dschultz@belvoir-mail1.arpa (04/14/88)
HELP!!!!!!
SOMETIME TODAY SOME #$%$#$#$$#*&%##!!!!! PERSON FORMATTED A HARD DISK
ON A ZENITH 248 COMPUTER RUNNING MS-DOS 3.1 !!!!
There was important data on this disk and needless to say it was not backed
up recently.
I need to know if there are ANY programs that can recover a hard disk that
has been formatted (esp. with original file names) The format program
that comes with Zenith MSDOS 3.1 only seems to overwrite the FAT and system
areas of the disk.
PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN
Dave Schultz
dschultz @ belvoir-mail1.arpa
Ft. Belvoir VA
(703) 664-5988
5771
After 5:00PM EDT:
(703) 780-5098
P.S. I posted this to UNIX-WIZARDS because I figured there must be
some people out there in UNIX-land that could help
Thanks...RCariaso.Sunnyvale@xerox.com (04/15/88)
Not really sure, but there is a program that claims data recovery after an accidental format in MS-DOS machines. It's called MACE Utilities or HFormat Utilities from Paul Mace. Again I'm not sure. Hope it helps...
dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) (04/16/88)
From article <12951@brl-adm.ARPA>, by dschultz@belvoir-mail1.arpa: > HELP!!!!!! > SOMETIME TODAY SOME #$%$#$#$$#*&%##!!!!! PERSON FORMATTED A HARD DISK > ON A ZENITH 248 COMPUTER RUNNING MS-DOS 3.1 !!!! > > There was important data on this disk and needless to say it was not backed > up recently. When you format a hard disk EVERYTHING on it goes (I know as I have been messing with hard disk drivers for about six months now). Without backup it is lost forever. The moral of the story DDDD OOO Y Y OOO U U RRRR D D O O Y Y O O U U R R D D O O Y O O U U R R D D O O Y O O U U RRRR D D O O Y O O U U R R D D O O Y O O U U R R DDDD OOO Y OOO UUU R R BBBB A CCC K K U U PPPP SSS B B A A C C K K U U P P S S B B A A C K K U U P P S BBBB AAAAA C KK U U PPPP SSS B B A A C K K U U P S B B A A C C K K U U P S S BBBB A A CCC K K UUU P SSS -- dg@lakart.UUCP - David Goodenough +---+ | +-+-+ ....... !harvard!adelie!cfisun!lakart!dg +-+-+ | +---+
vandys@hpindda.HP.COM (Andy Valencia) (04/20/88)
Why is this on unix.wizards? Anyway, you're obviously upset, so take heart (and so will I :->). You haven't told us if it was a physical, low level format, or just the DOS format command. If the latter, then your data is there; it's just your root directory that's been munged a bit. The Mace utilities will indeed do it for the latter. For the former, you could hire a group of physicists to do small-signal analysis of each track. Otherwise you're hosed. Good luck, Andy Valencia vandys%hpindda.UUCP@hplabs.hp.com
dave@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Dave Goldblatt) (04/20/88)
From article <52@lakart.UUCP>, by dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough): > > When you format a hard disk EVERYTHING on it goes (I know as I have been > messing with hard disk drivers for about six months now). Without backup > it is lost forever. > Wrong. The only thing erases in normal versions of DOS are the FATs and directory info. Data is not erased unless you actually overwrite the sectors containing it. Move all followups to comp.sys.ibm.pc, ok? -dg- -- Internet: dave@sun.soe.clarkson.edu or: dave@clutx.clarkson.edu BITNET: dave@CLUTX.Bitnet uucp: {rpics, gould}!clutx!dave Matrix: Dave Goldblatt @ 1:260/360 ICBM: Why do you want to know? :-)
seibel@cgl.ucsf.edu (George Seibel%Kollman) (04/21/88)
[... some poor guy formats a disk with important data ...] In article <4470002@hpindda.HP.COM> vandys@hpindda.HP.COM (Andy Valencia) writes: > ... >will indeed do it for the latter. For the former, you could hire >a group of physicists to do small-signal analysis of each track. >Otherwise you're hosed. > I once read about a company that did this - they could read data off of tapes that had been overwritten, even multiple times, if I recall. Charged a lot of money for it, too. Interesting security hole - better burn those old tapes. George Seibel, UCSF
pardo@june.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel) (04/22/88)
seibel@socrates.ucsf.edu.UUCP (George Seibel%Kollman) writes: ->>[... some poor guy formats a disk with important data ...] ->> ->>vandys@hpindda.HP.COM (Andy Valencia) writes: ->>> ... ->>>will indeed do it for the latter. For the former, you could hire ->>>a group of physicists to do small-signal analysis of each track. ->>>Otherwise you're hosed. ->>> ->>I once read about a company that did this - they could read data off of ->>tapes that had been overwritten, even multiple times, if I recall. Charged ->>a lot of money for it, too. Interesting security hole - better burn those ->>old tapes. Turns out dynamic RAMs can be read once (destructively) after they are turned off. For this reason, (among others) all the computer equipment that goes into "the vaults" IS destroyed. This causes some problems, though, when you need to debug something in the vault, since you can't take it out, you have to take in all the test equipment, and then you can't take the test equipment out again... ;-D on ( National insecurity: TV ) Pardo
madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (04/25/88)
In article <12951@brl-adm.ARPA> dschultz@belvoir-mail1.arpa writes: |HELP!!!!!! |SOMETIME TODAY SOME #$%$#$#$$#*&%##!!!!! PERSON FORMATTED A HARD DISK |ON A ZENITH 248 COMPUTER RUNNING MS-DOS 3.1 !!!! | |I need to know if there are ANY programs that can recover a hard disk that |has been formatted (esp. with original file names) The format program |that comes with Zenith MSDOS 3.1 only seems to overwrite the FAT and system |areas of the disk. It would have been better to ask the comp.sys.ibm.pc people, but here's what they'll say: Buy Mace Utilities or borrow it from a friend. It has a utility that is specifically designed to recover from such things. I also believe that the newest Norton Utilities has such a beast, but I cannot confirm this at the moment. Followups have been redirected to comp.sys.ibm.pc. jim frost madd@bu-it.bu.edu
madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost) (04/25/88)
In article <52@lakart.UUCP> dg@lakart.UUCP (David Goodenough) writes: |From article <12951@brl-adm.ARPA>, by dschultz@belvoir-mail1.arpa: |> HELP!!!!!! |> SOMETIME TODAY SOME #$%$#$#$$#*&%##!!!!! PERSON FORMATTED A HARD DISK |> ON A ZENITH 248 COMPUTER RUNNING MS-DOS 3.1 !!!! | |When you format a hard disk EVERYTHING on it goes (I know as I have been |messing with hard disk drivers for about six months now). Without backup |it is lost forever. You are mistaken. Some bright MS-DOS designer named the MS-DOS counterpart of the UNIX mkfs program "format," thus confusing the issue of low-level versus high-level formatting forever in the MS-DOS world. If you don't understand the difference in the formatting styles, a low-level format builds the blocks that are read by the controller on the physical disk surface. This is generally nonrecoverable process -- all data is destroyed. It isn't REALLY nonrecoverable, but you really don't want to buy or build the hardware necessary to recover the data. A high-level format (such as mkfs) puts the structures necessary for the file system to operate onto the disk. In MS-DOS this means it basically needs to put a blank FAT on the disk and make sure the root directory doesn't have any files in it. In UNIX it means you need to put the superblock and inode tables on the disk and build the free list of blocks. Details may vary from system to system, but the idea remains the same. jim frost madd@bu-it.bu.edu