Data Recovery Mandriva 2008

Hi all,

I was trying to install Fedora 8 the other day, and I forgot to disconnect my external 320GB HD with all my data on. I think I've repartitioned the external disk instead of the 500GB internal one. Fedora came up with a video error so I reinstalled Mandriva (with the external disk disconnected)... Now when I connect the external disk it sees only 8.4GB with a Lost+found folder in, and my personal data appears to have gone forever.

I gather that the data is still there, but I need to reconstruct indexes or tables or something on the external disk in order to access it again. Can anyone help a poor clueless Linux hopeful recover all his years of effort?
Many thanks,
Hagbag69

 

Please allow us to second this request. In a fit of excitement over the possibility of recovering our currently handicapped system, we overconfidently installed Mandriva 2008.0 over our backup data on our external harddrive.

We would be MOST appreciative if someone could direct us to the appropriate recovery software or instructions.

Blessings to all in the realm!

 

What handicaps do you want to solve with Mandriva?

I would suggest cross posting this on the Hardware forums also.

Gnoppix may be able to crack into the lost and found. You may also want to search the Mandriva forums.

 

You do not install a linux distro OVER the drive that you wish to recover the information from. The fewer writes to a corrupted drive, the more hopeful the recovery.

What you should have done is either run a K[/]noppix not gnoppix live CD and tried to view your data from it or tried PCInspector.
http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1

I'm not clear if you need to recover data from the computer's hd or the external hd.

 

You are all so kind to reply. Many thanks!
The laptop was dual boot Mandriva 2008/Windows XP. Everything was fine for three months of dual boot, and fine for the previous two years of Windows operation. Suddenly, much to our horror, we attempted to power on the machine and were greeted with the White Screen of Death instead of a boot screen. After multiple attempts, we managed to progress to the boot screen and use the unit normally. The WSOD event happened many more times, so the laptop was shipped back to the manufacturer (under warranty). The manufacturer could not replicate the WSOD, but gleefully reported to me that the laptop appeared to have liquid damage to the mainboard, and that could have caused the malfunction. Since they could not replicate the issue, they sent it back to me.
Prior to sending it to the manufacturer, I had offloaded my data onto an external hard drive so that the two hard drives in the laptop would be clean when sent across the country to be repaired. I had asked that they reinstall Windows for me, however, when I got it back, my product key would not work. Additionally, it took 17 attempts at powering on in order to get past the WSOD and get to the bootscreen. Sometimes she lights up, sometimes she don't. So, I basically own a $4K doorstop.

I do have a current RMA to send it back and pay for a $400 mainboard replacement, but I have been too ill to leave the house for three weeks. In an attempt to at least minimally use the machine, I tried to boot it from the external hard drive. While it was recognized at boot, I was for some reason unable to boot into the external drive. So, I thought I'd try reinstalling Mandriva on one of the internal hard drives and at least we'll be able to use it 'til we get well. I know where I made my goof: During partitioning, I chose "use existing partition" thinking that meant my internal "D" drive that used to house Mandriva...not the external drive. I was WRONG. So, I accidentally overwrote the backed-up data that I had stored on the external drive. So it is the external drive I need to recover. I booted up a Mandriva Spring live CD in order to try and get to my data, and I must confess to being too much of a n00b to know what I'm doing. I did see a lost and found folder in there, but it was not accessible to me. My hope was that one of the experts here would be able to point me toward some sort of data recovery options that even a n00b could navigate. I went to the link you suggested for PCInspector, but I didn't see support for ext3 partitions. Please correct me if I missed something....and thank you again for responding.

 

I never saw a WSOD and I do want to!

So you overwrote your external FAT32 with ext3 Mandriva.
That's so far above my knowledge that I can't tell you what to do.

I will ask around and see if anyone knows a possible solution.

 

Actually, I overwrote an external ext3 with a new Mandriva install...without realizing it.

 

Boy, I must have been half asleep...I meant to say that I had never seen a white screen of death and I never want to.
I asked and the solutions seemed to be maybe a data recovery service might be able to get something but it is costly and there are no guarantees.