[nfbcs] access hard drive

John G. Heim jheim at math.wisc.edu
Wed Apr 7 16:06:55 UTC 2010 

Maybe. It depends on what you mean by destroyed.  You can repartition a 
drive and reformat it and still get files back. There are a lot of programs 
for both Windows and linux to do this. The reason you can recover files even 
after repartitioning and reformatting is that neither of those things 
actually over writes the drive itself. Recovery programs all work by 
scanning the drive, reading it a block at a time, and reconstructing the old 
directories and files.  But that only works if you haven't already written 
new data over the old data.

It takes a long time and you'll need a lot of disk space not on the disk 
you're trying to recover from.
I'm not really an expert on recovering data from a repartitioned hard drive. 
I've done it once or twice and not very recently. If you're interested in 
this, you can check out the link I provided below to the tutorial I used 
last time I had to try this. Or google it.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bryan Schulz" <b.schulz at sbcglobal.net>
To: "NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 9:54 AM
Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive


> hi,
>
> i'm not aware of the benefits of using linux.
> will this cd gain access to a drive with a destroyed partition?
>
> Bryan Schulz
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John G. Heim" <jheim at math.wisc.edu>
> To: "NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 9:36 AM
> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
>
>
>> It depends on how much you value the data you lost and how much time 
>> you're willing to spend learning some new tricks. And even if it doesn't 
>> answer the original poster's question, there are a lot of people on this 
>> list who may at some point need this kind of information.  It might take 
>> some work to acquire these skills but they would be valuable skills to 
>> have.
>>
>> Learning how to make a live linux CD would be a good thing for almost 
>> everybody to know no matter their skill level. If you do on-line banking, 
>> the best, most secure way to do it is to boot a live linux CD and use 
>> firefox.  I would think that just about anybody capable of doing their 
>> banking on-line could also figure out how to download ubuntu and burn it 
>> to a CD if given a pointer or 2.
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Kelly Prescott" <prescott at deltav.org>
>> To: "'NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 2:37 PM
>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
>>
>>
>>>I have also used methods similar, but I think this goes way beyond what 
>>>most
>>> users are willing/able to do.
>>> just use something like carbonite.com and restore from there when you 
>>> nuke
>>> your windows drive.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On 
>>> Behalf
>>> Of John G. Heim
>>> Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 10:29 AM
>>> To: NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List
>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
>>>
>>> Here is a link to an accessible, free tool to burn iso images in 
>>> Windows:
>>> http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
>>>
>>> I've been using IsoRecorder for years but I am a Windows XP user. I 
>>> don't
>>> know about the Windows Vista or Windows 7 versions.
>>>
>>> Also, there are many more tools than fsck-fat and parted for restoring 
>>> file
>>> systems in linux. Here is a link to an article about how to use PhotoRec 
>>> to
>>> restore files using linux:
>>> http://www.linux.com/news/enterprise/storage/8257-how-to-recover-lost-files-
>>> after-you-accidentally-wipe-your-hard-drive
>>>
>>> I once re-installed linux on a computer so the HD was repartitioned and
>>> reformatted. Still I was able to get some files back. I used dd to make 
>>> an
>>> image of the disk and then I worked from that. These tools allow you to 
>>> get
>>> files back from a disk even if you've repartitioned and reformatted as 
>>> long
>>> as the files you want haven't been over written with new files. It takes
>>> some luck and it takes a very long time.
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>> From: "Jim Barbour" <jbar at barcore.com>; <0 at barcore.com>; 
>>> <215 at barcore.com>;
>>> <0c at barcore.com>
>>> To: "NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 6:48 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
>>>
>>>
>>>> Kelly, I totally agree that a linux solution can fix the partition
>>>> table. We'll just have to agree to disagree about fsck.vfat doing as
>>>> good a job as available microsoft tools.
>>>>
>>>> Bryan,
>>>>
>>>> If your friend decides to go with a linux solution (which is
>>>> free and accessible, but has a steeper learning curve), then they
>>>> should look for a live CD with the orca screen reader on it.  Googling
>>>> for "orca linux live CD" will help you find one.
>>>>
>>>> Another way to resize the partition is to use something like "parition
>>>> magic", which will be more friendly, since it's a task oriented
>>>> approach rather than starting with a linux shell.  However, I suspect
>>>> that partition magic is not free, and it is certainly not accessible.
>>>> Googling for "partition magic" will take you to the right place to
>>>> download the software.
>>>>
>>>> Regardless of whether they go with linux or partition magic, they'll
>>>> need to download an ISO image and burn it to a CD, which is something
>>>> I don't know how to do on a windows machine. I'm sure it's doable, I
>>>> just don't know how.
>>>>
>>>> If they decide to go with partition magic, they'll need a sighted
>>>> assistant to drive the computer.  They start by putting the partition
>>>> magic cd they just created into the drive, and booting the machine.
>>>> After that, they should just poke around until they find the correct
>>>> item for resizing the partition.  I have high confidence that this
>>>> will be fairly easy to do.
>>>>
>>>> For linux, your friend should spend a bit of time reading docs about
>>>> how orca works.  Further, they'll want to read docs about parted which
>>>> is aprogram that will do partition management on hard drives.  Again,
>>>> it's important to remember what Kelly says.  There are no safety rails
>>>> here.  If they aren't sure what they're doing, they can completely
>>>> ruin any data on the disk.  (sorry, I know it's dramatic)
>>>>
>>>> They'll boot their computer off the live CD, start
>>>> orca, start a terminal, and then run parted.
>>>>
>>>> I can get into more specifics if you'd like, but start with this and
>>>> see how it goes.
>>>>
>>>> Jim
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Apr 02, 2010 at 06:37:35PM -0400, Kelly Prescott wrote:
>>>>> I think the linux tools could just resize the partition to fix it.
>>>>> and yes linux can repair the filesystem with just as much reliability 
>>>>> as
>>>>> a
>>>>> ms tool.
>>>>> the failing is not with the linux tools, but rather the knowledge of 
>>>>> who
>>>>> is
>>>>> using them.
>>>>> Linux has no fail-safes so if you nuke it, you own all the parts.
>>>>> I have repaired many disks/filesystems that commercial and ms tools 
>>>>> said
>>>>> were toast!
>>>>> If you want to discuss it voice, you can call me at 419.909.0550 and I
>>>>> will
>>>>> be happy to chat about it.
>>>>> The key is more information.
>>>>> at this point we are making a lot of asumptions and that can be where 
>>>>> our
>>>>> logic falls apart.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>>>>> Behalf
>>>>> Of Bryan Schulz
>>>>> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 11:19 AM
>>>>> To: NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List
>>>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
>>>>>
>>>>> hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> the problem was the main drive was 500gb and the spare drive is only
>>>>> 250gb.
>>>>> the purpose was to reduce the size so the main drive could be copied 
>>>>> to
>>>>> the
>>>>> spare drive so the spare drive could be used in another tower.
>>>>> i think the entire partition was resized instead of making another
>>>>> partition
>>>>>
>>>>> and now it can't be accessed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Bryan Schulz
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>>>> From: "Jim Barbour" <jbar at barcore.com>
>>>>> To: "NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>>>> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 10:00 AM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> > The point is that they boot off the live linux CD.  This gives them 
>>>>> > an
>>>>> > environment to work in that isn't making use of their windows boot 
>>>>> > disk
>>>>> >
>>>>> > If they aren't a linux user, this does have a rather high learning
>>>>> > curve.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > However, I'm not really sure that this solution meets the needs of
>>>>> > Bryan's friend.  If I understand correctly, this friend has a
>>>>> > corrupted mbr and possibly a corrupted filesystem they want to 
>>>>> > repair,
>>>>> > so they can copy files from the disk.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Linux can rewrite the MBR, but probably not repair the vfat table.
>>>>> > My experience is that LInux's tools for repairing vfat filesystems 
>>>>> > are
>>>>> > not as reliable as the ones MS provides.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Bryan, can you explain further what the exact problem is?
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Jim
>>>>> >
>>>>> > On Fri, Apr 02, 2010 at 09:32:41AM -0500, Bryan Schulz wrote:
>>>>> >> as most, he doesn't use linux.
>>>>> >> how is that supposed to work with windows machines?
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Bryan Schulz
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kelly Prescott"
>>>>> >> <prescott at deltav.org>
>>>>> >> To: "'NFBnet NFBCS Mailing List'" <nfbcs at nfbnet.org>
>>>>> >> Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 9:00 AM
>>>>> >> Subject: Re: [nfbcs] access hard drive
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> >use a linux rescue disk and you can do it with that.
>>>>> >> >you can also copy and resize partitions with it.
>>>>> >> >so you could take all data from one partition and put it on the 
>>>>> >> >new
>>>>> >> >drive
>>>>> >> >and resize the new partition.
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >2 choices are:
>>>>> >> >grml http://www.grml.org and system rescue cd
>>>>> >> >http://www.sysrescd.org
>>>>> >> >the grml is probably better as if you have a hardware synthesizer 
>>>>> >> >it
>>>>> >> >will
>>>>> >> >most likely be able to speak from boot.
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >the best thing about these solutions is they are free!
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >-----Original Message-----
>>>>> >> >From: nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] 
>>>>> >> >On
>>>>> >> >Behalf
>>>>> >> >Of Bryan Schulz
>>>>> >> >Sent: Friday, April 02, 2010 2:11 AM
>>>>> >> >To: nfbcs at nfbnet.org
>>>>> >> >Subject: [nfbcs] access hard drive
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >hi,
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >a friend wants to know if there are programs that will recreate 
>>>>> >> >the
>>>>> >> >mbr
>>>>> >> >master boot record and fat file allocation table so files can be
>>>>> >> >copied from
>>>>> >> >a hard drive that has not been reformatted yet.
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >Bryan Schulz
>>>>> >> >_______________________________________________
>>>>> >> >nfbcs mailing list
>>>>> >> >nfbcs at nfbnet.org
>>>>> >> >http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbcs_nfbnet.org
>>>>> >> >To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info
>>>>> >> >for nfbcs:
>>>>> >>
>>>>>
>>>>http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/prescott%40deltav.or
>>>>> g
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >
>>>>> >> >_______________________________________________
>>>>> >> >nfbcs mailing list
>>>>> >> >nfbcs at nfbnet.org
>>>>> >> >http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfbcs_nfbnet.org
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>>>>> >> >for nfbcs:
>>>>> >>
>>>>>
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>>>>> .net
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> >
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>>>>
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>>
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