Error loading operative system

[sebtting]

Dear Luvhuffer:

I wonder if you could help me with this: I have two hard drives on my PC (seagate 232 gb), I had all my files and information in called "s drive" and in the other drive "m drive" I had some old files stored, I wanted to install last sunday a new os in the "m drive" so I did a format, after a few minutes I realized something was not right so I stop the operation, when I realized that instead of formatting the "m drive" it did start to format the other one "s drive" so now I have a big problem trying to recover all my documents and settings, files etc. from the hard disk "s drive", I tried "file recovery for windows", it does reconize some sectors, but can´t find the files, I try repairing (from windows xp installation cd, recovery console r) boot.ini with bootcfg /rebuild, I tried fixmbr and fixboot, I tried what it is explained on the website article below:

webcast.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=8658

Nothing at all did work, still getting this "error loading operating system" on the DOS screen.

I wonder if you would have a solution that I could try, without formatting the disk that means losing the data I have stored on it. (if it is not lost yet).

Hoping to hear from you and thank you for your time.

Best regards.

 

[kimsland]

Are you just after support from member Luvhuffer ?

I'm sure he will say take a look at these recovery tools: http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads38.html

But you may also want to look at this one specifically: http://www.z-a-recovery.com/unformat-tutorial.htm

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Generally if you choose to "Format" your HDD via the Windows OS CD, the actual wiping of the data only takes a few seconds to a few minutes tops (run a "Quick Format" and you'll see that ). What takes so long during the regular "Format" is the chkdsk that runs afterward.

That said, you very well may have erased all of the data off of your drive (which is semi-confirmed by the fact that you didn't get anywhere with fixmbr etc.). It might still be fairly recoverable, to what extent I am not sure.

I am not sure off hand what utilities are readily available for you to download and I'm not sure what to suggest in that respect, sorry. You will likely have to boot off another PC, with drive "S" attached to it and use recovery software from there. Perhaps there is a downloadable bootdisk you can use as well.

Whatever the case is though, I would strongly suggest that you suspend all activity on that HDD until you have a solid game plan. The more you attempt to read/write off your HDD, the less likely you probably are to get data back.

*Edit*

Blargh, sorry Kimsland I was typing when you submitted that post.