Help me recover files

[Plala]

Yesterday my computer crashed and it got to the point where I couldn't even boot it with windows.

So now I am using Knoppix trying to save my old files. I have 2 partitions on the hard drive but only one seems to work now. I have been able to save all files from that partition. This partition was not where I kept all system files so there was probably never any problem with it.

Now I have opened te program QTparted an I can see the following:

Number Partition Type Status Size Used space Start End Label
01 /dev/hda-1 free 18.17GB N/A 0.03MB 18.17GB
02 /dev/hda2 fat32 9.77GB 7.45GB 18.17GB 27.94GB Acerdata
03 /dev/hda2 fat16 Hidden 7.84MB 7.88MB 27.94GB 27.85GB

I have rescued the files I needed from number 2 already. So now, should I create a new partition on the first one?
Will I find my files if I do that? Or could it destroy them forever?
Which filesytem should I use if I create a new partition? ext2, fat32, fat16 or linux-swap?

Thanks

[Harry Kuhman]

.... I have been able to save all files from that partition. ...

I have rescued the files I needed from number 2 already. So now, should I create a new partition on the first one?
Will I find my files if I do that? Or could it destroy them forever?
Which filesytem should I use if I create a new partition? ext2, fat32, fat16 or linux-swap?

I'm guessing that you want to try to recover files from the first partition. Do not create a new partition if that is the case. You might be able to recover the partition with testdisk or gpart, but no gaurantees, the data might already be lost. Or, if the first prtition really is a fat partition then there are a lot of DOS tools that might be able to recover the data. It's hard to give good advice without knowing more: What os were you running? What happened when the system died? what happened when you tried to restart?

After you recover everything that you can I would suggest a complete deletion of all partitions and a fresh reinstall of your os of choice.

[Plala]

I was using Windows XP with SP2. I was tranferring files to an MP3player when it restarted. Then the bluescreen appeared and the computer was scanning and repairing files at startup. Before when I have had crashes the scan- and repairprogress takes like 10 minutes but now it lasted for about 4 hours.
After this the computer restarted and I got bluescreen Fatal Disk Error message. I tried all the startup options but didn't get any further than the same bluescreen message.
I started my recovery-CD but aborted. After that I got "No operative system found" at startup. Thats when I started with Knoppix.

So what should I try now?

[Harry Kuhman]

It's pretty unusual for an xp system to have fat partitions (unless it was installed over an older os, which is never advised). But I would try gpart (see man gpart for details).

[gizzmo]

Active@ Undelete might also help you. the tool is powerful, can boot itself from a disk and restore needed data
http://www.active-undelete.com/

[rcook]

The partition layout looks very similar to that which came with my Acer notebook. There is an recovery partition, which is some kind of FAT partition and then two FAT32 partitions: the system partition and the Acerdata partition. There probably is nothing worth saving on either the system or the recovery partition. I would blow it all away and do a recovery from CD or DVD and let the recovery process reformat everything. You did well to move your My Documents to the Acer Data partition. You could spare the Acerdata partition, but that will complicate the recovery using the DVD or CDs. After you rebuild, there are conversion routines to convert the FAT32's into NTFS, which is a more robust partition, but with fewer recovery tools.

Dick

[matthewpth]

acer normally ship with 2 partitions you can see and a v.small one for mbr (master boot records) which explains why you see 3 partitions in knoppix.
I would have followed you path of data recovery but once that was done i would have thrown a bootable xp o/s at the machine and just put a fresh install of xp on the 1st major partition.