Big Trouble, I need to set the filesystem but not erase data

[rave]

i accidentally deleted the partition on an external hard disk while installing windows xp.
I however did not format it so im sure all the data is intact, there just isnt any filesystem to it. how do i implement a file system so i can get to the data. PLEASE HELP!

edit: it was a FAT32 partition which should make things easier right?

[rave]

nevermind. i found the solution.
To recover an NTFS volume, perform the following steps:

1. Open the MMC Disk Management snap-in (go to Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, and select Storage).
2. Recreate the original volume by right-clicking the unpartitioned space and selecting New Partition from the context menu; specify the exact size of the original volume in the process, but don't format the volume (you must know the original volume size to recreate the volume because the MMC Disk Management snap-in rounds partition sizes).
3. Use dskprobe.exe to recover the backup boot sector for the NTFS volume from the end of the deleted dynamic volume (because you're restoring a dynamic volume, you might need to use dmdiag.exe to find the backup boot sector). See the Microsoft article "Recovering NTFS boot sector on NTFS partitions" for an explanation of how to copy the boot sector.
4. After you rewrite the NTFS boot sector, quit Dskprobe.
5. Go to the MMC Computer Management console Action menu and click Rescan Disks to mount the volume for immediate use.

To recover a FAT32 volume, perform the following steps:

1. Open the MMC Disk Management snap-in (go to Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, and select Storage).
2. Recreate the original volume by right-clicking the unpartitioned space and selecting New Partition from the context menu; specify the exact size of the original volume in the process, but don't format the volume (you must know the original volume size to recreate the volume because the MMC Disk Management snap-in rounds partition sizes).
3. Use dskprobe.exe to recover the backup boot sector for the deleted dynamic FAT32 volume from sector-6 of the logical volume and write it to sector-0 of the logical volume. See the Microsoft article "Chkdsk Does Not Use Backup Boot Sector to Fix Corrupted FAT32 Boot Sector" for an explanation of how to copy the boot sector.
4. After you rewrite the FAT32 boot sector, quit Dskprobe.
5. Go to the MMC Computer Management console Action menu and click Rescan Disks to mount the volume for immediate use.