Wow...I really screwed up...

I have 2 physical HDDs C & D. I install Win XP Pro, did all the updates, but I was having some issues so I thought I would create a slipstream disc according to MS's website so I caould have SP3 integrated. All went well until I realized for some reason the I must clicked something that caused a quick format of my D drive, and a seperate install of Win XP on D. This has caused me to lose some 500G of data that I really can't do without. I dloaded Data Recovery Wizard to see if it can find the files. Am I completely screwed or what?

 

Ouchies.

There are a number of data recovery that are worth trying (I've had some luck with Active@ File Recovery on a drive who's partition tables were messed up - not formatted), but as you seem to know, this is NOT an easy situation to recover from.

 

I am in the process of running the demo of the program. It isnt even halfway through and it has identified over 50k files. When the extra version of Win XP went on the disc after the quick format, the amount of space used was only 3.2 gig. Hopefully, with that small of an amount I will recover the majority of files...unless of course the issue is fragments that could corrupt a wider number of files.

 

Partition Wizard might be a free alternative. Try using the Full disk and FULL scan options. See if it finds the old partition and when double-clicking the partition if it lists most of your old files. If it does try ticking the box of the old partition table and hitting the Finish button. Then click Apply in the main menu.

Then see if Windows can see your old files.

If it doesn't work you should be able to run it again and select the current 3.2 gb partition table to take you back to where you are now.