2 partitions accidently deleted

[mark03]

hi guys,

it's a little complicated. i have win xp pro sp2 and suse 9.0 on my computer (PT4, 1.8 ghz) installed. now i wanted to uninstall suse 9.0 to test mandrake 10.0. i didn't know what to do ,so i asked a friend. he said you need only to delete this two partions and all is gone. the result: i couldn't boot up my computer anymore because the system was booted by the grub bootloader.
i needed to access win so i decided ( i had still some start up floppy disk ) to install win xp sp1 on my d-drive in order to access dive c. it worked. before i tried to boot and install from the installation disk but this didn't work. after " windows is inspecting your hardware" the screen went black.
now what can i do? on my d-drive are still this two partion from suse 9.0. the computer tells me, it's free space but i have no access. how can i recover this space to drive d?
what will happen when i delete win xp sp1 again? can i still boot up?

thanks a lot for your help.

[pam123]

Ouch!
See if anything here helps : http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...threadid=95490

If not I think you may be stuck with zeroing out the drive and starting over.
Also, as suggested, Partition magic is your friend.

[mark03]

i also would like to go to the recovery console and fixmbr. there's only one problem. i can't boot from my installation cd. after it tells me: "windows is now detecting your hardware" the screen goes black and nothing is going on anymore.

so what can i do?

[pam123]

You can use this utility : http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm
or can use the utility that will zero out the drive that your hdd maker has on it's website.

I hate to recommend this but you're going to have to wipe everything and start again.
As for partitions, your friend was right, but only sort of.
There is a specific path, depending on how you set up the partitions, for unistalling them and, as you know now, you just don't happily delete.
When you partition the drive pay attention to the order in which you do so and the boot drive isn't something you just erase and expect to have anything work.
Once again, I think Partition Magic is your best choice.
If you have a homebuilt comp, check your motherboard manual and the cd(s) that came with it. You could already have a copy.
Chalk this one up to experience, you're not the only one who done this, and remember that You don't have the option of "just" deleting things.

[TheJackal]

Wouldn't it be possible to slave the drive in another computer to get any needed data off of it before he zero-fills the drive?

[pam123]

Originally posted by TheJackal Wouldn't it be possible to slave the drive in another computer to get any needed data off of it before he zero-fills the drive?

Unless I'm misreading him he's already destroyed the data when he deleted the partitions.

[TheJackal]

Oh, Ok, so the data is already gone... I got it, then your right, the only thing he can do is a zero-fill his drive.

[noby]

try this :

http://www.partition-recovery.com/quest1.htm

noby

[mark03]

thanks to all.

noby, i couldn't recover the partitions.

with killdisk, i could erase the data from the partitions and after i also could boot with my install cd and fixed mbr.

my problem is that there are still two unknown partitions(ca.7.5GB). how can i bring this space back to the d-drive. my computer doesn't give me access to this two partitions.

thanks for your help.

[pam123]

Originally posted by mark03 thanks to all. noby, i couldn't recover the partitions. with killdisk, i could erase the data from the partitions and after i also could boot with my install cd and fixed mbr. my problem is that there are still two unknown partitions(ca.7.5GB). how can i bring this space back to the d-drive. my computer doesn't give me access to this two partitions. thanks for your help.

I'm not sure what you've done but killdisk should wipe everything and give you back the whole disk unless you told it otherwise.

[Confused]

Originally posted by mark03 my problem is that there are still two unknown partitions(ca.7.5GB). how can i bring this space back to the d-drive. my computer doesn't give me access to this two partitions. thanks for your help.

When I was testing Linux the only way I could get the drive back was with zerofill. I went to drive manufacturer and downloaded their utility and ran it. I then reloaded my OS.

If there is other partitions on the drive with data and you don't want to wipe the drive and start over you might try delpart from http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm
Chas

[mark03]

i'm sorry, i might haven't explained it well. i erased all data from this two partitions with kill disk. when i check at the xp disc managment, it still shows me two unknown partitions. the space is unused. when i right click the partitions, it allows me only to delete this logical drive. Should i do that?
my friend installed partition manager. here it still shows that this two partitions are used by linux ( swapfiles ). i thought that i erased all that data, so how can this be? i'm not a tech. maybe someone can help me to solve this problem.

@ confused

i tried your link. but worse, it didn't detect my harddisc.

thanks for your kindness.

[andyms18a]

if you have 2 partitions windows cant use and disk manager wont let you format them then you have to deleat them as long as thay are not the first partitions on the disk ie the c drive you will be ok then use disk manager to make a new partition and format it

[mark03]

thanks andy,

it worked.

[andyms18a]

no problem mate thanks for letting us know its fixed