Please Help!!! Deleted Partitions

[robertc]

Please take a minute or two and read about my problem. I am desperate!
I have two hard disks on my computer: SDA(SATA i guess) and HDA.


I am a linux newbie. On my SATA-hdd I had Windows, so I installed Mandriva 2007+ on my HDA harddisk.
The instalation was ok, but when I tryed to acces my 2 hard-disks I was able to see only one. The HDA one.
I tryed to mount the SDA hard disk with harddrake. I don't really know what button I've pressed (I think was "clear all") and I erased all the information on the SDA harddisk and all partitions.
I used some programs and I saw the SDA is now unknown data type. That means harddrake just erased the partitions. I've tried the "recover partition table" from harddrake and it doesn't work. Please recommend me a software to recover the data from my SDA hard-drive.
THANKS A LOT!

[devils casper]

try TestDisk ! it will recover all partitions. download and extract testdisk file and run its script.
check these threads. thread1, thread2



Good Luck !
Casper

[robertc]

Thanks a lot for your fast reply. Ok. I manage to start the software. But it was a small problem I guess. I must enter my SATA HDD specifications. How can I be sure I enter the right one?

I've entered bios,and read from my hdd infos:

cylinder 65535
head 16
precomp 0
landing zone 65534
sector 255


I must insert all of this in [ geometry ] ?

The default parameters in [geometry] are:
heads 255
cylinders 24321
sectors 63
sector zise 512


What should I modify? THANKS A LOT

[devils casper]

it should detect geometry automatically. did you check this post?






Casper

[robertc]

Yes. I read all you have wrote there. It doesn't seem to find it with its auto-config.
I made a print screen


I've tried modifing heads from 255 to 16 and it's showing me my partitions. Should I modify the rest too or just try to write them this way?


The 15GB from the picture is a partition I made on my old windows partition. I don't care about the data from there. I care about the other 180 gb.

[devils casper]

yes. go ahead and change it. if anything goes wrong, you can change geometry again.






good luck !
casper

[robertc]

Thanks a lot casper. I manage to recover 1 of 2 partition. The recovery of the last one is giving me some errors. I will do my best to recover it too, but I am very pleased with this result. Thanks again!

[devils casper]

Well Done !!
i am glad i could help you.






Casper