm scanning my faulty HD with GetDataBack 2.31 (which was a part of Hiren's Boot CD 8.9). Earlier on today I used Active Partition Recovery, but the only way I could repair the partition was fixing the MBR. I didn't do it because I was afraid that maybe I could loose everything if some weird MBR would be written. Specially since I could see the folders and files names... Anyone know it that'd be safe?

Well, 30 minutes to go until GetDataBack finishes scanning my drive... hope it's all ok.

Thanks for any info!

what happened to your hd? why are you using this programs, did you erase the partition?

Well... I went to format my mom's HD. I setup there a C drive and a D drive, so it'd be easier to install just windows, since she'd keep her files and e-mail at D. Ok. Booted windows, deleted C partition and BAM! D partition also got sucked in... So, right there I stopped, since i knew data shouldn't have been lost yet. Put the HD in my computer and am trying to recover the data... But just now I found this thread, so I've been all day scared to death that she'd loose her business stuff... GetDataBack is still scanning, just a while till it finishes... hopes all goes well.

if you only erased the partition just use "active partition recovery" it will take seconds and wont erase anything (if its still there) but if you formated the hd use that one you are using.. I repeat, if you only erased the partition just use active partition recovery, because get data back is probably going to take too much time doing innecessary h¿things and messing ups folders and names..

Active Partition Recovery did show me the files, so yeah, all the windows xp installer did was erase the partition info.

I ended up using the GetDataBack on a friends advice. It took one hell of a long time (about 1 hour!) but in the end it did work.

So, you're saying that, in Active Partition Recovery, if I had chosen the "Fix MBR" option, there would be no chance at all that i'd loose the data that was there? (Im only saying the data was there because the program told me so when i did a scan...)