recover data from partition

i recently went through a whole ordeal getting win 7 pro. (64bit) installed on my htpc. i had win 7 home premium on there before. now during this whole thing. on about the 7th or 8th clean install i became frustrated and careless. i accidentally formated one of my data partitions. (just the quick format. only lasted about 1 second.) i need to find a way to repair the pointers, and anything else, to rebuild the file structure. i have not done anything else to the drive. the data is still there. ( i was able to scan and recover files with another program). however the partition is big (350gb) too big for me to just recover the files somewhere else. so i need a way to re build it.

any software or suggestions are extremely helpful. i am very good with computers. cmd prompt, registry, whatever i need to do i am willing.


thanks guys.

You could try chkdsk - it may or may not repair the MFT.

Quote:" Run a full CHKDSK. This option repairs all file system data, restoring all user data that can be recovered by means of an automated process. The drawback to this option is that a full CHKDSK can require several hours of downtime for a mission critical server at an inopportune time".

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/187941

tried that, no luck. i am trying another software packed now.

7th or 8th install ??? Why so many ? And if you had a lot of data on a 350GB partition there`s no way it took 1 second even doing a quick format.

Zomby88 said:

7th or 8th install ??? Why so many ? And if you had a lot of data on a 350GB partition there`s no way it took 1 second even doing a quick format.

had alot of other issues to sort out. kinda turned into a nightmare.

it only took 1 sec because it did not format the whole partition. it only did the quick format where it writes over the mft, mbt ect. this is why my data is still there and i should be able to recover it.

Arc said:

Hi Zygoat !!
Its just a misfortune. But you may try Recover My Files data recovery
to call them back . I am sure that they can recover data if deleted as shift+del+enter, know that it can recover data fram a formatted hard drive but never had the opportunity to try that option (I am luckier than you in this regard). Pray for your lost data to be recovered.

have not heard of that before, i will check them out.


i am currently using recuva. (from the great people who brought us ccleaner) it seems to be working. only catch is that it "recommends" (more like you have to) back up to another location. so that it does not write over stuff it needs to recover. the other partitions on that computer are full. so i have to recover it to another computer over my network. (wirless to the htpc = aprox. 3 days to complete.) its been going strong for over 24hrs. now. fingers crossed.

well recuva did indeed recover all of the data on the drive. and yes it did take 3 days! but that is only because it was being transfered over my wireless network.

i did attempt to rebuild the master file table a couple of times with no success. altho i did not try very hard since the data was already safe. i just wiped the drive and made it the recorded partition for wmc. workes great. thanks for the help.