Just as a side:- Undoing from FDISK is relative easy as long as you have a written record of the information before you committed to the change as running fdisk a second time and putting the setting back will work but once formatted most of the time one has to go down the path of data recovery.
As for file sizes and recovery most file systems are readable by most OS's with the right drivers. So if you format your recovery disk to a format that can tack large files say ext2 you can then try retrieving the data to that drive. Once that is done and windows is reinstalled install a ext2 driver into windows (a google search will find one) then attach your ext2 drive and transfer the data. Steve Sorry for the spelling I am dislex..... On 19 Dec 2009, at 23:28, Stewart Robertson wrote: > I got a new toy (plugcomputer) that can boot from SD cards. My wife's > laptop has got an SD card reader built in so I borrowed it and booted > from an Ubuntu LiveCD reassuring her nothing could possibly go wrong. > > Anyway, to cut a long story short I used fdisk and ran 'mkfs.ext3 > /dev/sda2' instead of 'mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb2' and accidentally wiped her > NTFS Windows partition (boot/documents etc.). She has no backup and I'm > so not getting any Christmas presents if I don't get it sorted. > > I've had a good read on forums but am looking for specific information > about my personal situation. I was using a LiveCD, I didn't install > anything on the formatted partition because I realised straight after > and on reboot the machine says Operating System Not Found so in theory > other than damage caused by the formatting process everything should > still be there. > > What would be the best thing for me to do in this situation? Is it > possible to restore the partition to NTFS and continue as if nothing has > happened? What exactly does fdisk do when you format to ext3? > > Any advice gratefully received. > > Stewart > > _______________________________________________ > Peterboro mailing list > Peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk > https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro > _______________________________________________ Peterboro mailing list Peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro
