Help please! Re-partitioning mac external hard disk- all files lost

Hi,
Can anyone out there please help me?! I've just done something terrible and very stupid. I was using Disk Utility on Leopard to partition my external hard drive to create a partition for rebooting from. There was about 250 Gb of backed up files already on the disk. Anyways, I clicked apply and 2 seconds later the disk appears with 2 partitions and zero data- all my files have disappeared!!! Oh no!!!

Is there any way to get those files back?? What can I do?? Please help!

Thanks for any help.

Arch*

 

I have no experience with Macs, but it can sometimes be done in Window, and the only one I can se that might help is Testdisk (I have not used this myself, so ...)
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
And here
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step
Download from majorgeeks
http://www.majorgeeks.com/TestDisk_&_PhotoRec_d5561.html

 

Just to add to baklogic's post. If you plan on trying the recovery on a Mac you will have to download the Mac version on Testdisk's site. Hopefully when you partitioned the drive you used something other than HFS+ because I do not think Testdisk can see that file system. But, Photorec does support HFS+ and you may be able to recover files using that software. Same as Testdisk, if you plan of using it with a Mac, download the Mac version.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

 

I forgot to add that it is VERY IMPORTANT that you NEVER recover the files back to your external hard drive or they will become corrupted. Only save the files back to a drive other than the one you are trying to recover files from.

 

Thanks you both for those replies. It really is much appreciated! I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks again...