PDA

View Full Version : Partitions


matt.matthews1
11-25-2004, 07:48 AM
I have two questions:
1. How do I unpartition hard drives and if I do will It loose my information
2. How do I retrieve a lost partion.

well actually three.
Thanks

ski
11-25-2004, 08:55 AM
Partition Magic is designed to repartition HD's without losing data.

Please provide some details on the lost partition problem.

Paul Komski
11-26-2004, 05:50 PM
The only "unpartitioning" that I know about is the deletion of partitions.

Deleting partitions in fact involves deleting the references to (a) primary partitions in the partition tables of the mbr or (b) in the "daisy-chain" of partition boot sectors in the logical partitions of an extended partition.

As long as no partitions are subsequently recreated in place of such "deleted" ones then most or all of the original data should be quite easily recovered using diy recovery software or by simply editing these references correctly; such editing may be easy or difficult depending on the total structure of the HDD and what has already been done to it. Some utilities write more to the drive than others when "deleting" the partitions (I think Fdisk zeros the FAT tables in addition to deleting the partition references for example - though I'm not 100% sure about that).

The more the drive gets repartitioned, formatted and files installed on it the lower and lower the chances of recovering data becomes.

So the simple answer to your first question is that you will certainly lose access to your data but that as long as you dont overwrite "stuff" the data will, in the main, still be on the drive.