Accidentally partioned a drive, how can I restore the data?

[SVOboy]

The partitioning took like, 15 seconds, so I know the data isn't actually overwritten. As such I am wondering how I can recover it.

Using OSX 10.4, any help?

[doviatt]

How many partitions did you have?

You don't by chance have a copy of the original partition info (fdisk -l)...you could just put everything back (start and end sectors). If they were defaults you might be able to find these settings and reset them.


You are right your data is still there...just a bit inaccessible.

This info comes from a Linux perspective. OSX has similar tools and some times the same. Not quite sure about fdisk.

[SVOboy]

It has fdisk.

However, I don't think I have the original partition info. It was just one big partition on an external drive, however, so maybe I can reconstruct it knowing that?

[roflwaffle]

If you have a sufficient amount of spare storage I suggest using dd to make a copy of the image. Like doviatt said, if you can figure out what the original partition info was, just go back into fdisk and change everything back. Offhand I imagine it's probably FAT or HFS, but you should probably double check that.

[doviatt]

The fdisk -l just lists current known partition info. Non destructive. Try this and post results. I have access to some Mac Mini's I can poke at to help trouble shoot and try destructive things to so you don't have to loose your info.

Edit: fdisk -l /dev/sdx/ (use sda or sdb etc if sata or hda hdb etc if ide)
Edit 2: ok the above doesn't work on mac. I'm still checking how they define their drives.....

[SVOboy]

There is no fdisk -l command, says illegal operation.

I am on 10.5 now by the way, I just installed it in the last hour.

Thanks for the helping, trying to work it out

[doviatt]

The mac I have access to is sw_vers 10.5.3
I take it the subject drive is external?
Does the partition tab in disk utility show available space and Size being equal? If not drag the top of the blue partition window around.

[hamsterpower]

You could try Spinrite on it. this is not the primary purpose but it may work. You would have to pull the drive from the enclosure and temporarily install it in the main case.

GRC | Hard drive data recovery software

Good luck

[SVOboy]

This is how the screen looks atm in disk utility

[doviatt]

Cool. Helpful pic.

Ok you now have 3 partitions. One called Media one called Blank_1 and Blank_2 on your external drive.

I will try something on my system. Like I said I can do destructive testing on this and loose nothing. I will re partition an external single partition drive like you have with the 3. Then I will try to partition again with the 1 partition option. This should restore things to the way they were. Don't try this yet on yours.

I'll let you know the results.